Assembly Standing Committee on Education

Is that working? Okay. Good. All right, thank you, everyone. Happy New Year. I'd like to call the very first meeting of 2026 of the Assembly Education Committee to order. Madam Secretary, would you please call the roll to establish a quorum?

[Roll call]

We have a quorum. Good way to start the year. I'd like to welcome all the Committee Members and encourage those that are not here yet to please make your way and welcome the Members of the public to today's hearings on two year bills, which is the reason for the timing of today's hearing.

I'd like to first note that we have two Members serving on the Committee today in place of Members of our regular Committee Members who were unable to be here. Assemblymember Ortega will be serving for Assemblymember Alvarez, and Assemblymember Wilson will be serving for Assemblymember Addis. Thank you very much for. For filling in.

I also want to acknowledge that we are holding this hearing a bit earlier than usual. That is because three of the four bills on our agenda are double referred. And so that's why we are starting in this very first week, back in session. We have four bills on file today.

One bill, AB 1493, failed passage last year and was granted reconsideration. That is, I believe that's item number one, Assembly bill 68. I'm sorry, 1493. All right. That is file item number four, AB 1493. It was subsequently amended to address a different topic within the jurisdiction of this Committee.

And so this is the first time that we are addressing the actual proposed language and content of item number four. Ms. Avila Farias will be presenting on those amendments. And I would like to also note that this bill has been double referred to the Committee on on Elections.

As a reminder, for each bill, we will have up to two witnesses in support, two witnesses in opposition, each of whom may speak for up to two minutes each. Members of the public in the hearing room will have an opportunity to state their position.

Please limit your comments to state your name, affiliation and position on the bill only. No testimony from the microphone. Members of the public are also welcome to provide comment through the position letter portal on the committee's website. And before we begin, do we need this conduct? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Generally we want to ensure an orderly proceeding in this hearing. And so we have our wonderful Assembly sergeants to maintain order, but hopefully we will not have. We will respect everyone's opportunity to be heard in a orderly hearing and we will not accept any disruptive behavior that may interfere with that goal.

The rules for today's hearing includes no loud noises from the audience. Public comments may be provided only at the designated time and place and as permitted by the chair. Public comment must relate to the subject matter being discussed and no engaging in conduct that disrupts, disturbs or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of this hearing.

Please be aware the violations of these rules may subject to you to removal from the hearing room. And we have our first author signed up. We'd like to begin with our first author, Assemblymember Jackson. Welcome. Okay. And this is file item number three, Assembly Bill 673.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Committee Members. I want to begin by thanking the Committee and staff for their amendments which I am accepting today.

AB673 aims to establish the Unaccompanied Youth support Grant program to provide assistance to 16 and 17 year old students experiencing homelessness who are not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian as they continue their education.

Specifically, this bill would provide provide five year competitive grants administered by the Department of Education to local education agencies and would Fund referrals to housing, basic needs, educational support and employment readiness for these students.

According to the California Department of education, approximately 8,831 out of 286,000 enrolled homeless students are unaccompanied, leaving these students vulnerable to chronic absenteeism, low academic achievement and the inability to graduate high school or attend college. To simply put it, if there's no stability, there's no progress.

We need all of our young people to be able to have stable housing, stable nutrition and stable support if we are going to put them on a path to be able to thrive. With me today is Eric Dunk, on behalf of the Superintendent of Public instruction to speak on the impact of this bill.

Thank you. Good afternoon, chair and Members. My name is Eric Dunk and I'm. A legislative representative at the California Department. Of Education speaking on behalf of superintendent Tony Thurman, who is sponsoring AB 673. My thanks to Assemblymember Jackson for authoring this legislation.

California is facing a growing crisis of student homelessness that directly affects school attendance and graduation rates. As Assemblymember Jackson noted, Of the approximately 286,000 K through 12 students, 8,800 of them are unaccompanied youth. Unaccompanied homeless youth, particularly 16 and 17-year-olds, has significantly lower attendance and graduation rates, often 20 percentage points below their housed peers.

At the same time, these young people are especially vulnerable. They are on the brink of adulthood, yet they lack the legal rights and access to housing and services that adult homeless individuals have.

While federal law requires schools to identify and support these students, only about 10% of school districts receive dedicated McKinney Vento homelessness funding, and those grants are relatively modest. AB673 helps close that gap.

This bill would establish the unaccompanied youth support grant program, a five year pilot program that allows local educational agencies to support unaccompanied youth ages 16 and 17 by connecting them to existing housing, basic needs, tutoring, employment readiness, and health and social services.

The bill also requires CDE to consult with the California Department of Social Services and coordinate with a variety of housing. And social service partners. The bill would also require annual reporting on outcomes so the Legislature can evaluate the success of the pilot.

AB673 is a targeted solution to support schools and stabilizing students lives so they can focus on learning and graduating. Thank you for your consideration and we respectfully ask for your aye vote.

All right. Thank you very much. Are there Members of the public who'd like to testify or add their support announcer support for this measure? If so, please come forward.

No.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Jalen Woodard. I'm with the Alameda County Office of Education, and we're in support of this bill. Thank you.

Seeing no further speakers at this time. Are there witnesses in opposition to this measure? Please come forward. Seeing none. Any Members of the public who would like to speak in opposition to this measure? Seeing none. Bring it back to the Committee. Any questions or comments from the Committee? Yes.

Dr. Patel, thank you for bringing forward, as a former school board chet school district where people predominantly thought us, we all middle class.

A couple questions regarding funding. Where is the funding coming from?

Yeah, so I can speak to that. We're still evaluating where the funding would come from. And essentially, you know, there's existing resources out there like the McKinney Vento grants and things like that from the Federal Government. We're evaluating what type of funding we. Can use to augment some of the. Existing services that are available.

Just to put a fine point on it, if you don't mind.

Yeah. Will this be from again, we're still like thinking through all the details. That's one idea that we were talking about, but, you know, we're thinking through all the details. We don't have that information today, but we're still evaluating where the funding would come from.

And then I would also add assemblymember that, as you know, on Friday we should begin our budget process and we start seeing the seeing it. And I think last year you began to see the chaotic process which is our budget process, to put it lightly.

And so as you know, there's a whole other process that we can go through so that by the time this bill gets to the governor's desk, it is our hope that it could also already be included in the budget process.

And so it's going to take a lot of talking to stakeholders, talking to our budget Subcommitee chairs and all those things to find out the best path forward.

As I understand this will likely not.

Because it's not direct, it's most likely going to get go that way probably. Yeah.

Okay. And then for the grant process, oftentimes, you know, our hardest hit communities are small school district and it's very difficult for them to do the required paperwork for a competitive process. It's difficult for them to do the reporting requirements because oftentimes the superintendent is the HR person, is the principal to school, so to speak.

So is there a way for us to look at this equitably across our school districts in that competitive grant process? Are we able to tap on this that are experiencing hardship if they are not able to have the resources or the adequately resourced to apply for?

The short answer is yes, there's always a way. And I want to thank you for bringing that up. And so I will make sure that we work collaboratively with the Department of Education to find ways to make sure that we understand that.

Because you're right, larger school districts might have full time people who write grants for them and those type of things. We want to make sure that everyone has equal access so that their students can be served. So I will make sure that we do that and I'll keep you informed on that process as well.

That's something that as a former school board trustee, working with a lot of my colleagues in small school districts.

Absolutely.

Something that's of a concern especially.

