Senate Standing Committee on Education

There we go. Welcome to the Senate education committee hearing. There are 20 bills on today's agenda. There are 10 bills on consent. Those bills are item number three, AB 1569. Item number five, AB 1590. Item number six, AB 1626. Item number seven, AB 1653. Item number nine, AB 1694. Item number 13, AB 1928.

Item number five, AB 1590. Item number six, AB 1626. Item number seven, AB 1653. Item number nine, AB 1694. Item number 13, AB 1928.

Item number 14, AB 2466. Item number 16, AB 2191. Item number 17, AB 2203. Item number 19, AB 2652. Witnesses are asked to limit their testimony to two minutes to ensure the committee is able to complete today's agenda in a timely fashion.

Seeing as we do not have a quorum, we'll begin as a subcommittee with our first bill. And we have, first up on our agenda, AB 1159 by Assembly Member Addis, who's here.

Good morning and thank you. Thank you. Is this on? Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair and members. I'm here to present AB 1159, the California Learner Personal Information Protection Act, or CALPIPA, that makes critical improvements to California student data privacy laws to reflect the modern reality of our education system and to protect our students. And I'd like to thank you, Madam Chair, as well as your committee staff who've been in a lot of conversations, and appreciate your work on this bill. I'll also say we're having very productive conversations with stakeholders.

For example, we've had a lot of good conversations with LAUSD and are working to address concerns moving forward, as we are with every stakeholder that we've been working with. So just to lay out the problem, the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act, otherwise known as SOPIPA, which is now known as KOPIPA, the K-12 Pupil Online Personal Information Protection Act, was signed into law in 2014 to combat risks associated with the rising use of technology in the classroom.

And I would say we all know that EdTech has evolved dramatically. I was a teacher for 21 years and have two kids who are now college age and have really seen this transformation firsthand. So when EdTech has now entered our classrooms for students preschool through university, and we have almost a constant online presence across educational platforms.

So we know now that EdTech platforms--and it's been in the news quite a bit--are collecting a lot of student data, much more student data than students or families realize, which can include audio visual information, like photos, videos, audio recordings, financial information, home addresses, family contact information, attendance patterns, as well as health-related searches and patterns.

And so, we've also seen recently the way the federal government is subpoenaing information, we've seen the way that data can be stolen, and we know the detriments of how this data is sold at times. So with all of that in mind, it is clear that we have weaknesses in our student data protection. We have uncertainty about who must comply with COPIPA. We need to have more certainty there.

We also have new protections that were expanded to the Early Learning population. However, those same protections don't yet apply to California higher ed students. And then, we know that with the advent of AI, as well as what is happening with our federal government, that we do need to modernize student data protections.

So we have a solution, which is AB 1159, our bill that would strengthen California student data privacy protections by doing three things, first, building on existing student data privacy laws, as well as clarifying and expanding their protections and modernizing them, also extending those same protections to higher ed students through what would be the Higher Education Student Information Protect or HESPA, and then also creating meaningful enforcement that would include a very limited private right of action that's modeled after the Student Borrower Bill of Rights.

With me today, we have two witnesses, Mitch Steiger, a ledge advocate for CFT, and then Becca Cramer, representing Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and I'll turn it over to them to share more detail about why this is important and what it entails.

Becca Cramer, on behalf of Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, proud sponsors of AB 1159. California has long been a leader in protecting student privacy, passing the first law in the nation directly regulating the EdTech that was starting to proliferate in K-12 classrooms to ensure that educational privacy law kept pace with technology.

Over a decade later, EdTech is deeply embedded in students' lives, but there are still no California or federal laws focused on the EdTech companies who collect personal and private information from college students, including high school students with dual enrollment in a college course.

These college students are required to use technology in order to get their degrees. They must read the digital course book their instructor selects and answer its digital prompts and questions, such as these questions that one such EdTech company asked college students.

Did the student have more than one sexual partner? Did the student use a latex condom or oil-based lubricant? Students and faculty are largely unaware of how their personal information on these digital services is collected, used, shared, and sold. Popular textbook providers, for example, reserve the right to use students' educational information for marketing and advertising, combining it with information purchased from data brokers and sharing sensitive personal information with tech giants and social media platforms.

No student should have to sacrifice their privacy in order to get an education. AB 1159 ensures all California students have the same privacy protections when it comes to EdTech as well as ensures that EdTech does not collect students' immigration status, sexual orientation or gender identity, or reproductive or sexual health information, information that is invasive and not necessary for EdTech companies to know. For these reasons, we urge you to vote aye on AB 1159. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members, and staff. Mitch Steiger with CFT, a Union of Educators and Classified Professionals, proud to support this bill for all the reasons stated by the author and previous witness. We would just add that from our members' perspective, of all the issues out there that they come to us about, this broader one of how to best protect students from the potential harms of EdTech is, at least for me, by far the one that I hear about the most from our members, and that includes both the ones who are very into using EdTech and the ones who are more skeptical of it.

And everyone in between, what they all share is a very deep desire to make sure that the kids are safe and that they're protected in every way possible, and they know the law and they know that it's not good as it currently stands, that it's too weak. And that-- so it puts them in an impossible place where whether they want to use this or they're being forced to use this technology, they know that there could be a fully identified profile of this student being sold off to the highest bidder.

Maybe so, maybe not, but it is something that really worries them and it puts them in a really hard place where they have to decide, do I wanna use this technology that I think is helpful, or do I have to just go without it with all the risks that may come from that? I have met teachers who have left the profession because of all of this technology, all of the AI. I know it's tracking the kids.

I'm worried about it. I don't want anything to do with this. I'm out. So it is to one degree or another not helping with our recruitment and retention problem in education. And also from the individual student perspective as mentioned, there are a lot of very vulnerable students out there.

They may be LGBT, they may be undocumented, and we can't look them in the face and tell them that we know for sure that their data is being protected by current law. So this is one more reason for them to not only not use this technology, but maybe not even go to school entirely. So there are a lot of downstream problems that are worsened or even caused by the weakness of current law. This bill as it stands does a lot to really help with all those and we think it's a strong step forward and we urge your support. Thanks.

Thank you for your presentation. Before I call up MeToos, I'm gonna go ahead and call the roll since we now have a quorum. Secretary, if you could please call the roll.

[Roll call].

Great. Thank you. We'll go ahead and hear MeToos in support now. If you could please use the mic at the railing.

Thank you, Chair and members. Elmer Lizardi with the California Federation of Labor Unions in support.

Good morning, Chair and members. JP Hanna with the California Nurses Association in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Eric Paredes with the California Faculty Association in support.

Good morning. Kat Brackman with the California School Employees Association in support. Thanks.

Good morning. Natalie Posell, on behalf of Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Brooke Benetti with Kaiser Advocacy, in support, on behalf of a handful of organizations, including the Children's Partnership, California School Employees Association, Students Deserve, Children's Advocacy Institute, California National Organization for Women, the California LGBTQ Health & Human Services Network, Genders and Sexualities Alliance Network, Equal Rights Advocates, Indivisible California: StateStrong, Asian Solidarity Collective.

California Work & Family Coalition, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California, Courage California, Oakland Privacy, TechEquity Action, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action, Californians Together, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of California, Kapor Center Advocacy, Secure Justice, and Tech Oversight California. Thank you.

Anybody else? All right. Seeing nobody else rising, we'll now hear witnesses in opposition, if there are any.

Los Angeles Unified School District. We're not in opposition. We're a tweener. I just want to say, we've been working with the author and staff. We appreciate their effort to try to clarify some unintended consequences with the definition of de-identified student identification. I think we're close to an agreement, and we hope to have-- know position soon enough. Thank you.

Lucy Salcido Carter with the Alameda County Office of Education. We generally support the bill but have similar concerns to those raised by LAUSD.

Great. Anybody else in opposition? Any other MeToos in opposition?

Sara Noceto, on behalf of the California Association of College Stores and the National Association of College Stores. We are opposed to the bill currently in print but have been having really productive conversations with the author and the sponsors. Thank you.

Great. Anybody else? Alrighty. I'll turn it back now to the committee. Do we have any questions or comments from committee members? Yes. Senator Gómez Reyes.

Thank you for bringing this forward. I do have a question of the opposition. Did she leave? What is the central issue for the objection?

So basically, what we're just trying to make sure here is that regular student communications are still allowed to continue, so being able to send book lists to college students, those type of conversations, reminders about rental returns. There's some affordability and access programs that we do need to be able to send directly to students, you know, based on the data that we have, but it-- they are all for general education purposes and for attending the university. It wouldn't be for, you know, selling data to outside of the university or anything like that.

Wonderful. An issue that clearly can be resolved.

For sure, yeah. We--

Having served with the Assembly Member, I know that's an issue. I thought it was a more serious issue.

Yeah. No, mostly definitional, just to make sure that there are some guardrails on the definition. And her staff and the sponsors have been great.

Wonderful. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Senator Cabaldon.

Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. I also appreciate what the author is trying to accomplish here. I'm not going to support the bill today. I'm not planning on voting against it either and it will go-- assuming that it passes through this committee, it'll go next to the Privacy, Digital Technologies, and Consumer Protection Committee.

It wasn't that long ago that folks, including actually this committee--I wasn't on it, it was a decade ago or maybe 15 years ago--were extremely anxious and we were considering lots and lots of legislation to bar things like online education plans in higher ed because this bill is mainly about the higher ed piece. People were like, well, you know, no student should change their courses in their curriculum without first meeting with a counselor.