Thank you. Sorry, I'm out of practice. And then the last question I have for you is with the McKinney Vento act and the funding around that, are there other county based programs or funding resources that should be meeting these needs and what are we doing to coordinate better with those local small services?

I'll speak briefly and then I'll let CD jump in. That's why what I'm most excited about this is that it's also requiring CDE and CDSs to work together because most often too many times when you look at any blue ribbon of report that we've all seen in different areas.

One of the main criticism is always working in silos and how we've got to stop working in silos and we got to make sure that we're collaborating, leveraging resources, leveraging expertise.

So that's why it also requires that districts work with the county continuum of care who specialize in these things, or other nonprofit housing organizations and service organizations as well, which is part of the requirement.

Do you want to add? Yeah, I'll add to that. That the bill also requires the Department to work with a variety of local providers, like behavioral health and mental health providers and housing providers and things like that.

So it really is like a touch point within the community so that, you know, These unaccompanied youth1617 year olds, can be referred to the proper services.

I think, like, one of the gaps that we're seeing is that because they're 16 and 17 year olds, like I mentioned in my talking points, is that they don't have all the rights that an adult would have, so they don't always have the legal authority to enter into a lease, for example.

So it really is the LEA on the front lines with the unaccompanied youth to identify those students and. And then be able to refer them to the. To the proper providers that can support them. Yeah.

I appreciate you considering that because our LEAs are taking on a lot of responsibility. Zero, yeah. Across the state. It's a lot for them to manage on top of trying to bridge all of the achievement gaps, which is their bread and butter charge in public education.

So making sure that they're able to coordinate with county to follow up and provide those services and coordinates. We're not being redundant and using our resources most effectively in these tough budget times. It's very much appreciated.

Absolutely appreciate it and look forward to following up with you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Any other questions or comments from Committee Members? Seeing none. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Thank you very much, Assemblymember Jackson, for continuing your commitment to address the needs of homeless students.

I know that we had work in this Committee together on your efforts with community colleges, and now you're extending this to our teenagers and our K12 system. And thank you to the state superintendent and the Department of Education for sponsoring this measure. Happy to support this. Would you like to close? I respectfully asked for an aye vote.

Okay. Thank you. Motions made and seconded. Madam Secretary, please call the roll file.

[Roll call]

Six 60. The bill is out.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. All right. Next we have File item number four in sign in order. Assembly Member Avila-Farias, AB 1493.

Thank you, Chair and Members. AB 1493 would require school board special elections to be consolidated with next primary in the General Election. Special elections are expensive and historically have had low and underrepresented turnout, producing results that often do not reflect the true will of the larger electorate.

In recent analysis from the UC Institute of Governmental Studies found that Californians who voted regularly in the last state, last statewide elections, are older and more likely to be white college graduates, married homeowners than Californians as a whole. By contrast, infrequent voters are disproportionately younger, single, non-college graduates, renters, and Latinos.

The National Civic League has found that changing the timing of the local elections to every year's aligning them with major election cycles results in the greatest proven impact on voting in local races.

In a situation where signatures have been gathered to initiate special elections, AB 1493 requires that the election to be rolled into the next regular scheduled primary or General Election, saving schools time and money that could better be used for students while simultaneously increasing participation of the electric process.

This, this is an author sponsored bill, and I have no witnesses. I thank you for your consideration and look forward to the dialogue on this space.

All right, thank you. Seeing no witnesses. Are there members of the public who would like to speak in support of this measure? Please come forward. Seeing none. Are there any witnesses in opposition to the measure? Please come forward.

You have two minutes each.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members, thank you so much for this opportunity. I wanted to start by thanking everyone for their patience in that CFT does not have a letter. Also, I am Tiffany Mok and I represent CFT, a union of educators and classified professionals.

Apologize for the lack of letter and also that we came to this position pretty much this morning to oppose the legislation due to the brief timeline that we have. CFT wants—is empathetic to the goals of the bill, but we also commit that if the bill moves forward. Respectfully, we are open to further conversations with the author.

We oppose this bill because we believe that school board members, as much as possible, should be elected by their constituents and the process that currently exists has worked well for us this past year. Recently in Sonol Glenn, we saw a recall election of two school board members, which was followed quickly by two appointees.

One of the appointees had a special election where they were—a new member came in but the process worked out. The other school board member who was appointed did not face a special election and they are continuing to serve out their term.

And so, I think with that in mind, it really provides the opportunity for the constituents to have their voice to make sure that no school board member is sitting on a school board for up to 18 months where they don't face any special election possibility. And so, for those reasons, we respectfully oppose the bill.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Carlos Machado with California School Boards Association. We're here in respectful opposition to AB 1493. We regret that we weren't able to take a position earlier. Our process doesn't move as quickly as those were bills like this. We appreciate the author's effort to address election costs.

That's something that our members in our district struggle with in terms of those funds come directly out of the funds that support student programs and also, to work on associated issues with the provisional appointment process. CSBA has an history of working on these issues. Most recently, we sponsored SB 1061, which is noted in the analysis.

We're concerned about the approach taken in the bill. Community engagement essential to the work that districts do. Voters' rights with regard to provisional appointees is important avenue by which they can weigh in on these appointments, especially the aspect that leads to termination. It preserves voter oversight and prevents indefinite provisional service without electoral consent.

Our members view this right as essential for meaningful local accountability and for allowing constituents to voice their preference about who represents them on, on school boards. For this reason, we are opposed, but we are committed to working with the author to address these issues going forward, you know, hopefully to look at some options that we explored in SB 1061 before it ended up in the Assembly.

But we wanted to share our concerns with the Committee today. Thank you.

Thank you. Any Members of the public with comments in opposition to this measure? Going once, going twice. Okay, bring it back to the Committee. Questions? Comments? Vice Chair Hoover.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, a few concerns, I think, and questions. I think, I think just on your premise here, you know, you're kind of making the argument that special elections are not as good as General Elections, so would you support getting rid of all special elections for any position in state government or why, why this one?

Well, it's not really the special elections. What I'm trying to address—so, I guess, if I may, Chair, just kind of walk through this process. So, Contra Costa County, which is my district, I represent 50% of Contra Costa, so it's, you know, a little bit over 500,000 constituents.

Unlike Southern California, the Bay Area has just recently moved from at large elections to district elections. And Contra Costa, it all just happened less than five years ago that this happened for my county. And so, which is great, because 20 years ago, Contra Costa looked very different.

And district elections brought that diversity through the California Voting Rights Act. And in that process, as these election cycles are happening, we're seeing what's happening with appointments as people move on to other positions or just don't seek reelection.

And the goal here, which has always colored my activism and civic engagement, is creating, you know, a space for inclusion and representation, especially in our school districts, that right now in the state of California, between Latino and API and black, we are well over 60% of the student body.

But if we look at our school boards, our school boards are not reflective of the demographics of our children. That being said, I'll use an example because it's in my own backyard. We had a school board election that went to a district election not too long ago.

A position was vacated because the incumbent moved up to my former education seat and was rightfully appointed, which, you know, it's the process, it's the law. We all support that. Was a public process and was appointed and became the only first Latin—or the second Latina—to be appointed on an all-white school board.

The threshold for the law for education boards is 1.5%. It took, in the name of democracy, only 60 signatures to undo that appointment of a predominantly, well, all democratic board, to remove the only serving Latina on the board. And the election occurred, which I totally support special elections, by only 500 registered voters in a district with 4,000 registered voters.

So, my question here is, how is that democracy when so many people were excluded from this election? So, I would be open to working with you all because you all clearly have subject matter expertise and we all have situational experiences as well.