And that was a well-- widely held opinion in this-- well, not this building, in the other one across the street, and going around to campuses and visiting them and talking with students who said, I can't get an appointment, and online ed planning has been a very, very important way in which students can have control of their systems and it uses-- it does-- it did not use AI then or now, but it was, at the time, a more advanced technology.

But our instant reaction in policy was to say, it's new, it's different, it disrupts what we do, let's not do it. And we are seeing this year in the other committee a lot of legislation in the AI space that is like-- we-- it's icky. We don't wanna do it, we don't want it to happen, and we also have to examine the implications for equity, for student achievement, for student autonomy, especially at the higher ed level because we're talking-- at this point we're talking about--almost with the exception of dual enrollment--we're talking about all adults who have some agency in the world too.

So there's-- I just wanna be absolutely sure as we're going through this, you know, that we are getting that balance right and flexible that can continue to be adaptive going forward so we don't do what we have always-- we did the same thing with online instruction and we're now getting our lunch eaten by ASU and other national providers who are-- our institutions are better, but we imposed a lot of rules at the beginning that made it impossible for us to compete for a lot of these same reasons that are all justified, by the way, but we kind of suffocated our own ability in California to adapt and to evolve and to innovate in ways that other states have done, and it's been to the detriment, to some extent, to our students.

So, like I said, I'm not opposed to the bill, but do wanna reserve judgment on the details when it gets to the other committee where we're more focused on the technological and the data side just to be absolutely sure that what we're doing here is the right level of protections without the sort of the icky-- the ickiness reaction that we're seeing across-- sort of across the board in almost every topic area in the capital on the topic, and we owe it to students to make sure that we're giving them the path forward to find services and programs that work for them.

The other piece of this-- I mean, last night, Anthropic released its near-world-ending model that the-- and so, things that we do in the EdTech space that are specifically about the EdTech space often ignore the fact that students in particular have many other AI options that are not in the EdTech space, and therefore, not subject to a lot of the protections and other things that we do. And so we say, okay, you can't use your FERPA protected data.

But, yeah. I mean, as everyone in this room ought to know--the author is quite aware--you know, the social media platforms, and increasingly, because people keep asking ChatGPT to tell-- tell me-- make a picture about everything you know about me, consolidate your memories, that, yes, we are protecting and make sure that if they don't have your algebra grade from your junior year but they know your precise location, what shampoo you use, your sexual orientation, everything else, so, you know, if it's to the extent to which we don't have curated purpose built EdTech solutions and students find their way to sort of general purpose massive platforms by these, like, the giant AI labs and what have you, we we haven't solved that part.

We haven't made them safer. We've just put them into a-- we've taken that out of this pond that we're worried about and we've dumped them into the ocean, and so we just-- we need to get that right. And I know the author is committed to that as well. So I look forward to the continuing work on it and appreciate that we do need to be tackling this issue.

So hopefully, we're able to get to exactly the place that Senator Reyes mentioned where we've resolved the little issues, but also coming to these big questions around equity, student achievement, and adult student autonomy and choice in some of these issues. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Senator Cabaldon. Do we have any other questions or comments? So I'll go ahead and close. One, I'm supportive of your bill, Assembly Member Addis, and my recommendation is an aye vote. I can appreciate, I think, the concerns that Senator Cabaldon's raised, and there's certainly a lot of work that's been done in the higher education space to try to make data sharing more seamless, even within systems, and we've not been very good at that historically.

When it comes to making sure we have the same common course numbering, for example, it seems like an impossible task for our community college system, and that's just to name one. But I think that there's a more important component for me of your bill that's getting at something that I have been really ringing the alarm on, and that's the sharing of personal data related to sexual or reproductive health, related to gender identity, sexual orientation, immigration status.

And I think for me, that has been what's been deeply troubling about the direction that we've watched the federal government move in partnering with private entities to receive some of this information. And unfortunately, I continue to talk about this, and sometimes I feel like I'm wearing a little bit of a tinfoil hat, but the New York Times has done extensive reporting on this.

The federal government has continued to slowly expand their definition of who is considered a domestic terrorist, and two weeks before, Pride made an announcement that transgender extremism falls into the category of domestic terrorism. That is incredibly disturbing and alarming, especially when we want our law enforcement resources to be being spent on actual domestic terror issues.

And so when we see the federal government making moves to target people based off of their sexual orientation, their gender orientation, gender identity, or their views on immigration, I think that we have to act expeditiously. I also think that, you know, we need to pass laws to protect our students and our young people right now, especially because of the way we've seen them targeted already for expressing their views on campus and expressing themselves on campus, and we're going to also have to revisit some of the policies that we're passing when we get past this administration.

But we have watched data be weaponized in a very, very scary and disturbing way over this past year, and whether that be from social media companies or from other companies and be put into applications owned by Palantir, for example, we need to have real conversations about it. So my recommendation's an aye vote, I appreciate the work that you've done in this space, it's incredibly important, and I'll turn it over to you to close.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair, and I just want to say thank you to the committee. The Senate always has robust and deeply thoughtful discussions. I think particularly in education, you have a lot of experts on the committee that spent decades in education, and, you know, I bring my background as a K-12 teacher, also a lecturer at the university level, and I have just-- I've seen how this has really transformed and metamorphosed our use of tech in the classroom and I think there are very important aspects of it.

And then, there's also the idea that any data we collect on students can be sold, stolen, or subpoenaed, and so we want to be really thoughtful and get to the right place where we don't-- you know, we don't put handcuffs on innovation but we also are keeping our students safe and protected. And, you know, the targeting of specific student populations resonates.

I represent one of the five CIF athletes who has been outed as a trans athlete and who-- she's one of my constituents and-- you know, it's really been life-altering and horrible the way that people have come after her and the way that sometime-- you know, we haven't been used to, really, the way the federal government could start to weaponize data or the way that private companies or the-- you know, I think about the Canvas leak.

I was with a number of college-age students in their 20s who-- you know, their entire education was disrupted around the Canvas leak, which-- I don't want to be clear. This bill isn't about the Canvas leak. However, the amount of data that was shared out there about students was very disturbing.

So I just want to appreciate the committee and the expertise in this room and the thoughtful questions and conversations, and we certainly look forward to continuing to work to get this balance right between innovation and data protections. I think it's in there somewhere and we're going to continue to work until we get it right. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Assembly Member Addis. And do we have a motion for this item? We have a motion by Senator Gómez Reyes, and the motion is do pass to the Senate Privacy, Digital Technologies, and Consumer Protections Committee. Secretary, can you call the roll?

[Roll call].

Great. And we will put that bill on call. Thank you so much Assemblymember Addis. Next up, we will move on to Assemblymember Patel, who I believe is in the audience. And she will be presenting AB 1171, and you may begin when you're ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to present AB 1171 today. The part time community college faculty health insurance program was established to expand access to health coverage for part time and multi district part time community college faculty. Since 2022, it has received an annual appropriation of $200,000,000 because it is recognized that our part time faculty are the foundation of our community college system. Yet they're doing crucial work without health insurance from their employer.

Districts that offer qualifying coverage to their part time faculty receive 50% reimbursement of the premium costs, and the district can receive 100% of their premium reimbursement if they provide part time faculty with coverage that equals in quality the coverage of their full time faculty.

The larger appropriation ensures that there are sufficient funds for all districts to participate. The tiered nature of this program with 50 and 100% reimbursement rates seeks to reduce barriers to provide healthcare and incentivize high quality coverage. I'm very pleased to see that participation has grown since 2022. But even the most successful year on record, only $69,600,000 of the available $200,000,000 was utilized. Two main barriers are often cited by those who are not participating in the program.

First, there's a concern about the program's long term solvency, making it difficult to commit to an ongoing benefit when the continuity of state funding is uncertain. Second, some don't have enough capital under a reimbursement model to cover the initial costs of healthcare and wait for funding later. The consequences of this low participation directly impact part time faculty. These faculty members teach the majority of courses and are critical to meeting the enrollment and curriculum demands in a community college system.

When CCDs don't participate and part time faculty don't have employer sponsored health insurance, they must buy private health insurance that has increased in cost by 58% following the expiration of federal premium tax credits, or they are forced onto Medi-Cal.

In Assembly Higher Ed, a part time faculty member with cancer shared the struggles of working yet still not getting the coverage she needed. Her story epitomizes what happens when districts don't participate. So in all, part time faculty teach the majority of courses, yet more than a third of districts still offer them no health insurance at all, let alone quality coverage, and the key barriers to participation are solvable with funding, and the funding exists. And every year, we sweep it away.

With me today is Jason Henderson on behalf of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges.

Good morning, Chair and members. Jason Henderson on behalf of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges. FACCC is proud to sponsor AB 1171. Dr. Patel has laid out the core problem well, and that while California has made a commitment to part time faculty healthcare, much of that funding is not reaching the faculty it is intended to serve. From FACCC's perspective, AB 1171 is about making that commitment more stable and usable at the local level.

We hear from part time faculty who are effectively working full time loads across multiple districts, but because their assignments are split between campuses, they struggle to access reliable employer sponsored health coverage. A faculty member can teach students in the morning at one college, drive to another district to teach in the afternoon, grade and prepare for classes at night, and still be left to navigate health insurance on their own. That is the inequity AB 1171 is trying to address.

For districts and bargaining representatives, healthcare is not something that can be built once per year. Districts need confidence that state dollars will remain available, and faculty representatives need confidence that local negotiations can produce sustainable benefits.