I'm trying to fix the loophole and I'm hoping that we all see the importance of fixing these loopholes and unintended consequences because if we look at that example as a case study, that is not in the spirit of what we all just talked about and heard. Right?

That only 500 people determined that the special election in a school district with over a $2 million budget deficit and most of our school districts throughout the state of California right now are struggling and are in severe budget deficit.

And some, we must have, we must ask ourselves, was that a good use of public funds to do a special election for only 500 people to be engaged and determine who should occupy that seat? So, I'm open. I'm asking the board, you know, for time to work this Bill out.

And working, it sounds like you all are willing to work with me as well and figure out this loophole and bring the subject matter expertise to fix this loophole in there.

And if it's even revisiting, if it's simple as increasing the threshold for signatures that is consistent for city councils, county board, everything else. This does not match what all other elected.

So, I'm really open to suggestions and collaboration in this space, but I, I think it was important to give contextual context to what is happening in my district in a district that's really new to district elections from at large district elections. So, thank you.

Yeah. I think what, I think what I'm struggling with here is that—well, first of all, I disagree with your premise that people were excluded from the election. No one was excluded from the election. Right? They chose not to vote in the special election.

I think that is obviously something we can talk about, but certainly very different than people being excluded from participating in the democratic process. You know, and I think the problem I'm having with this bill is that the alternative, you know, I certainly understand your argument that you could get more turnout in a General Election.

That's, that's very clear. I think the challenge is the alternative here is not that; the alternative is either a special election where maybe 500 to 4,000 participate or an appointment process where literally five people have the opportunity to select an individual for their school board. That is, in my opinion, far less democratic than even a special election.

Right? So, I guess, you know, what you're suggesting is that, you know, these voters and democracy essentially needs to wait until, you know, even longer to get a representative that is selected by the voters and not selected by the board. Obviously, I was on a school board.

I understand, you know, some of the dynamics here, but at the end of the day, that is basically what you're asking us to decide between. You're not asking us to side between, you know, two democratic processes. You're asking us to decide between either a special election or an appointment process. And to me, that's not democratic.

I hate to say it, but I find it a little bit ironic that we mention here the issue of cost, right, because for the last six months or whatever for Prop 50, all we heard was that the $300 million cost for that special election—or for that election—was worth it because democracy is that important.

And so, now, you know, we're sitting here saying that maybe the cost, you know, there is a price that we can put on democracy, that there is a situation where the cost is not worth it. And I just find that problematic.

So, I think for those reasons, you know, I won't be able to support the bill today but appreciate the conversation. Thank you.

Other questions? Mr. Lowenthal.

First of all, I want to applaud the author for following a passion of yours and certainly, you know, identifying an issue, an ongoing issue, that that should be addressed. And I'm not completely clear that this will address it and remedy it in the way that that you're looking for.

But it's my understanding, Mr. Chair, that our task today is to assess the impacts to governing of these school boards and not to be looking at the election components themselves and that as this bill is double referred to the elections Committee and that a lot of those topics would be germane for those.

And so, for the purposes of today, I haven't yet heard an argument that school boards would be paralyzed in this and for me personally, it is enough to be moving this forward to larger body to continue to debate and work on the bill. But I do—I haven't been convinced.

And so, as a, on the floor I, you know, once this is flushed out, I would look at it holistically.

I would appreciate that, to be able to flush that out.

Ms. Bonta.

I want to thank the author for bringing forward and it was super helpful to have you kind of share the backstory, if you will, around as something that happened in your district. And I echo what Assemblymember Lowenthal offered in terms of this being certainly a passion area. I think on the aspect of the potential impact of school boards, and I shared this with you, one of the concerns that I have is that removing the ability to have—well, thank you.

Removing the ability to have an election could potentially create a scenario where the majority of the board or, you know, borderline majority of the board, would essentially have, with an appointee that lasts longer than they typically would, have two cycles, two budget cycles, up to two years or two budget cycles, of wreaking havoc on the governance of that school board and the decisions that that school district would make during that time frame, which, to me, seems like a significant impact.

And so, I wanted to just focus in a little bit on your thinking process around looking at the threshold, which I also think is a legitimate concern and issue we want to have, not a group of, you know, very small dictate what happens for the majority of the school district and see if that is something that you are open to looking at, as opposed to trying to toggle the time under which a member might speak.

Absolutely. I got to this path because I know it was attempted in the past. And so, as a new legislator, I looked at, okay, well, that didn't work for them, so, let me not bring something that was attempted in some form, which is why I tried to get creative with this.

But my preference would be that, Assemblymember, too, to be just keep everything the same and bring the threshold up so it's consistent with other elected positions through the state of California.

So, I would be very open to be allowed the space to flush that out, work here with our community partners, and find that tweak that can address this, what I perceived through experience. It's not perceived because it actually happened. A loophole.

Yeah. I think it's always the case with gut and amends. They kind of come quick and fast and sometimes we don't have the opportunity to fully explore all of the different potential solutions to very valid points that, and concerns that, you know, have been raised here on the dais and by opposition.

So, I'm very amicable to exploring that, your suggestion.

Okay, thank you.

Before we hear any other questions or comments, I just want to help clarify the context under which we are operating, which Ms. Avila Farias. You may want to consider how you want to proceed moving forward. But one, as Ms. Bonta indicated, this is what we call a gut and amend. It was, it was another bill.

And so, the reason why we have the opposition coming out late, I mean, I just learned of the opposition in the last two days. And so, with their concerns is because it is a gut and amend. It's a gut and amendment of a bill that had previously been denied, although for a different subject matter.

And so, Ms. Avila Farias, I said I just want you to make, make sure, you know that we cannot reconsider a single bill vehicle twice. What you could consider is, you know, you, you indicated that you'd like to work with the opposition to make sure that we get that balancing act right.

Especially, you know, I, I, I try to, I, I often look to the School Boards Association. I mean, they, like you said, they're the subject matter expertise of the school board elections. You have the option of withdrawing this bill and reintroducing a new bill with time to work with the stakeholders to address the concerns.

I'm not saying one way or another what you should do, but I just want the Committee to understand those are some options you have.

I would like to explore the option that our colleague Assemblymember Lowenthal and Bonta suggested. I would like to be able to move to the Committee that it's appropriate, the Elections Committee, to really flesh it out and work with our community partners there.

Okay. Fair enough. That is your prerogative. Any other questions or comments? Yes, Dr. Patel.

I'll remember to turn my mic on this time. Thank you for bringing this ill forward. As a former school board trustee and delegate with CSBA, certainly, elections, recall elections, and policies around that were very concerning to us over the years. I do have concerns with this bill.

As I learned over the years, many county superintendents are publicly elected positions as well. And having a county superintendent have the authority to appoint a board member of an independently elected body could raise some concerns.

Counties vary in their political interests, and this could be something that could be weaponized or used in strategic ways, in ways we might not understand.

And so, I do have concerns around a county superintendent making these appointments, along with the concerns that this is a choice, as my colleague Mr. Hoover mentioned, between an appointment versus a special election and changing the timeline therewith.

Specifically, around elections, I share your concerns that special elections cost money and they come out of Prop 98 classroom dollars. And that's also a concern. I'm intrigued by the idea of you shifting towards a threshold, a bill, that's a clean, fresh start, focusing on thresholds and working with our education partners to build that piece of legislation.

It is something that we had talked about in Delegate Assembly before. It is something that's very much a concern and I share that concern with you.

I don't know that I'll be able to support you today for this version to set an amend that's on an accelerated path, but something that's a clean start, that looks at that, is definitely something that's interesting to me.

I just want to clarify. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. It's not the super—I mean, I'm not playing with how the appointment, the election process, it's not through the superintendent's, the school board's regular process. It's, it's the timeline that I'm adjusting in the face of previous bills that weren't able to play with the threshold, and I'll have to revisit that. But I just wanted to clarify that.

It was not the superintendent. Yeah.

Thank you for that.

Ms. Wilson.

Thank you, Assemblymember, for bringing this forward. I know we've talked about this before. I'm not a normal representative on this Committee, filling in for Addison, so I generally align my votes with the chair in that regard and vote how I perceive it at best on the floor. And just to—just echo the comments around.

I know we've had a lot of conversation around the threshold and the percentage threshold and that being a problem.

So, to echo the comments of people who regularly serve on the Committee, from Lowenthal, Bonta, and Patel, around that, you know, that the threshold might be an opportunity just to add to that chorus, I think that's, you know, a lane that's extremely important.

And I understand the comments that were brought by our colleague, or Vice Chair Hoover, in regard to the extended timeline that were also echoed by Patel. So, just noting that, I think that's a way to progress.

And, you know, I'm happy to support today to be able to give you the opportunity to continue that conversation, even though it's an accelerated timeline. But I would take note that, you know, what our community partners have said are absolutely valid. There has to be an opportunity to work through.

Even when we do have gotten them in a process, we do need to make sure that we are aligned with those who bring the experience and boots on the ground to this. And so, just wanted to add that to the conversation.

Thank you and I agree.

All right. Any other comments? Okay, it's my turn. So, Ms. Farias, I also appreciate you providing the situation with your former school district. And I recognize, and I think we talked about how, you know, statewide, many of our school boards are not reflective of the diversity of our public school population, and that is a valid argument.

As a former school board member, I also appreciate the arguments about the cost. I know that whenever we had to have a special election to fill a vacancy, that was always a concern in the community.

What I'm hesitating with is, you know, tying back to Mr. Lowenthal's comment about should we just, should we defer to the elections Committee to address elections issues? I think the connection to this Committee is the current political realities of what's happening with our school boards, especially in terms of all the culture wars that are playing out with our school districts.

When Dr. Patel mentioned how this could be weaponized by some interest groups, you know, I, that's where I feel that it's very relevant to this Committee to address the political and cultural impacts of these school board elections in terms of the good and proper governance of our school districts.

I'm rereading the CSBA's opposition letter, and you know, they're talking about the proposed amendments in AB 1493 will upset the careful balance that was established by SB 1061.

And, you know, I think when you have the concerns of the weaponization of school board elections combined with this careful balance, where there was a full discussion and vetting of how do you balance, you know, the cost concerns and the representative concerns with the concerns about how the process can be used or abused to push a particular agenda, that all makes me ask, I guess, as I would ask you, I'm—my position at this point is not to support, is to not vote for the bill, because of these concerns.

However, you said yourself you would very much like to work with the stakeholders to fully address this issue.

My request to you would be to withdraw this bill, introduce a new bill after your conversations with the CSBA so that we can make sure that we don't upset that careful balancing act that was struck, while at the same time allowing you to raise the issues that you have raised.

So, at this point, I am not going to be voting for your bill, but the choice is yours, and I will give you the last word.

Thank you so much. And I appreciate all the thoughtful dialogue. And I think anytime that we're in a space that we're talking that the election process is weaponized, and as I illustrated in that example, it's weaponized. We can't just say it's weaponized when it's the people we don't like and it's being weaponized by special interests as well.

So, you know, democracy is when it's fair for everyone, regardless of our ideology. And so, I appreciate the consideration and understand.

But in the name of democracy, I feel that I do need to bring this forward, utilize an existing bill and revamping and hopefully to get to the Elections Committee, where the chair there has extensive experience, our colleague there, and I'm hopeful to be able to work it out there.

So, I would look forward to from other Committee Members and respectfully ask for their support to move forward.

All right. Do we have a motion? Motion's been made. Is there a second? Is there a second? Okay, going once. There's a—second is made. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The measure is 2 to 2. Two ayes, two nos, with the rest not voting. The bill fails.

Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Mr. Gallagher. Is he not in the—oh, Mr. Gallagher. No, no, no. Oh, there. Behind him. Okay.

He was hiding.

Okay. This is File item number one, AB68, by Assemblymember Gallagher.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon, Members.

On December 42024 a gunman walked onto the campus at Feather River Seventh Day Adventist School in Butte County as a man with clearly mental illness spoke with the folks at the front desk, excused himself to the bathroom, and then came out of that bathroom with a gun and started shooting at students on the campus.

Two kindergarten students were shot that day, highlighting a very devastating impact that we have in our rural communities. Law enforcement responded as fast as they could that day, but nonetheless, with no one there to really stop this individual, two kindergarteners were severely injured and were in the hospital for months.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time this has happened in my district.

In 2017, in the small town of Rancho Tehama, a man who had a restraining order against him, who was prohibited from owning firearms, nonetheless had a firearm and went on a rampage through the town of Rancho Tehama, attacked the local elementary school, and five people were ultimately killed in this incident and over a dozen others before law enforcement did arrive.

Again, responding as fast they could, but a rural area fast asking teachers in that case actually acted to shut down the doors and prevent the gunman from gain inside in that case. But again, no one there armed able to stop this individual. And this is why I bring to you AB68 today, which is focused on rural schools.

Many urban schools have school resource officers on them. I can tell you in my district, there are many districts that do not. They don't have the ability to. They either don't have available officers or they don't have the funding to do so. That seems to be a pretty big problem.

And so I have focused this bill on rural districts, counties where total K-12 enrollment is fewer than 40,000 pupils. This targeted approach would apply to about one third of California's roughly 970. School. Districts, and it requires them to have at least one school resource officer on campus. This bill does include practical flexibility as well.

If a district or a charter school cannot comply due to unavailable funding or qualified personnel, it may claim a good cause exception by resolution and must develop a compliance plan such as rotating officers among schools based on priority or jointly contracting with neighboring districts.

Moreover, many impacted districts will have exempt clock campuses that don't qualify due to low enrollment or proximity to a census designated urban area.

So again, I've designed this bill to be very targeted to our rural schools who face very unique vulnerabilities, limited resources, fewer on site security options, and significantly longer law enforcement response times compared to urban areas, making them very soft targets for individuals with intent to do harm.

I would also point out that there's been many laws passed prohibiting certain guns from being owned, prohibiting certain individuals from having guns. Nonetheless, this is still happening in California. It continues to happen in California. I submit to you that we need other resources to try and stop and prevent these things from happening.

I would also point out, I think, the very stark irony that we are right now protected by many law enforcement officers armed with guns and every day we come into this capital and we do our business, we are protected.

And yet many schools in our district, not a one with our kids, not a one of them has a school race, not even one school resource officer, they're protecting them. I would submit that we can do better.

There is a lot of evidence saying that armed school resource officers can enhance emergency preparedness, deter threats and provide immediate response. Moreover, they help build relationships and trust between law enforcement and the community.

A U.S. secret Service analysis of 67 averted school attacks conducted during 2006 through 2018 found SROs directly prevented nearly 1/3 of plots and were the first to receive tips in 1 of every 8 cases. Case in point in May of 2018 at Dixon Hills School in Illinois, a former student opened fire in a hallway during graduation practice.