AB 1171 helps create that confidence by keeping part time faculty healthcare dollars in that program, strengthening the reimbursement structure for districts, and recognizing the importance of multi district faculty and eligible dependents. AB 1171 also respects local bargaining and does not impose a one size fits all mandate. Instead, it sets a statewide expectation that every community college district should begin negotiations by 2030 so that part time faculty healthcare is no longer optional depending on where someone happens to teach.

Part time faculty are essential to our colleges and to our students, and AB 1171 is a practical and necessary step towards ensuring these state investments actually reach them. Thank you for your consideration, and FACCC respectfully requests your aye vote.

Thank you for your presentation. Do we have anyone else in support of the bill? Please use the mic at the railing.

Tiffany Mok, on behalf of CFT, a union of educators and classified professionals. We want to thank the author for her extensive discussions and amendments in this bill. We are a support if amended position only because we are asking for a budget ask to expand the program to dental and vision, and we wanted to make the two asks consistent. So, thank you so much, and appreciate the Committee's review of this.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members. Kathy Van Osten on behalf of the American Association of University Women of California, in support.

Thank you. We'll now hear from any witnesses in opposition. If you could please use the mic up here. And you can begin when you're ready.

Good morning. Andrew Martinez, Community College League of California. I am here in very respectful opposition. I really do appreciate the work that the authors have done to reach out and work with us with a number of series of amendments during the process. I think fundamentally, from the League, our position of opposition is just, is this bill premature?

As you look at the data that's in the analysis, you'll see that the number of districts that are participating has increased significantly year to year to year. It is obviously a big significant investment, from $490,000 for the initial proposal to where we're at right now, and you're seeing those increases go up by 20 to $30,000,000 per year. Data for this year, because it is a reimbursement, is showing that it could be 70 to $80,000,000 that's going out this year.

It could go up to as high as 90 to $100,000,000 because the reimbursement window closes in November. So we don't really know the full extent of the data.

So because of that, we think it is trending that way. Districts are learning from each other, from their peers, about how it's working, whether a 100% reimbursement does show up and will work. So we are concerned about the premature nature of it. We're also concerned about the fact that the money does stay within the community college space.

The legislature and administration decide how to use those dollars as they think best, and we think this bill would put an additional step on that process for you to manage those dollars.

And then finally, we do acknowledge it is intended, which we do think is a significant pressure on our districts, to negotiate by 2030 as well. And we just don't know what kind of money will be available by 2030 as the program is succeeding and continues to grow as well going forward. And we are seeing a number of districts that are negotiating the process. It does take a while to do that as well. And for that, we have to be opposed.

Thank you for your presentation. Do we have any other me too's in opposition?

Hi. Good morning, Madam Chair, members. Kyle Hyland on behalf of the Association of California Community College Administrators, and so I have respectful opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing we have no one else, we'll turn it back to the committee. Do we have questions and comments from any of the committee members?

To the opposition, you said very respectful opposition. It just seems to me, if our faculty, our part time faculty, and there's no question that they really do teach the majority of the courses, at least at many of our community colleges. If they are working without medical coverage, and this is a reimbursement program and it is not being utilized to its maximum potential, to keep the money in one place seems the most appropriate thing to do.

Now, I heard your opposition about not being able to use it for other reasons, but if you use it for something else, then it's no longer available for the very reason it's intended for, which is to eventually get medical coverage for these part time faculty.

What do you say?

The language as it reads right now, it is obviously a decision that is on your plate to move those dollars from that pot to another purpose. It says the legislature and the administration, the budget act, another purpose as well. So you still have the ability to move those dollars. It just creates another step for you to do that as well. I think that if you think about

Let me stop you for a moment.

Sure, of course.

Why would we move it to another

It's your call.

No. No. But why, what reason would there be if the purpose is to provide medical coverage?

Of course.

Part time faculty who have gone for many, many years without any medical coverage, and as was noted by the witness, many of them are working many part time jobs and eventually really are working full time but are traveling. We had one colleague who was traveling from San Bernardino to San Diego every day, and eventually there was a full time job but still no medical coverage.

So if the purpose is to provide medical coverage, what would be the reason to take that money out? And Rick, I hear you. It doesn't matter who. It would have to be a three party deal anyway.

As mentioned, the dollars last year were used to buy down the deferral for the community colleges last year. That was a decision made in the budget process to use those dollars for that purpose. So the dollars stay within our community college space. They allow us to backfill, gives you a tool to backfill any challenges in the community college space that is in that space. And then, obviously, we did re-bench K-12 to be transitional community garden.

That means that we have 200 billion dollars less money for our colleges in that space as well. So it just makes it more challenging, especially if you're going to out years. Those dollars can have a purpose. Obviously, the first demand is for this purpose, and so it just puts a challenge for you as policymakers about how to move those dollars around unless you do it in the budget act, which you obviously have the authority to do.

Alright. But you, I assume that if you're saying very respectful opposition, that you recognize

The value of part time faculty

I do.

I understand. And I appreciate Dr. Patel's work on this issue, and it is very respectful opposition. But just fundamentally, this is our position, where we're at.

To recognize the value of the part time faculty?

To recognize that this is a commitment that is in place and that this is a significant investment, I think that districts are ramping up in that space. It just takes time to get there. Not all districts are ready to jump into the spot, and I think they want to see their colleagues, how they are successful or whether they're failing or not, and learn from them.

Very good. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Gómez Reyes. Senator Ochoa Bogh?

I think, so my personal opinion, I think some of the concerns that we've had in other aspects, in the legislature, when it comes to the budget process is the fact that sometimes when those funds are not being utilized, we do have a tendency, as a legislature, we shuffle them around to meet other needs, and I understand why you would say that.

However, in this case, I have to say, if the legislature has made a commitment to allocate $200,000,000 to provide healthcare to these part time faculty members, it is something that the legislature should honor, and if this bill allows us as a legislature to protect those funds in order for them to be utilized at some point for this specific purpose,

I think it is a good safeguard to ensure that we, as a legislature who have committed these $200,000,000, fulfill our promise to that commitment. So I'm in full support of this bill. I think it should be protected.

This is what we have prioritized at some point, and we don't want to jeopardize that funding by moving it somewhere else per se, especially when we have budget crises, deficits that we need to mitigate. So I'm in full support of this measure. Thank you for bringing it forward. It ensures that we as a legislature fulfill our commitment to those part timers.

Now, I do have a question as to why community colleges, if the money is there available, what are some of the reasons why they would not have negotiated this in place already and ensure that, you know, as adults, I've always said, if something's broken, we have the ability to fix it.

And that everything is fixable when there's a will. There will always be a way. With part time faculty members who are traveling, commuting to different areas and districts, and with the modernization of technology that we have, the amazing technology that we have, I don't see why there would be an absolute excuse not to provide these folks with health insurance, especially when the money is available. That to me just shows a lack of a will, quite frankly.

I think there should be a pathway to be able to do that, and I'm actually really surprised and shocked that if the money is there, why the community college system has not been able to accommodate fulfilling a duty that we should be, especially when the state is providing that funding.

So that's just my personal humble thoughts on the issue. And it should be a concern that we have schools. And I would love to hear the reasons why we haven't fulfilled 100% of community college ensuring that they are able to do that. But I believe Senator Cabaldon then is over there ready to give some feedback. Would love to hear what he has to say on this issue.

But that's where I stand, and I'll be happy to support the bill today and make a motion when the time is appropriate, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Senator Ochoa Bogh. I'm going to turn it over to Senator Cabaldon.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I walked into the hearing conflicted on this bill for all the reasons that have been outlined by both the author and the opposition. And also the notion that this really is a budget issue, and we have, for the Senate at least, we have a quorum of the budget subcommittee here that could just do this in the budget without a whole bill and statute being necessary.

And, you know, it hasn't been a trivial issue. It's quite common for us to say, we're going to try this thing.

And we hope that we'll incentivize districts in this case, or somebody else, to do something. And if they don't do it, if our incentive is not powerful enough or the disincentives are too strong, then of course, no harm done, we will put the money back in the general fund. That's a commitment that we almost all make when we have pilot program ideas and what have you, and this one was no exception. Try this, try to put this fund together.

It will move districts in this direction.

And don't worry, the money won't just sit there unspent if the districts don't do it at all. It will go back into the Prop 98 general fund to support other community college budget priorities. So that makes sense, and there's a normal budget decision that should be made in the budget process, not by statute.

Everybody would like their own program to be continuously appropriated, but if the entire budget is continuously appropriated, then we don't make a budget anymore. That's entirely on autopilot.

So that's bad. At the same time, I grew up as, I'm Gen X, so I grew up as a latchkey kid except I grew up at Cal State Dominguez Hills because my mom was teaching economics there. I also grew up at Cal State Northridge because she was also teaching economics there, and I grew up at UCLA because she was also teaching economics there, all at the same time, and didn't have a tenure track slot at any of them, didn't have any benefits and all that.

So I sat in the department meetings and in the grievance meetings and everything else, because what else is a 10 year old supposed to do once you've exhausted the vending machines on campus? And so I know very really what this looks like.

And I was vice chancellor of the community college system, now twenty four, twenty three years ago, so a long time ago. And I think I might have been in your position on behalf of the chancellor's office saying, hey, you know, the districts are working on this and we just need time. And we've had a quarter century to make more progress on this.