School resource officer Mark Dallas, a trained armed officer stationed on campus, quickly confronted the shooter, exchanged gunfire and wounded him, ending the attack before any students or staff were injured. This rapid intervention, credited directly to the on site armed SRO, prevented what would have been a tragedy and demonstrates the life saving value of having qualified officers.

President A.B. 68 represents a balanced, proactive step to make sure rural schools have safe learning environments, addressing a critical gap in school security for communities with limited options.

I also plan to continue to work with the stakeholders who've expressed concerns, including the School Small School, just Small School Districts Association, to ensure that this bill can be implemented without putting on additional financial burdens on our campuses. Again, I would, I would ask you. This is, this is very much a district bill.

It's a rural California bill. I know that there may be feelings about school resource officers and I, and I understand those concerns in many urban communities, maybe they're not desired, but I can tell you in rural communities they are very much desired considering what we have been through.

And I would only ask that you would listen to the concerns of my rural district and many rural districts throughout the state of California who would like just that opportunity to have this resource available to them. And AB68 would do that.

It would not put burdens on many of your districts that are urban, would not apply to them, but it would very much apply and provide a resource in districts like mine where we currently don't have that protection. Again, many districts. And you'll hear from our witness, many districts where there is no resource officer at all.

And we've seen the results. So I ask for your support for this targeted measure. With that, I would turn it over to my witness, Ryan Bentz, who's with the Glenn County Office of Education, Superintendent of Schools in Glenn County.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Muratsuchi and Committee Members. My name is Ryan Bentz. I'm the Glenn County Superintendent of Schools where I'm proud to support eight school districts, three, three start charter schools and 6,750 students. I'm pleased to support Assemblymember Gallagher's AB 68 with its focus on school safety through the presence of school resource officers.

In Glynn county, our schools are spread across a large geographic area, often far from emergency access to law enforcement. As an example, three of our school districts are located more than 25 miles from the Sheriff's office. This reality matters.

Response times can be delayed, not due to lack of effort, but due to due to distance that makes our campuses especially vulnerable. SROs provide a proactive and preventative layer of safety that rural schools urgently need.

Their presence is not only about responding to emergencies and providing protection is about building trust, establishing relationships and creating a sense of stability for students and staff. When SROs are embedded on campuses, they become mentors trusted adults and partners in prevention. They help identify concerns early. De escalate situations and support positive school climate.

SROs also serve as a significant deterrent. Those who seek to harm vulnerable students and staff are far less likely to target campuses where trained armed law enforcement are present. While we cannot predict when or where an incident may occur, we can control how prepared and protected we are.

SROs are one of the most effective tools we have to do just that. In closing, I would like to thank this Committee for providing for prioritizing the safety of California's rural students, educators and families by supporting AB68. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no further witnesses in support of the measure. Are there members of the public who would like to make comments in support?

Good afternoon Mr. Chair, Members, Ryan Sherman with California School Police Chiefs Association. We're kind of tweeners on this. The President though, has asked me to convey his support for school resource officers throughout the state, although the association has yet to take a position on the bill. Thank you.

Any further public comments in support of the measure? Seeing none. Any witnesses in opposition to this measure, please come forward.

Good afternoon Chair and Members. Chris Reef on behalf of the California School Boards Association, let me just first make very clear here that CSBA school boards take school safety seriously. It's a paramount concern.

CSBA just recently updated our School Safety Toolkit, which is a regular informational document that we provide for our board members across the state to be able to address all levels of student safety, staff and surrounding community safety for all school sites and so forth.

We appreciate that the approach of the author on this measure, we understand the intent but at the same time the mandate aspect of this is troubling for us when it comes to the costs especially but also in terms of the need. We do appreciate maybe the the amendments to limit it to our smaller school districts.

But I just want to emphasize within our state we have and Mr. Gallagher referenced 970 it's we have almost a thousand school districts in California. A vast majority of them are small school districts. 545 roughly. So about 58% of our school districts are smalls. Those are defined as school districts with 2500 students or less.

Many of these are one or two school site districts that serve all children TK to 12 and others as well. In many cases the local decision is paramount to that conversation. It is a needs based assessment that has done and conducted by the district and by the school board members with input from the community.

This bill approaches it from a different perspective and we understand that. But it does not give much leeway in terms of whether or not the community feels that the presence of armed law enforcement is appropriate for that school site or for the district.

And it also can create unnecessary alarm at a time when maybe there is not necessarily a need for a presence armed officer on a school campus at that time.

And so our approach here is that it's an options based approach where that local control, that local decision making is critical so that there is investment from your local staff, from the students and from the local community that is critical to how you make this type of important decision.

And so for those we respectfully understand, you know, the intent of the author and the need for the, for the bill. But at the same time we believe that there is existing statuary authority for districts to already undertake this. The school safety plan, as you know, Mr.

Chair is, is quite comprehensive and is required to be updated regularly where these conversations happen in earnest and on a very frequent basis. So respectfully, we ask for your no vote.

Good afternoon. Barrett Snyder. On behalf of the Small School Districts Association, I want to echo some of the points of my colleague Chris made from the School Board Association.

We have a slightly different perspective and just wanted the author has been historically a great champion of small and rural district issues and I just want to thank him for that. And so, you know, we want to carefully weigh in here in recognition of that.

The bill was amended on Monday to specifically address rural districts on our process for SSDA to take a position on the bill won't be able to happen for another couple weeks. So we just are sort of registering concerns. The bill does run into two fundamental positions for the association.

One is the mandate issue that was mentioned by Chris, the language in the bill. The author took a good stab at trying to ensure that districts could be reimbursed for the cost of having these SROs. But the language we just don't think quite gets them there.

The state's process for reimbursing under the mandate system is cumbersome and usually get pennies on the dollar. So cost. And then the second piece for us to concern is around the plan development that we view the bill in its current form is yielding.

Most districts won't be able to meet the requirement for cost reasons and then would have to develop a plan and we just forgot for, for smalls the state has just got, has inundated districts since the pandemic with more plans and reports.

And our position fundamentally is until we wrestle with what we're requiring around accountability, we're really reluctant to do more of that.

So for those reasons, that said, if the bill gets out today in the spirit of what the author is trying to address, which is a real problem, we're happy to work with, with the author and the Committee and whoever else to move before it. So thank you. Thank you.

Any members of the public who would like to speak in opposition to this measure, please come forward.

Good afternoon. Chair Members Rebecca Marcus on behalf of the Brady Campaign and team enough in opposition. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Conrad Crump with Disability Rights California, in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members Mitch Steiger with CFT, a union of educators and classified professionals, also in opposition.

Good afternoon. McLean Rozanski with the Alameda County Office of Education, in opposition.

Hello, Chairman. Sarah Petraski on behalf of the California Association of School Business Officials, in opposition.

Thank you. See no further members of the public in opposition. Bring it back to the Committee. Any questions? Comments? Comments from the Committee? Seeing none. Ms. Bonta.

I just wanted to first bring in the name of at least one victim of a school shooting in my district on a junior college. Most recently, I won't name the others because they are minors. John Beam at Laney College. Junior College. During my time in the Legislature, in my district and urban district, we've had five school shootings.

One of them could be considered a mass shooting. There is not evidence to support that. The presence of SROs, and certainly SROs that are armed actually results in a positive effect for students and student safety. There were school shootings on campuses in my district when there were SROs.

I understand the pain that you are trying to and preventing pain that you are trying to address with this particular solution, but there is no evidence to support that putting an armed adult police officer, SRO, on a campus, results in the prevention of school shootings.

There is evidence to support that the existence of an SRO on campus results in increased anxiety, increased fear, increased expulsions, suspensions, police referrals, and arrests for students.

I think the difference for me between the example of the fact that we have armed sergeants here in this building versus an SRO is that an SRO, School Resource Officer, is dealing with minors, children in a school setting, that are subject to the existence of an elevated sense of concern with the existence of an armed officer.

And they also often have roles that are intended to directly interact with students on campus, which leads to that increased sense of insecurity. This, for me, isn't just about feelings.

It's really about the fact that we have significant evidence across multiple years to show that SROs on campus do exactly the opposite of what we need them to do or of what we want, which is to create school safety and a sense of safety on school campuses.

For those reasons, I cannot support the this legislation, although I do understand your intent.

Can I respond?

Yes.

Respect your opinion. Right? But you are wrong. There is evidence, and I stated it in my opening. U.S. Secret Service did an analysis of 67 averted school attacks from 2006 to 2018. They found that SROs directly prevented one third of the plots. That's a factual analysis that was done. So, there actually is evidence that SROs prevent.

And I didn't hear in your, in what you stated, any evidence that they don't work. So, I'd love to hear, like, if we're going to say that things are facts, go ahead and state what your factual support is for that contention. But to my original point, I get that you don't want them in your community.

You don't think they help in your community. Fine. Give them to my community because it's a huge problem and we would really like them. If you don't want them in your communities, in urban districts, fine. But right now, I have rural districts that have no protection whatsoever, and we would like it.

And yeah, actually, when it comes to minors, even more so, shouldn't we try to protect our precious babies on campus? 100%. And I do think it's an irony that we sit here protected by people with guns every day, but we refuse to do so for our own children in school. That's a stark irony that I think the public thinks is completely ridiculous.

And I'm trying to do something about it for my area, for my district. I'm not forcing you to have it, not forcing your districts to have it. In fact, Alameda, Contra Costa, not included in this bill.

So, again, I'm just asking for protection from my area, you know, trying to represent my district and the concerns of people in my district where these shootings have occurred. And they do think I'm their only—I'm their voice.

There's others in here, I think, who agree with me that are trying to make the point that we would like them, we want those protections. I'm willing to work with stakeholders to figure out how we do that. This is my idea. I have targeted it. I've amended it to try and address those concerns.

We'll continue to do so. But I don't think that any of that takes away from the need and the evidence that SROs do work when they're on campus.

Through the Chair.

You asked for evidence. First, in the analysis, there is considerable evidence and citations around the effectiveness of SROs on school campus. But I'll offer more. A 2012 study found that there is no conclusive evidence that the presence of school-based law enforcement has a positive effect on student perceptions of safety in their schools.

A systemic review of 32 student studies on SROs concluded that if the intent of SROs is to prevent crime and delinquency in schools, the study found no evidence that this intent is being accomplished. One study found that the presence of a school resource officer was unassociated with any reduction of school shooting severity from 1999 to 2018.

Another study in 2021 found that the presence of an armed SRO was associated with increased casualties, perhaps because many school shooters are actively suicidal intending to die in the actual so an armed officer may be an incentive rather than a deterrence.

In addition, we know that there is a disproportionate impact on black students on campuses where there are SROs, in terms of school, school expulsion and suspension. And a 2018 national study found that SROs intensify the use of suspensions, expulsions, police referrals, and arrests of students.

These effects are consistently over two times larger for black students than white students. And Assemblymember Gallagher, I care about all children in this school district—in this state.

Thank you. Mr. Lowenthal.

Excuse me. First of all, I want to applaud you. I know that you are doing this as an effective voice for your district, and your district is asking this, asking for this, and I believe you.

And I also want to thank you for all the time you've spent with me in educating me about the needs of rural communities and how they're so different than the district that not only I represent, but the life I've led for 55 years and never having experienced that. And I really appreciate that, Assemblymember. I have questions I'd like to ask. It's my understanding that by law now, districts have the ability to have SROs.

Yes.

That are armed or the potential being armed. And so, I'd like to ask your lead witness, if that's okay, from Glenn County, why is it that your district did not have an armed officer, if law allows for that?

Right now, it's about having availability of officers in our Sheriff's Department. And so, if we could have more support to increase safety on our campuses, then it would.

So, there's nothing that's precluding you other than availability, which this, this—I don't know if this fully addresses the availability, but this is a mandate. So, other than, other than the mandate itself, is there any particular reason why your district—excuse me, other than availability, is there any particular reason why your district has made the decision not to have an armed officer?

We work with our Sheriff's Department, and currently, our Sheriff's Department does not have enough resources to provide SROs on our basically 11 districts, when you count our charter schools. And there's not, not the support.

Okay.

Fiscally, in a county that is fiscally struggling to support our Sheriff's Department.

Financial. Financial issues, resources. Okay. Mr. Gallagher, do you want to comment on, on basically the, the basis of my questions, I think you get.

I mean, this is the policy. I'm trying to establish the policy. I'm also working on the funding component of this because that is going to have to be necessarily part of this is getting funding to help support getting more, you know, school resource officers.

Obviously, that's more of a budget and appropriations question, which we'll be certainly working on as well. But what I'm trying to get at is right now, I'm in these—largely because of a lack of resources, we, we don't have in rural communities SROs at those sites.

And I would like to try and one, by mandating it and then providing the funding would ensure that we would get those, right? Because, and right now, and, you know, I don't know the exact percentage, but it's a very high percentage of our campuses have no SRO whatsoever.

It's usually, honestly, it's in the more—I have a rural district, but like, I have cities that have greater population, say Chico or Yuba City. Chico and Yuba City schools have them, but they have resources, they have money. Right? And usually, officers are, you know, departments are closer by, et cetera. Right? It's the rural schools that don't.

So, I want to, first of all, I want to validate. Now I have better understanding of what you're looking for, and I definitely want to validate my colleague from Oakland who empirically laid out why there are concerns.

And certainly, Oakland Unified, as I understand, has made a lot of changes on this topic and made policy changes that's based in empirical data, actually.

And so, you know, I want to hone in on rural communities, specifically very small ones, that have an issue where law enforcement can arrive by a certain time, which is something I can identify maybe, other than Catalina Island in my district, that I certainly can't identify with whatsoever. But—well, let me, let me take a moment back, if it's okay, Mr. Chair.

You know, as a Jewish Californian, every time I go to my temple where my kids go to Hebrew school and study for their Bat mitzvahs, we have armed guards. And I don't know how comfortable I would be going inside the temple without them because we deal with mass shootings all the time.

I was actually in Sydney, was flying home the day the Bondi Beach attack took place and was with the Jewish community in Sydney in the week prior. And it is absolutely awful feeling, in your mind, to be thinking about all the ways something could have been prevented or stopped in a case like this.

And so, I, I feel my own views on this topic evolving over time.

But the thing that is really, and also, by the way, just to go back one quick second, the state has done so much in nonprofit security grants so that those communities that don't have the resources that are in need, that can demonstrably show that there is a threat, are able to apply for those grants.

And in the Jewish community, we do that, so I want to validate the concern around resources and around security associated with these things. But what is getting to me today, Mr. Gallagher, is the lack of local control.

And this is from a leader who has been speaking about local control to us and teaching us about local control for some time. And in the absence of districts being able to say what is best for them, to the very points and a lot of the data points that my colleague from Oakland brought forward, is concerning for me. I don't understand why we would force a district that does not want or does not need, as part of their security plan, to be taking resources away from other parts of the state or from other communities that feel that they need those things.