And so, it's clear now, which wasn't clear then, that part time faculty teaching the majority of the coursework at community colleges is almost certainly a permanent feature of our higher education system in California. It's not a trend that happened because of tidal wave two and it's going to go back to normal, whatever.

This is where we're at and it's not going to change. And so it is incumbent on districts to recognize that reality themselves. Any right thinking, well managed community college district should have arrived at this on their own. If we don't, it shouldn't be a state program that's paying for this.

Districts should just budget for what the appropriate compensation and benefits are for their employees, and particularly the folks teaching most of their courses.

This was supposed to simply be an incentive to get them moving, and it's doing its job. I think the opposition is correct. It is getting there, and that's great.

Hopefully, this bill will be completely meaningless in two years when all the community college districts are accessing this fund and it's oversubscribed, because this is nowhere near enough money, let's be honest, to cover health insurance for every part time faculty member in California. $200,000,000 is not anywhere near that. So hopefully, it will be oversubscribed and districts should be moving in that direction.

So I, yeah, I think I pre notified the author. I think I probably will lay off on this, but I'm going to go for it. The districts need to take this seriously. We can still, in the budget process, our chair and our vice chair can still, in the budget subcommittee, override all of this if they want to in the annual budget.

So the flexibility that's been described by the opposition, it's a little, it's an extra two steps, but we still have the discretion to unappropriate these funds if a $199,000,000 or $200,000,000 is sitting in the account unspent. We can still sweep it even if the statute says otherwise, but that's what trailer bills are for. So I don't think it's quite the end of the world. So appreciate the author's work on this.

Obviously, just as fiscally prudent and detail oriented as I would hope on this issue, and I look forward to supporting the bill today. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Senator Cabaldon. And I think you can now see where Senator Cabaldon's passion for higher ed began, sitting in on those faculty meetings as a child with his mom. I love it. I'm very supportive of your bill.

Assemblymember Patel recognized the concerns that the community college folks have brought up, especially as I know that we have more districts that are participating in the program each year, and, you know, as we're seeing that unfold, but also recognize, I think, as we have more folks that are utilizing these funds.

And that's what we want these dollars to go towards, right, is for part time faculty and covering their health insurance costs. So, we just need to do a better job, too, of informing people that this is available and it's there for them. I'm oftentimes surprised at all the work we do up here, and then I talk to people on the ground and they have no idea the amazing programs that we've worked on exist. So, I'll turn it over to you to close.

My recommendation is an aye vote.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and Committee members, for the robust discussion today and the thoughtful comments. This bill started with an idea in a backyard conversation with part time faculty as we were discussing their quality of life and the high quality education that they provide in a very flexible learning environment for so many of our students who are trying to access higher education, change careers, or just find an affordable path forward.

And when I learned that there was actually a dedicated fund for this purpose that was being underutilized, I felt compelled to look into these faculty members, their issue. Because at the current time, back in 2023, 2024, they were saying they were being pushed to Medi-Cal to get their health insurance.

And that was heartbreaking for me. And so, the program fundamentally is an incentive program, as we've all talked about. But right now, the incentives run backwards. When funds get swept, they flow to other budget items and the district benefits from that, which means the district can decline to offer part time faculty health insurance and still collect their share of that money left behind. AB 1171 simply ends that perverse incentive and keeps those healthcare funding dollars doing the job the legislature asked them to do.

It's a key step towards making this program as strong as possible so that the faculty who teach the majority of our courses, that keep our learning nimble and our economy strong, can finally get the health insurance benefits that they deserve. I will continue, of course, to work with the opposition, as I have been doing, and with all relevant stakeholders. And my goal remains to find a pathway to provide healthcare coverage to part time and multi district part time CCD faculty.

I respectfully ask your aye vote today. Thank you.

Thank you, Assemblymember. And the motion do pass to the Senate Appropriations Committee, and we do have a motion by Senator Ochoa Bogh. Secretary, if you can call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Ochoa Bogue, aye. Cabaldon, Aye. Choi Cortese?

Cortese, Aye. Menjivar? Reyes? Aye. Reyes, Aye.

Aye.

Great. And we will put that bill on call. Next up, we have Assemblymember Ramos, who is here and has been patiently waiting, and he is presenting AB 1581. Assemblymember, you can present whenever you're ready.

Well, thank you, madam chair and and colleagues. AB 1581 is a bill aimed to ensure we have an accurate picture of the number of Native American students in our public schools. The current way of collecting data has inadvertently led to many Native American students being misclassified or overlooked. This misclassification makes it difficult to allocate resources effectively or trailer educational programs to specific cultural academic needs. Nationally, seventy percent of Native American students are misclassified.

Several other states have acted to fix this problem, recognizing the need to collect more accurate, appropriate, and accountable data. In California, it is estimated that ninety percent of native students are being misidentified. This much needed legislation would implement policies aimed at bringing our state in line with others and ensure our native students are no longer overlooked. In the state of California, the most population of Native Americans reside in this state, so we believe that this piece of legislation is needed.

Native American students have long been overlooked, and I look forward to finding a way in which we can ensure we are reporting meaningful data to help those students succeed with needed resources.

With me today to testify in support of the bill is Angelina Hinojosa, youth leader and member of the Pino Ville Band of Pomo Indians, and Chad Mayes offering testimony on behalf of the Suboba tribal government.

Good afternoon, chair and members. My name is Angelina Hinojosa. I'm a citizen of Pinali Pomo Nation and student at Sacramento State University and a youth advocate. I'm here today in strong support of a AB 1581. For far too long, native students have been invisible in California's education data.

Current reporting systems often classify native students under broader categories, especially when they also identify as Hispanic or multiracial, resulting in a severe undercount of native students. According to the bill analysis, nearly nine out of 10 native students in California are not accurately counted. When native students are not counted, they are not seen. Schools and policymakers cannot accurately identify our needs, allocate resources, develop culturally responsive programs, or measure student success.

AB 1581 addresses this issue by requiring the collection of tribal affiliation data for students who identify as Native American or Alaska Native through CALPADS.

As a native student, I know firsthand how important representation and visibility are. Our cultures, languages, histories, and communities deserve to be recognized within California's education systems. Accurate data is not just about numbers. It is about ensuring native students receive support, opportunities, and resources necessary to succeed. We should enter the system Native American and graduate Native American.

AB 1581 is a meaningful step towards equity, accountability, and honoring California's first people. I respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you for your time and your consideration.

Thank you, madam.

Chair and senators, Chad Mays here on behalf of the Saboba Band of the Suenos Indians, proud sponsor of AB 1581. This bill is about something very simple, making sure Native American students in California are actually seen. Right now, they are not. As the committee analysis points out, the undercounting of native students may be as high as 70% nationwide. And when students are invisible in the data, they are underserved in the system.

That means fewer resources, less targeted support, and fewer opportunities for culturally responsive programs that reflect who these students are. AB 1581 addresses this in a thoughtful and practical way. It creates a more accurate and standardized approach to collecting tribal affiliation data through CALPADS so the state, school districts, and tribal communities have a clear picture of the students they are serving. For Suboba, this is about making sure their children are recognized for who they are and not lost in the system.

Because when students are properly identified, they are far more likely to receive the support and opportunities they deserve.

We respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you for your presentation. We'll now hear any me too's in support. If you can use the mic at the railing.

Melissa Cortez on behalf of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians in support.

Catherine Squire on behalf of the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls in support.

Good morning. Diego Zamayo with Latino Advocate on behalf of Hispana's Organized for Political Equality, we support.

Hi. Jake Orda on behalf of the Javier Tom of Samuel Nation in support.

Xavier Maltese with the California Charter Schools Association in support.

Madam chair, members of the committee, Frank Molina on behalf of the San Ynez Band of Shumash Indians in strong support.

Hey, young Kamiko Hossler, member of Hooper Valley Tribe on behalf of the California Native Vote Project in full support.

Cynthia

Panola nation. I'm the executive director of native sister circle out of Sacramento and also founder and, advisor to the California native leadership council and strong support. I'm a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and Muskogee. I'm a Northern California community organizer with the California Native Vote Project and we are in support.

Great. Thank you. Now we will hear from any witnesses in opposition. Do we have any witnesses in opposition? Seeing no one rising, any me too's.

Alrighty. We will turn it back to the committee. Do we have any questions or comments from committee members? Senator Cabaldon?

have a couple of questions. First of all, thanks. This is a very important, to address both the undercount, but just to make sure that our our data is accurate and it and it allows for, students to be seen but also for schools and teachers and others to be able to see that those specific needs, the opportunities, the assets that students are bringing to their school into the classroom as well.

Yeah. I

But I just add a couple of sort of process process related questions because in terms of how you how you're envisioning given just the number of tribal affiliations in in both in California but nationally because it could be a California student who's a who's a enrolled member of a of a tribe in another state as well. Just that sheer number.

So it's much larger. If I if you're filling out a paper form, just as an example, if you're the school admin the the counselor at the school or

teacher or or the at the the the admin assistant at the front desk. How how will this how do you imagine this this working that the the student will be queried or the family will be queried and it will be all be by computer where you have a drop down or how are you mentioning this would would actually work in practice given the given both the number and the difference between federally recognized and not recognized? And how much school would grapple with that?

a

No. Thank thank you for

the question. There's already questions that are asked, to students moving forward. And then the analysis did a good job at laying that out. One of the questions that is asked, are you Hispanic or Latino? And if asked yes, then what is your race and check all that apply?

And we believe that that's where a lot of the misclassification is happening. So right there at the initial questioning, like it's being asked here, do you believe that your Hispanic Latino, you could ask in that question also, do you believe you're you're Native American? Are you Native American? And then it goes to the next question. So it's a the components are already there.

It's being asked to the student. So putting that question also in there would actually start to help with the misclassification.

Yeah. I I I totally get that. But it's it's what that next question is. So when you when you when under the current framework, when you when you say are you Hispanic or Latino, and then after that it's race, but the but the list of races is is is is pretty small, you know, it's four, five, or six depending on the on the form and and there may be a we we we deal with this in the API community as well Right?

Because we wanted we're trying to disaggregate as much of the data as possible.

We're grappling with exactly when it's, you know, for API ethnicity or Nationalities and there's a 100 of them or for tribal affiliations, federally recognized ones, you know, 600 or more, like how, you know, is it do you just fill in a blank or because the checkbox approach for the second part of the question that you're describing becomes harder when you're talking about more than five categories, for example.

Yeah. There would be the the follow-up question. You believe you're Native American are are you Native American? The next question would be tribal affiliation, and that would be filled in, I believe, by the student attesting to the affiliation that they are.

Okay. And according I know this is getting nerdy, but this is I represent the center on the the the cradle to career data system as well. And these obvious these obvious and I ran the data system for the community college as well. Just try try and make sure we're getting we're we're it's gonna deliver on the promise and so it's important that data be consistent across schools and what have you.

And so I I know it's in the bill that the CDE Would be defining and collecting.

So that that that provides some at least an agency to to to take care of this, but but that so if everybody fills in a blank line by hand, then you you make it a lot of different a lot of different answers that don't match up to a common rubric statewide. And if we wanna use the data in order to make policies and to provide reports back to tribes and to CTE and to families, that's gonna be important.

So it's I'm not I'm supportive of the bill for sure. Don't but but I wanna help figure out how we can make sure that it actually works in that way. I think the other component to that element, and this is what I did my thesis on at university, was the when if you and and in my district, there are plenty of folks that are are are have have trace and ancestry into two tribes or more.

Right? And so this has been an ongoing debate in the census and and and we do do this for race now, where you can say two or more, but you don't you don't necessarily name them.

So these kinds of issues, I think, you know, I I hope, you know, as it goes out of this committee, we'll get into just the guts of how this would actually work so that we're giving that's not all of which has to be in the bill, but as we think some of those issues through, we'll be able to get better better guidance if needed in the statute to CDE to make sure that they're getting it right.

Because the other thing that I don't see in the bill that you might wanna consider is doesn't require CDE to engage in any tribal consultation. And and CDE is you're giving them a very big authority here for them to define how tribal affiliation is going to be classified, categorized, and then collected.

And it seems to me that tribal consultation is important in that and I know you you should you would Yeah. Likely show the same view that that should be a CDE should be required to consult with with the with the with the tribal communities in California as they're developing the the the guidelines for how the reporting is gonna occur.

Thank you. Thank you for those,

the questions and and statements and and through the chair. Part of this is actually unwinding historical treatment towards California's first people and and this nation's first people. That's why here in this area, the land that we're on, Miwok Nisenan, would be the tribe from this area. Down where we live, Serrano Cahuilla would be down in the area, two tribes. And so you start to see the the misrepresentations at the state and policies that have been derived towards Native American people have missed the mark.

And here in 2026, we're trying to correct that with over estimated ninety percent of Native American students in the state of California being misclassified, not bringing resources into them. So I think there has to be that that broader educational component, right, of what truly, the state, the nation, that history and what we're trying to unravel here. It wouldn't be uncommon to see, someone associated with two tribes myself, Serrano and Cahuilla from our area. Here Miwok Nisenan. Right?

Pomo. So it changes. And if what we're trying to do is fit Native American into a a box that says you're from this one tribe from California, that's not gonna work. Each district, if they've done their their work in third and fourth grade in their curriculum, they identify and they know which tribes are represented in their local districts.

So I would encourage outreach to take place, which several bills that we've done prior call for a task force to be assembled to ensure that voices are being heard.

But thank you for those those questions.

Yeah. Very much appreciate it. As I guess, I I'm I'm happy to spend time to to work on this as well. Because we have you know, when I when I first started getting involved in these issues as a college student trying just trying to get Filipinos to be seen Yeah. Because we were classified as Asian.

That's before p the PI was added to the thing. And so all public policies and everything else treated us as though we were, you know, high performing Chinese and Japanese students which which we we weren't and we weren't represented. And so the disaggregation of the data and seeing the differential experiences super important. Where's Doctor Patel who was just here as she's a co author co author on this bill, she's still working on the disaggregation thing now forty five years later.

So I'm just hoping we can we can learn from our extended experience to make this bill instantly effective and hitting exactly the mark that you're trying to get to and that I fully support.

So

Thank you so much.

Any yes. Senator Chua Boke?

Thank you. So I also had a couple of concerns about how do you identify as, you know, when you have a multily a multiculturally identified person on the on the on the identification in the student enrollment. So funny, full disclosure here, when my kids were attending schools that they would ask us, you know, what race and, you know, how to identify, I never I never answered them because I figured, you know, it's it's it's irrelevant.

They're kids, they should be 10 to two and and taken care of regardless of where they identify. But I I I do have a question.

When the students are identifying themselves, is there, how do I how do they decide how much and where they were going to identify themselves especially if they're they're mixed, students? How do you how do you how do you guide these students to decide, okay, do you identify as a Latino or Native American or Caucasian or, Asian or or black? How how do the student define and identify themselves when they're they're mixed on these identification as they're clicking everything down?

That's my biggest concern is when these kids are and especially in California where many of our children are are multi ethnic. How do you how do they how are we going to guide these students to do to to identify themselves as far as the rubric goes on that end?

I'm just curious how that's gonna look like. And then and then as a follow-up on that, when we're looking at one of the biggest concerns that we have on this and what we're trying to address here is the inadequate allocation of resources to serve students with culturally responsive programs. Could you also for the record, just Kinda name what that looks like in practice in the real world? What is a culturally responsive program when we're looking at schools and ensuring that we have these resources available?

Well, thank you for that question. And to give a better understanding, growing up on the San Juan Indian Reservation, which I still reside on, going to the local schools in that area, San Bernardino City Unified Schools, This paper would come through and ask us what race or ethnicity we are. And if we said American Indian, there was there was nothing to fill in. So when they asked, well, what are you? We said Serrano and Cahuilla.

It's not in that box. So then what they did was mark Caucasian. So we were marked as Caucasian growing up. Misclassification started way back then. And to answer your question on the individual, as far as moving forward, just like I said, I'm surrounding KAWIA.

We know who we are as Indian people culturally, growing up, learning our songs, territory that that you live in, right, Serrano territory. We've went on many trips out there and educated the community on it. So individuals truly know who they are and which tribes they're from.

And you're battling against a process that was built early on in the state of California and in this nation of assimilation, of taking away that culture from California's first people and assimilating them into the mainstream of California through education and different laws that are out there. So the first question of how would people know Indian people truly know who they are and what tribes they're from.

That's why they're able to mark that down. As far as the resources moving forward, attainment rates, it's no disclaimer or or misunderstanding here, within this education board that Native Americans suffer at a higher rate of education attainment than anyone else in the state of California. So So resources come in. Title six programs come in with funding to help get those resources and move people to attain graduation. Title six program, the state of California also has funding that moves for based on the collection and data.

If a school district in an area down in our area is misclassifying Native American students and shows a smaller percentage, then that's the lack of resources they're gonna get. If it's a true count and it's national average, 70% are misclassified, estimated in California, 90%. And so then that pool, that resource gets larger that then would hopefully translate into higher education attainment within the Native American population.

Okay. So once again, my question had to do with if a student is multi ethnic Right? How do they prioritize? Are we guiding them? It's not that they don't know.

They're gonna know who they are and what tribe they they're they're from. My question is how do they prioritize? How do we guide these students to prioritize their identity when they're multi ethnic as far as, okay, if I'm, you know, which one did they prioritize based on their ethnic background? For instance, I'm, you know, I'm about, I think, 48%, Mayan Indian. Right?

And then 52%, everything else. So which one would I prioritize? I mean, that's just an example, but for for students who are literally maybe 25, 25, 25, 25 of different ethnicities, how do we guide the students to prioritize which which one they're going to identify on those blocks? Are we going to have them have click every single one that they identify as? I mean, that's that's what I'm trying to to figure out logistically speaking.

What is that gonna look like for the student?

So I think part of that I mean, you you start off saying that you you didn't fill out those forms, but now you you gave an example of of of mixed components of yourself. So what would what would that be marked down for yourself? Right? So I'm not gonna ask you to answer that, but I'm saying that you know. You know exactly who you are.

And so in the regions, again, in our area, Serrano, Cahuilla would be areas there, Luceno. Here would be Miwak Nisenan. It's getting away from the the whole colonizational view that Indians react, Indians look, Indians live in a certain area. 70% Native Americans live outside of Indian reservations. So I think the question is a personal question.

A a question that have turned back around to the question would ask you, what would you identify as?

I don't think we we can talk. We're friends

Yeah.

For the record. We're like brother and sister.

The individual

We can talk about this odd. I I I think I don't think we're I don't think either you're understanding where I'm trying to to to get at. My my thing is more logistically for the students who are multi ethnic like my children. How would they identify as far as prioritizing? Of course, they know who they are.