So, I'm struggling with that. Overall, I would like to be supportive of the need for resources in rural communities with very specific security concerns at public schools and would, would love to continue to have the dialogue about that.

I wish so much and hope that you would consider that the number of resource officers that the districts would have to choose, that one of their selections could be 0 instead of 1 through 4 or whatever. And that would actually—that actually would make me look at this a lot differently.

And finally, I will be remiss if I don't get the opportunity to say that I think all guns are awful. I've never held a gun. It is remarkable to me that we don't focus more energy and attention on the fact that we have 5% of the world's population and 50% of the guns.

And it's not the main part of our conversation as we address safety issues overall, but I think you know where we stand on that topic.

So, just to try and briefly address some of the points that you raised and I, and I appreciate the dialogue, I really do. It's definitely something I've been thinking about is how to make this so that, hey, those that want them can actually get them. I mean, that's kind of where I think started.

And again, I'm totally willing to continue to amend this bill to try and get to that, to that spot, but we have a real problem and it's struck my district several times now, right? And in the current status quo of what we have, they don't have any.

And so, the mandate is there, again, for rural districts, wouldn't affect your districts actually, but for rural districts to have them. And then I'm working on getting the funding component there. I would be fine if a district wanted to say, and I'm like, need to fine tune the language to get there.

If a district were to say we don't think we need them. Right? But right now, I have the issue of districts saying they need them, but they have no way of getting them. And then those places become very extremely vulnerable. To your point, I mean, where this shooting occurred was a Christian school.

And there's evidence that the motivation, again, deranged person, but evidence that it was motivated by, you know, anti Christian, anti Semitic influences. We certainly saw that in the, in the Tennessee school shooting where Christian school was attacked. And so, we are continuing to see like these are hateful motivated or deranged individuals going onto our campuses. And there's, there's no one—there's literally no one there to stop them.

Well, I, for one, and I think the people of my district and the people that support this legislation say, man, let's at least have one. Can we at least have one? Especially in places where we want it. And some people may say, no, I don't want any.

And I respect that. But I certainly want to have the ability for my schools to protect themselves and protect our kids.

Outside of what the law allows for right now to do that today at those very schools, Mr. Gallagher.

Yeah, and that's, that's where, like, you're right, they have the, the capability to, they just don't have the money or the resources to make it happen. And, and that's why maybe—and I, I do plan to make this part of a budget discussion. I plan to make this part of a budget discussion too. But that's—I'm working on the policy right now. Yeah.

Any other Members of the Committee? Dr. Patel.

Appreciate your intent in bringing this bill forward. As you know, as a former school board trustee—I think I say that every single time in this Committee—I did bring forward a bill this last year that was signed by the Governor in collaboration with my colleague in the Senate.

SB 19. Started off as AB 237, a bill I introduced to help protect schools against threats, mass shooting threats. This is something that's deeply important to me.

My kids have grown up in a time where every single year of their lives, in the years before they could read, if they could have read, there would have been a headline indicating a mass shooting at a school site. This is very serious issue for me.

A few years ago, there was Senate Bill 906, which, when I was on the school board and we had to implement requiring all school districts to notify around safe storage. I think perhaps that could be expanded to include all community members' understanding about safe storage and safe retention and gun ownership.

But in this case in particular, I'm looking at local control not as a performative sort of knee jerk response. It's very important for local communities to be able to decide whether their community feels safer or is safer with an armed officer on campus. Certainly, there are anecdotes both ways, right, where an armed officer on campus was able to interrupt, possibly not prior to fatalities on campus.

Also, stories where an armed officer was present and not able to do anything in time. So, there are anecdotes on both sides, certainly.

However, the overwhelming amount of data, as shared by my colleague, Assemblymember Bonta, and reinforced by my other Assembly colleagues, show that it does more harm than good overall. And that's also very important to me as we look at this. Specific question for you, when we talk about rural districts, what is the definition of a rural district?

We were represented here. We heard testimony from small districts, which we have a good definition around. What is the definition of rural school district?

I don't think there's a one already in law. That's what we were trying to do by targeting this. And so, what we came up with is these are districts within—first of all, within a county, has to be within a county where the total K through 12 enrollment is fewer than 40,000 pupils.

So, that's where we kind of start by you, kind of by that.

40,000?

40,000. And so, what you end up with is—so, for example, San Diego not included, because you have way more than that. Right? So, this really focuses on the lowest.

You have rural school districts, Warner Springs, Rainbow, some on the east part of our county that are considered very rural.

Oh, I know. Yeah. And that's why there's no perfect definition. But I started with, hey, let's start with the counties that are the most rural. And so, we focus on that. And then we say with, and then within that—sorry, let me get this.

Yeah, so it only applies to those counties where the K through 12 enrollment is fewer than 40,000 pupils under the terms of this bill. Okay? So, I recognize there are still rural districts even within, you know, San Diego County. Right? But we're trying to at least target the most rural, rural counties, rural parts of the state.

And so, as stated before—thank you for that response. As stated before, this is already, it's already permissible. A school district, a rural district can already use Prop 98 dollars to hire an SRO, should they choose to do that.

However, in many cases, there isn't an individual available, and this bill would not solve that problem and instead would require a school district because it's a mandate to complete some kind of plan which, if they were not able to effectively implement at the time that a crisis occurs, could increase liability to that school district.

And that's a concern to me.

Yeah, I mean, one, again, the funding part of this, I think, is, is a critical component. I'm focusing on the policy right now, but the funding is something I plan to push forward too, because, yeah, without the funding and the resources, you can't get them. But similarly, we'd like to get really good teachers in rural areas. Right?

Start with that.

And we always can't get—we can't always get them because we can't offer the same money. Again, we don't have the same resources. So, it's the same issue as school resource officers. And, and to your, to your last point, what did you end up with there? I'm sorry.

Ended up with liability.

Right.

They would have to create a plan.

I agree. I don't like all the plans. And that's something I think this Committee could really focus on. LCFF and all the plans and all the things you got to do, especially for rural districts, is very burdensome.

I'm not taking away that this does provide that if you can't come up with a school resource officer, but they're already inundated by a lot of that stuff. You know, as we sit here today, I'm just really trying to get at, hey, how do we give them a resource that they need?

And again, it requires both policy and funding.

Certainly, and as we know, the commission on unfunded mandates woefully under resourced as well.

So, pennies on the dollar doesn't help with budgets directed towards classroom instructors and staff that help support students and their wellbeing, which could, ultimately, that prevention could ultimately do greater good than having an armed resource officer.

Right.

I would want to make sure that we're able to fund, adequately fund our educators on campus and our student support specialists on campus and focus our efforts on prevention, which we know has an impact on keeping students safe on campus. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice Chair Hoover.

Thank you, Mr. Gallagher. I think, you know, what I'm hearing here today, and I do appreciate some of the points raised on the local control issues, and I do agree that to the greatest extent that we can, you know, we always do want to make sure there's local control.

And sometimes this Committee has certain policy areas where we do discuss why that can't be the case or why certain things are of a statewide concern or in this case, a community concern. But I do understand where you're coming from there.

But it does seem to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, that, you know, you are willing to continue working on this and maybe working to iron out some of those issues and get to the bottom of this resource issue, which it seems like is also a part of this equation.

So, I don't know if you want to, you know, verify that or not, but it does seem to me like you're willing to continue making changes as needed.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And I mean, we did make substantial changes to the bill in advance of this hearing today. So much so that I have, you know, supporters who are not sure they're going to support anymore because they want, you know, they would like SROs statewide.