They're gonna know we have genetic tests. We're gonna know, you know Genetic. Where we are. Not for not for the tribes. Not for the for the identity.

But but what I'm saying is when these kids are multiethnic,

a system that's going to prioritize, you know, who they identify as. And when they're they're multiethnic, how do they decide how do we guide them to decide which one they're going to prioritize when they're looking at and clicking at those boxes? How many can they click and, you know, how do they the logis the logistics of it is what I think is gonna be a little difficult for some of our kids who are multiethnic.

That's my that's my concern that I have in the I'm just gonna curious as to what that's gonna look like in the practical part of it. And then on the modalities part of it is, you know, looking at to the programs.

I wanted some examples of the programs that, you know, these these children would be missing out if they weren't identifying. That's my thing. But we can we can have further discussions one on one. Alright. Yep.

In the time because we we we have a lot of deals left to get through.

Truly, Indian people know exactly who they are and the names of their tribes that would would move forward. Title six programs do offer resources to Native American students in the school system and being misclassified lacks resources coming in to help them promote in educational attainment. Madam chair. Yeah.

Thank you. And I I do just wanna note for, for the Senator that one of the and you, can see this reflected in the analysis that the question that's being proposed is it's a two part question. So, for example, you know, do you identify as Native American or American Indian and then, you know, checking all that apply the same way that we do for Latino when I ask if you're Hispanic or Latino.

So, you do have the ability in these applications to select more than one race because we know that many of our students are multiracial and many of the individuals that are completing these applications. I think this is a great bill, Assemblymember Ramos, and I just want to highlight, I think, the importance of making sure that we have adequate data on the student population and that we're disaggregating data.

Know, before I came here to the legislature, I worked for the Campaign for College Opportunity, and we would actually do reports and research reports on Native American American Indian students and the needs that they had. And oftentimes, because of the very limited data available to us on the student population, it made our research very hard. But there are unique challenges that this community faces, and it's really important that we're collecting that data.

And as we, as researchers, have continued to look more deeply into the needs of arts diverse student populations, we have found, as Senator Cabaldon pointed out, that not all AAPI students are the same. Not all Native American students are the same.

Not all Latino students are the same. There's nuances between a Chinese American student versus a Filipino American student versus a student that whose ancestry is from El Salvador versus Mexico. All of those things have nuances. And, for us as researchers, what I found most valuable about us having access to that information, It is about getting resources, but also about us measuring if our institutions are adequately serving our students. Are institutions graduating Native American and American Indian students in a timely manner?

Are they providing them with the resources that they need? And those are the questions that we're better able to answer when we have this kind of data. So it's really important and critical. I recognize that we can override the federal guidelines in terms of how data is collected, which always creates a challenge for us.

But it is important for us as a state, I think, to kind of push back and help lead the way for the Federal Government to say, you know, we we want to see this disaggregated.

I worked with a coalition last year to create an Armenian checkbox. I represent one of the largest Armenian communities. And it's important. It's so incredibly important for purposes of delivering resources but also measuring success of our institutions because one of the most fundamental things that we do within this committee is making sure that we're providing a strong and quality education to all students regardless of their background and where they come from. And so with that, my recommendation is an aye vote.

And, oh, Senator Gomez Reyes has, a a comment that she would like to make.

I want to begin by saying that as a first native American to serve in the state legislature, it's made a big difference. You you have brought, legislation before us that makes us have to think in a different way to to to to to take information in a different way. I think, something that you mentioned about our, where our native American students learning and I think the question is why aren't we teaching them the way they need to be taught.

And the the best way to do that is to know first who they identify as as so that we know then we provide the the resources just as you've said. If you don't provide the resources and you're not taking that student where that student is and we often say you you take the student where the student is and that's how you teach them.

That's where you teach them. I I I think that without a doubt representation matters. And you have proven that since you were first elected. Putting together the Native American Caucus and inviting so many others to be part of that. Even if our our Native American blood was just a little bit, you still invited all of us to be part of it.

But I think that that in the analysis on page four where it talks about are are you Hispanic, Latino? And then under that, yes, then no matter what you say, you're still Latino, Hispanic. But if you say, yes, I am or or no, I'm not, then you go, are you native American? Are you API? Or and then the drop down from each of those.

And if it's only native American, then you're native American and you you you put your tribal, affiliation. And I think that it it it's not going to be easy as as my colleague, Senator Cabaldon has said. It it it may not be the easiest thing at first, but but if we don't begin the process, we were never going to get there. And I think that you are in the best position to lead us to try to figure out the best way.

How many drop downs do we have and is it written in and trying to find the best way to do that so that it maybe it is just writing it it in because the the tribes in a particular region are going to generally be the same and maybe that will be sufficient but maybe it won't be.

And I think that trying the first steps first and then figuring out what the next steps need to be. But until we do the first step and say, we have to be counted and that's what you're saying. My people and I want to be counted. Right. And quite frankly, it's something we should have done a long time ago to to begin to bring the resources that are appropriate.

Just as Latino students for years were Caucasian. My mother is listed as Caucasian. She was born in Mexico. She's listed as Caucasian. My father was born in New Mexico, listed as Caucasian, although his whole family is from Mexico.

So these are things that that if we don't say we want to be counted, we will never be counted. And you're saying you want to be counted and I'm all for it.

Thank you so much, Senator Reyes.

Thank you, Senator Reyes. I'll turn it over to you, assembly member Ramos, to close.

I just wanna thank you and thank you for the, truly the discussions, enlightening on, where we're going. And certainly, we have to start somewhere, And we welcome the the expertise, the guidance along the way to get us to where we need to be. And reaffirming others have been classified as Caucasian really drives home the point of why we need true data collection, in individuals. In this case, a Native Americans that have been overlooked. I ask for your right vote, madam chair.

Thank you, Assemblymember Ramos. And that motion is do passed to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Do we have a motion from Senator Gomez Reyes? We have a motion. Secretary, can you call the roll?

Senators Perez?

Aye.

Perez, aye. Ochoa Bog? Aye. Ochoa Bog, aye. Cabaldon?

Aye. Cabaldon, aye. Choi. Cortese? Aye.

Cortese, Menjivar? Reyes? Aye. Reyes, aye.

Excellent. And we will put that bill on call. Next up, we have Assemblymember Pacheco Presenting AB 1665.

Excellent. And we will put that bill on call. Next up, we have Assemblymember Pacheco Presenting AB 1665.

And, you can begin when you're ready.

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and members. I rise, or I'm here to present, I keep saying that, I think I'm used to end of session or house of origin deadline. But I'm here to present AB 1665, which requires student mental health training for coaches. Children and teenagers are facing a mental health crisis.

More than twenty percent of children experience mental health issues and three out of every ten teenagers face serious psychological distress. At the same time, more young people than ever are participating in school sports programs intended to be fun, physical, and mental outlets. But increased competition and pressure to perform at high levels can also intensify stress for young athletes. At our schools, adults in positions of authority are expected to have the training and tools to provide students with resources and guidance for mental health struggles.

We already require teachers to undergo youth mental health training to receive their teaching credentials.

Coaches are also trusted adults in students' lives. They often see student athletes every day, notice changes in behavior, and may be among the first to recognize when a student is struggling. School coaches are required to complete training to support student athlete physical health, including education on concussions, cardiac arrest, and heat illness. Yet, these safety courses do not include any instruction about how to support student athletes' mental health, even though physical and mental well-being are closely connected.

AB 1665 requires school sports coaches to complete an approved mental health training course.

The course will equip coaches to recognize warning signs and connect student athletes with appropriate resources. And with me here today to speak in support of this measure is Dylan Elliott, legislative advocate for the California State Association of Psychiatrists. And I'll hand it over to my witness.

Thank you. Good morning, madam chair, members. Again, Dylan Elliott here today on behalf of the California State Association of Psychiatrists. Proud to be here in support of Assembly Bill 1665. I think the author has done an outstanding job in laying out the necessity for this bill and what it does, and so I will try and keep my comments brief here.

From the perspective of the California State Association of Psychiatrists, I think all of us can agree, there is a burgeoning and increasing issue of student mental health needs that we're seeing amongst our young people. There's a lot of reasons for that that we could get into. Don't think that it's necessarily important today.

What we would really like to emphasize is the fact that there are coaches that a lot of these students are seeing that are trusted adults that are in their communities that are immediately around them. And this is a really important step that we could be taking in further supporting those students.

Think that this is something that is long overdue to the author's comments just now. We already have training in place for, physical health needs that our students are experiencing in an effort at further destigmatizing our young people getting access to behavioral health services. Really think that having those trusted adults adequately trained to support them is very important, and for that reason, we're very proud to be here today in support of Assembly Bill 1665 and would ask for your support on the measure. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll now hear witnesses or, MeToo's, if you want to use the mic at the railing. Leah Barrows on behalf of California Hospital Association in support.

Good morning. Serette Kaminski on behalf of the Association of California School Administrators in support.

Melissa Cortez on behalf of the MLB and the five California clubs, the A's, the Giants, the Angels, the Dodgers, and the Padres, also here on behalf of the San Francisco 49ers, all in support.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Malik Bynum with the County Behavioral Health Directors Association in proud support. Thank you.

Excellent.

Great. Thank you. And we'll now hear from any witnesses in opposition. Do we have any witnesses in opposition? Seeing nobody getting up, and no Me Too's, we'll go ahead and turn it back to the committee.

Do we have any questions or comments from committee members? We have a motion by Senator Gomez Reyes. Seeing no other comments, my recommendation is an aye vote, and I'm supporting your bill, Assemblymember Pacheco. And would you like to close?

Yes. Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity to allow me to present this bill for our student athletes. Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Excellent. And the motion for AB 1665 is do passed to the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the motion is by Senator Gomez Reyes. Secretary, can you call the roll?

[Roll Call]

Perez, Aye. Ochoa Bogue. Aye. Ochoa Bogue, Aye. Cabaldin.

Aye.

Cabaldin, Aye. Choi. Cortese? Aye. Cortese, Aye.

Menjivar. Reyes? Aye. Reyes? Aye.

Reyes? Aye. Reyes?

Excellent. We will put that bill on call. Thank you so much, Assemblymember Pacheco. And next up, I see that we have Assemblymember Krell in the audience. Assemblymember Krell, if you would like to present AB 1766, you can do so when you're ready.

Hi. Good morning, senators. Thanks so much for having me today. I'm here to present Assembly Bill 1766. I'm here with Ashley Bryant from Three Strands Global Foundation and miss Emerald from the California Survivor Policy Coalition.

AB 1766 is a really important bill that will prevent human trafficking by starting with students in schools. I actually had the honor of testifying for a bill about ten years ago. It was AB 1227 by Assembly member Rob Bonta. I was a supervising deputy attorney general at the time. I prosecuted a lot of human trafficking cases, and no matter how long I sent scumbags to prison, the survivors continued to suffer.

We wanted to do more at the front end, and so we passed this bill to, basically protect children in schools by giving them human trafficking prevention education that was grade appropriate. Fast forward ten years later, and we need an update. There's a lot of new things going on. The most the two most important things about this bill, I would say, is number one, it extends curriculum, k through 12. Current law is is starts in seventh grade.

Unfortunately, it's just not early enough. I prosecuted a case involving a a fifth grader. The grooming process starts young, and we need to equip kids in age appropriate ways, at a young age. The other critical thing about this law is it incorporates, a lot of the online abuse that we're seeing from exchanging of, sexual images, which turns into sextortion, which turns into, CSAM, which turns into sex trafficking.

And so, making sure that we're really equipping kids with the digital knowledge that they need to have of what's going on online.

Virtually every case has some aspect of social media or, online picture exchange, and so making sure that students are aware of that and can protect themselves and each other. This is a is a simple law, and the goal here is just to equip our kids as well as we can, give them the best tools we can to protect themselves from human trafficking. So I will turn it over to my expert witnesses now. Miss Emerald?

Good morning. My name is Emerald May Rubio representing California Survivor Coalition, a proud sponsor of AP seventeen sixty six. I am a founder and licensed marriage and family therapist of Set Free Marriage and Family Therapy where I facilitate healing circles for survivors, and I'm also a mother of two teenagers. I was six years old when I experienced when I had my first experiences with sexual trauma, which began at the hands of my uncle, a trusted family member that lived with us.

He groomed my sisters and I with happy meals at McDonald's, fun filled days at the parks, Zoos, and swimming pools. At the time, I didn't understand that it was a tactic for him to gradually condition me to be a target object of his pedophilic fantasies.

He prayed on the fact that I was terrified of my physically abusive parents, offered his room as a hiding place only for him to regularly take advantage of me. At the time I the one time I stood up for myself, he threatened, you're gonna be the one in big trouble if you ever tell. From age six to 12, I endured sexual advances, assaults, and rapes. I learned at an early age that love and sex was transactional.

Starting at age 14, I became a runaway teen jumping from one relationship to the next in hopes that someone would rescue me from a house that never felt safe for as long as I could remember.

Every day, I feared being emotionally berated, physically beat, and sexually abused. I was in survival mode trying to escape. I would go on dates with people I barely met, get into cars with strangers, sleep over people that I thought I could trust. Looking back, it was obvious that I had no concept of boundaries, safety, or trust. There's no word in the Filipino language for boundaries.

I mean, sit with that. Throughout my teen years to college years, I regularly experienced sexual coercion, multiple substance abuse rapes, and eventually became a survivor, a victim of sex trafficking as a minor. As a runaway teen, I vividly remember asking for rides and places to stay for the night. It typically followed with the question, what am I gonna get out of this? I didn't know at the time that trading sucks for car rides, food, or a place to stay was considered sex trafficking.

My mindset at the time was just do what you have to do to survive. No child, teen, or anybody for that matter should trade their bodies for basic necessities. This is why I've dedicated my life's work to serving, protecting, advocating for children survivors. I would have benefited from the education on the bill that that is suggested in the bill, healthy touch, bodily autonomy, safe versus unsafe secrets, how to say no, how to seek help from trusted adults. I didn't even know that you could trust adults.

I felt so alone and so unseen. The signs were there. My fair my parents failed to look into why their own daughter's well-being when I was screaming with nightmares night after night and wetting the bed in fourth grade. The teachers failed to further investigate investigate when I I how or why I went from this extroverted extroverted star student to a silent girl with failing grades. I graduated high school with a 1.87 GPA, barely.

The music teacher failed to ask question why I had urinated myself and was shaking when he offered me a ride home. I was horrified by adults and authority figures. The school admin failed to ask why I became truant in high school with over 138 instances of cutting from school. I was a delinquent from their eyes. The school counselors and social workers failed to even ask, who did I stay with?

What happened during those long periods that you ran away from home? And where how or why? Or how did you get your basic needs met? I urge you to support and pass AB 1766 as it would expand human trafficking prevention education to k through 12. It would help to build skills and detect them earlier on.

It would recognize ways in which trafficking begins online. When my daughter was in middle school and was, you know, experienced digital abuse, the principal said, well, what's the big deal? I mean, everybody exchanges pictures. When my son experienced sextortion, they said, what is this? A fight between a girlfriend and a boyfriend?

So more education is needed. They need to recognize in which how trafficking begins online, address not only sex trafficking, but also labor and Intra Intramammalian trafficking, build safety skills, and recommend annual training for school staff. Thank you. Thank you.

We do have a two minute time period, so I I let you go over. But if you could be brief in your comments, I would certainly appreciate it. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Perez and members of the committee. My name is Ashley Bryant. I'm the CEO and cofounder of Three Strands Global Foundation. Actually, Assemblymember Krell spoke of AB 1227.

We were the original sponsor of that bill with Assemblyman Bata at the time. So it's been ten years. And over the last sixteen years, we've worked across California schools and communities to prevent human trafficking before it begins through their PROTECT program, which is CDC designated as evidence based, we have equipped over 850,000 students and 140,000 educators with tools to recognize grooming tactics, online risks, and build protective factors that reduce vulnerability to exploitation.

What we have learned by working directly with young people ages five to 18 years old and from listening to survivors is simple. Prevention must start early and evolve as young people grow.

Today's youth are navigating a digital landscape that is fundamentally different from the one that we grew up in. Exploitation increasingly begins online through manipulation, coercion, and grooming that can occur long before a young person or the adults around them recognize the danger. AB 1766 responds directly to this reality by encouraging developmentally appropriate evidence based education from kindergarten to twelfth grade. This bill ensures students gain the knowledge and the skills they need at the right stages of development.

The curriculum covers critical modern topics, including human trafficking, intra familial exploitation risks, labor exploitation, digital citizenship, and the emerging threats, like sexual exploitative materials and deep fakes.

It also provides skills based content that explicitly builds protective factors such as understanding workers' rights and boundary setting. Education remains one of the most powerful tools that we have to keep our children safe, and understanding manipulation tactics, know their rights and feeling safe, and how to seek help, is incredibly important.

At Three Strands Global Foundation, we see the impact of this approach every single day in kindergarten through twelfth grade students who recognize unsafe situations in their communities and how they can be better equipped for to protect themselves. We recommend we commend Assemblyman Krell for her leadership on this issue, and I respectfully urge the Committee to support AB 1766, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. We'll now hear from any Me Too's in support. If you could use the mic at the railing.

Good morning. Kathy Van Austin on behalf of the American Association of University Women of California, cosponsor and, strong supporter of the bill. Thank you.

Tiffany Mok, on behalf of CFT, a Union of Educators and Classified Professionals, thank you so much to the brave women, and thank you for this bill.

Good morning. Sasha Horwitz, Los Angeles Unified School District in support.

Lucy Salcedo Carter with the Alameda County Office of Education in support.

Good morning, chair and members. Naomi Padron on behalf of the Computer and Communications Industry Association. We're pleased to support the bill. And also my colleague at the California Chamber of Commerce asked me to convey their support as well. Thank you

on behalf of the Computer and Communications Industry Association. We're pleased to support the bill. And also my colleague at the California Chamber of Commerce asked me to convey their support as well. Thank

Shivani Ramanathan on behalf of Poverty Patch Up in support.

Sara Galami on behalf of Let's Talk in support.

Atoria Foley, survivor advisory board member with Three Strands Global Foundation in strong support. Thank you.

Good morning. Samantha Ariza, on behalf of Three Strands Global Foundation Survivor Advocacy Board, in full support.

Good morning, Chair members. Jose Torres with TechNet in support.

Good morning, chair and members. My name is Patricia Rucker for the California Teachers Association in strong support.

Hi, Sia Patel on behalf of the three strands volunteer team. I support.

Thank you. We'll now hear from any witnesses in opposition. If there are any, are there any witnesses in opposition? Seeing no one rising, I'll turn it back to the committee. Do we have questions or comments?

Senator Gomez Reyes.