Yeah.

But I've said, hey, let's narrow it. Let's focus on, you know, rural, you know, rural districts where right now we have, you know, no protection at all. Yeah, we're very limited. And that's, and again, I'm, I'm definitely open to continue to change it. I say this a lot. I'm a Republican.

There's no way I can get any bill to the Governor's desk without making a lot of compromises and working. And I've done that many times in my time here, so I'll continue to do that. I'm not saying this bill right here now is the perfect end all, be all—continue to work on the issue.

But I think you can see that my motivation is pure, and I'm willing to work to try and get to a real solution here.

I appreciate that, and I think, you know, I appreciate the work you've already done on the bill. Definitely will be supporting the bill today. We'd love to move the bill if possible. And as a, you know, someone that represents a community that strongly supports SROs, you know, in my former school district, when we had the SRO discussion, right, over 70% of our parents wanted them in our schools.

And I think—I appreciate that every community has different opinions on this topic, but at the end of the day, I do think it's important that the communities that do support having officers on campus are able to do that.

And I appreciate some of the more unique concerns of the especially rural districts in this case. So, with that, would like to move the bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Motion made. Is there a second? Second. Okay.

Any other questions or comments? All right, Mr. Gallagher, thank you very much. You know, I—we all respect you for being a champion for your rural communities. And I absolutely agree that gun violence, especially on our school campuses, is a, a serious issue that, that, that needs to be addressed.

And we heard from the School Board Association about ongoing efforts on making our school campuses safer. You know, I happen to have spent this past recess doing a lot of driving and meeting a lot of rural school district representatives.

And, you know, their number one complaint to me that I heard loud and clear is get rid of all these reporting requirements, but not one mentioned give us more funding for armed school resource officers. And, you know, while I understand your argument that you're saying that you don't have the resources.

I mean, the rural school districts operate under the same local control funding formula that, that exists for every other school district.

And the beauty of the local control school funding formula is we let the local school boards and the local superintendents determine do they want to spend their money on teachers or do they want to spend their money on mental health counselors, or do they want to spend their money on armed resource officers?

And, and so, you know, you know, why would we want to impose this mandate from Sacramento and all rural school districts that they are required to have at least one armed school resource officer on every school campus? That, I think, is the main reason why I can't support your bill. Mr. Lowenthal made a good point.

I'm always, you know, disturbed to see all the security that is always posted at, at Jewish temples and even in, you know, communities like Palos Verdes.

I mean, it's, but, you know, he made the point about how the Jewish Caucus, they sought and secured funding through the budget to support, in their case, nonprofits or temples that wanted to increase their security. I would suggest that your challenge is a budget issue. It should not be to impose a mandate on all school districts.

If you want more funding, you know, to give grants to rural school districts so that they can, they can provide, you know, armed SROs on every school, then that is certainly your prerogative. But I don't think this is, you know, the right vehicle.

I think, you know, the problem of gun violence in our country is fundamentally that there are too many guns and not enough guns, or not the problem of not enough guns. And for that reason, I will be opposing your bill, respectfully, but you get the last word.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would be happy to co-sponsor your bill to eliminate reporting requirements on rural schools. Please put me on there when you introduce that bill.

We're working on something.

Very much, that'd be very helpful. And I also want to—I want to say here at the end, like, I know that everyone in this room cares about kids. I know that, and, and obviously that's right. We want to protect our kids. We may disagree about how, what's the best way to do that? Right?

But I know, and I'm going to reaffirm that, that I know that everyone in here cares about kids. We want to protect them. We don't want this to happen. I wish I wasn't even having to bring this bill. Right?

Like, I wish this wasn't even an issue that we had to deal with, but we do, and I've experienced it and I know many of you have experienced it in your districts as well. I'm just proposing as, hey, here's from my perspective, a way of us being able to do this.

And I am trying to target it to rural areas where, you know, maybe we do have a different view of how we protect but allow us the ability to, you know.

You have the ability.

Yeah. I mean, and that's true, but it's like, it's like saying, hey, you have the ability to, but we don't give you any resources to do so, right, and very much so. I am going to have that discussion and budget, be happy to have your support as we talk about this in budget, about having that resource available.

Much, much akin to how the Jewish Caucus pushed for those nonprofit funds. I think it's a very similar type of application here. We're talking about rural areas here ensuring they have resources, so, so that they can, right? They might have the ability to.

But can they really, you know, when there's not enough officers available or they don't have the money to pay those officers, it—you haven't really given them that protection. Right? And so, that's what we're trying to get at here. And look, and. And I will end with this. Something to think about.

Like, if you really believe all those studies that SROs or armed officers don't stop, don't prevent, don't help keep people safe, then tell CHP to go home. Tell CHP, why do you need to be here? Tell sergeants to go home. If you really believe that, then put that into action.

And you don't think you need armed protection, because we certainly avail ourselves of that benefit every day. And I'm glad they're here, you know, and I think they're needed. Why don't we think that's needed for our kids? That's my point.

And you may think, hey, I don't want it, and that's fine, but let my communities have it is really where I'm getting at. So, with that, I would ask for your aye vote and my commitment to continue to work on this issue. Thank you.

Thank you. Motion's made and seconded. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Two ayes, five noes. Bill fails. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

All right. Last but not least, we have File Item Number 2, AB 296, by Assemblymember Davies. Motion made. Second.

Everybody ready to go home? We can make this fast. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members, today I'm here to present AB 296. I first want to thank Committee staff for working with my staff and stakeholders on this measure. Under current law, California agencies are allowed to buy and sell property to other agencies and departments.

However, there is no standalone website for schools to buy and sell unused or gently used career technical education equipment. California is at a crossroad. We have thousands of jobs that need to be filled by an educated and trained workforce, yet not enough workers to fill these roles.

AB 296 is a simple measure to streamline the procurement process for schools by creating a standalone website that allows schools to buy and sell CTE equipment with each other.

As it stands, if a school wants a 3D printer, they would have to bid against all other state agencies, departments, or boards, thereby lessening their chance of acquiring the product.

For our economically challenged, in rural school districts that don't have the funds to compete against big groups like that, this could mean their own CTE programs may falter or never even get off the ground. As we know, students who participate in CTE courses set themselves up for many different career fields post graduation, including joining apprenticeships.

According to ZipRecruiter, on average, apprenticeships can earn roughly $72,000 a year in an entry level position in a variety of apprenticeships. We should be doing everything we can to support CTE programs around the state and set students up on a path for success in various industries, including our labor and trade industries.

Finally, to ensure fiscal discipline, this bill includes a sunset, so if the website is not effective or utilized, it simply shuts off. The bill has no opposition, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Do you have a witness? No? Okay. Seeing no witnesses in support of the measure. Public comments in support, please come forward.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Mike West. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Mr. Vice Chair, Mike West, on behalf of the State Building Construction Trades Council of California, in support.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Matt Easley, on behalf of Associated General Contractors and their Construction Education Foundation, in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further public comments in support? Any witnesses in opposition to the measure? Seeing none. Any members of the public in opposition to the measure? Seeing none.

Bringing it back to the Committee. Any questions, comments? Motion's made and seconded. Any further comments or questions? Okay. Thank you. It's been made. All right. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Now, do we want to have you respond to add on?

We will entertain add ons. Go through the Calendar.

[Roll Call]

7-0. The Bill is out. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. This hearing is adjourned.