This is an easy bill to support. First, with having the author with the former prosecutor in human trafficking. Second, having CTA in support of this bill because the teachers are the ones that gonna have spend the time to to to teach this. But most especially because of your testimony. Having you experience what you experienced as a young girl.

And then using that expertise to serve and to help other students, victims and survivors as a lifelong journey is absolutely commendable. And that's the sort of testimony that makes a difference in seeing the value in putting a bill like this, before us. I I I I do wanna thank you for that. To to open yourself up to to the rest of us and to hear your story. Thank you so much. With that I would move the bill.

With that I would move the bill.

Thank you Senator Gomez Reyes. Senator Cabaldon.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you madam chair and I I'm gonna support this bill based on the the testimony and the work that the author has done and the importance of the issue and the the need and also communications and outreach that's that's happened inside my own district. This and so I look forward to the to the work on it and also the the teachers being here and others is is is extremely important.

I just wanna I I wanna flag and I know that the chair's heard me talk about this many times before, more generally about this topic with the the this committee's rules.

This this committee has a unique set of rules in the in the capital, which is we don't we don't do curriculum bills directly. This bill is completely consistent and crafted with that in mind. But we we have essentially barred ourselves. We've we've placed a little bit of a control on ourselves to say, hey, left to our own devices, each of us should be carrying bills. Hey, there should be a class on this and a class on this and a class on this.

And that's a societal phenomenon. Can't go to Thanksgiving or to the supermarket where people say, you know what? We could get rid of information in society if we just had, you know, if we just had a class that every kid had to take on it. You know, financial literacy, whatever whatever it is, you know, our for our it is very common outside of the school system for society to say, you know, education will solve everything.

And if we just had a class on it or it was part of the curriculum, it would go away.

The problem that we're trying to solve, We hear this about civics all the time. We've had no polarization in society if we just everybody just took civics and they understood the constitution. And the there's really no evidence to support that in the history of curriculum, that these that these kind of and and we we never sunset these. And we never go back and look back and say, did they actually do what we thought they were gonna do?

So we have a committee rule that say, we don't we're not gonna do that.

We're not gonna have every member, be proposing it changes to curriculum. And instead, we have this other process, which is superior, which is a commission Instructional Quality Commission composed of educators mainly, is supposed to weigh the whole the whole. Not one issue at a time, but weigh the entire curriculum. Say, oh my god, there's 17 proposals on the health curriculum issue that, and we need to figure out what, you know, what's the priority, what how how do we know.

And so we've limited ourselves to exactly this process, which is the letter we've only hear bills here that that essentially tell the IQC look at this issue.

That's what this bill does and it's very appropriate to do so. I'm only flagging this because we've we've we've seen many many many more of these bills. This bill, I'm glad, is not on consent. So we can actually have this discussion.

Is it the is this a priority enough that we say to schools and to teachers and to everybody else, like, on the ground that, yes, you should even though you feel swamped by all of our requirements and all of our rules and all of our mandates, this one is so important that you should be looking at it.

But when we when we just automatically sort of without question just pass through every single proposal that folks have because we're not actually doing it, it's going to IQC. I think we're doing it as we we don't do as the service to to to students or to the schools that are like struggling to to to to to, and teachers that are struggling to to rise above all of the the sea of mandates that we've created. So the I'm I'm glad we're hearing this bill for real.

This is a compelling case. The testimony, it's well crafted, and hope that IQC will give this the serious consideration that it needs.

And, but wanted to wanna make it wanted to be clear because I know there have been some questions about about why not every single bill that isn't is curriculum is not on consent even though we're not actually doing it, and it is because we owe it to the teachers and to the students that we actually are reviewing them here, in that context to me. And this bill, I think very appropriately is quite specific.

It'll it will do it is proposing to do things that will allow us to see if it's working, and to test it. It's not a general abstract idea, but it's a set of very specific things that we are trying to are are sure in the curriculum and that we're able to assess later.

So thank the author and the sponsors for their for their work to try to craft something that makes sense, but also to urge us to have some humility overall in our in our Sacramento based curriculum decisions that that have real consequences for teachers and students in the classroom when they when they're just trying to get through the the curriculum that would that we've that we've laid out.

So with that, I I I do intend to vote for the bill, and thank the Madam Chair for the indulgence on the topic.

Thank you, Senator Cabaldon, and appreciate you noting to the kind of rules of the committee that we have around curriculum bills. And Assemblymember Kral, I'm very supportive of your bill. My recommendation is an aye vote, and I appreciate you creating a bill that kind of follows in line with that IQC process. I wanna start off first by just acknowledging and thanking you for sharing your story today and just how powerful it is to hear, you know, directly from somebody that, you know, has experienced sexual violence.

And, the reason why, you know, Assemblymember Krell is bringing forward a bill like this is to try to prevent things like this from happening.

And I think it's really important that we center, you know, stories like yours in these discussions. These are efforts that I think are incredibly important. And what I appreciate most about your bill, Assemblywoman, is that, you're highlighting something that I've unfortunately seen grown really rapidly, which is, online tools, social media being weaponized to target children. It's been incredibly scary and how much that's changed even from my time when I was a child in school.

Last year, I I did a bill to prevent school employees who have committed sexual harassment and sexual assault from being able to move around from district to district.

But within that bill, we also had a component that advised for the superintendent to provide guidance to school districts and curricular matters so that we can begin talking with our young people about identifying grooming. I experienced child grooming when I was a student in high school. I was very fortunate to have gotten away.

It was a very scary and shocking experience, but, you know, as a 17 year old kid, I didn't understand that what had happened to me was, a inappropriate thing that an adult had done. I had thought that I had done something wrong.

And I think for a lot of children who were in that position, the immediate reaction is for them to blame themselves because they don't understand power structures and how that kind of operates. And so having these discussions with children about exploitation, about grooming is so critical so that they can understand when to tell somebody and when to warn someone else.

Or if they see something happening to one of their friends, one of their other classmates, that they understand where they can go to get their fellow student help, and so it makes all the difference in the world. So, very supportive of this effort. Appreciate you bringing this forward, Assemblywoman.

My recommendation is an aye vote, as they've shared, and I'll turn it over to you to close.

Thank you so much, madam chair, for your your your work, in this space as well, and appreciate, the comments of the other senators today. Most of all, just wanna thank the Survivor Coalition, and thank you, Emerald, for really pouring your heart out to help us better understand, how to legislate around this difficult issue. It's been such an such an honor to work with three strands and the Survivor Policy Coalition on this and other bills. So thank you. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. And we have a motion from Senator Gomez Reyes, and the motion is do passed to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Secretary, if you can call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Ochoa Bog, Aye. Cabaldon. Aye. Cabaldon, Aye. Choi Cortese.

Aye.

Menjivar. Reyes.

Aye.

Reyes, Aye. Great.

And we will put that bill on call. Thank you, Assemblywoman. We will now turn it over to Assemblymember Michelle Rodriguez, who has been patiently waiting. And Assemblymember, you can get started whenever you're ready.

Thank you, madam chair and members of the committee. As a mother of four children and now a grandmother to three young boys, I've seen firsthand how quickly the world our children are growing up and is changing. Technology and now artificial intelligence is part of everyday life for many young people. While these tools can do a lot of good, they also can expose children to new risks that may that many parents are still learning how to navigate. We are learning we are already seeing these dangers.

Recently reports show that AI tools on Elon Musk social media platform x were being used to create sexually explicit images, including images that appear to involve minors. Technology is changing fast, and unfortunately, so are the ways people can misuse it. As a parent and grandparent, I believe our jobs is not only to protect our children, but also to prepare them.

We cannot prevent every danger they may face online, but we can give them the knowledge they need to recognize harmful situations, make safe choices, and know where to get help. That is what AB 1792 is about.

AB 1792 takes a common sense approach. It does not create new mandates. Instead, it asks the Instructional Quality Commission to consider updating California's health education framework during its regular review to address modern online threats such as deepfakes, sextortion, online grooming, cyberstalking, and AI generated exploitation. By helping our education guidance keep us with new techno keep up a good techno new technology, AB 1792 gives students age appropriate information about the online challenges they may face.

It helps educators teach these issues responsibility issues responsibility and gives young people the tools they need to stay safe and in today's digital world. With me to testify is Jose Torres from TechNet.

With me to testify is Jose Torres from TechNet.

There we go.

Good morning, Chime members. Jose Torres with TechNet. We are proud to sponsor and support AB 1792. Students today build friendships, communicate, and navigate relationships both in person and online.

As digital tools have become a regular part of everyday life, the ways that students interact with one another have evolved as well. As such, our educational framework should be able to reflect these realities. AB 1792 takes a thoughtful and balanced approach by allowing the a the IQC to consider age appropriate guidance related to digital safety and dating violence as part of future updates to the health education framework. Importantly, the bill does not mandate a specific curriculum.

Instead, it creates an opportunity for educators, subject matter experts, and stakeholders to evaluate how best to provide students with information that is relevant to the environments in which they learn, communicate, and build relationships, providing students with the tools to navigate digital interactions responsibly, understand healthy relationship behaviors, recognize appropriate boundaries, and know when to seek help or support are important skills that can benefit them both inside and outside of the classroom.

AB 1792 is also intentionally flexible. Technology and communication platforms continue to continue to evolve, and this approach allows educational guidance to evolve alongside them through the existing curriculum development process. By helping ensure that future health education discussions remain relevant and responsive to students' experiences, AB 1792 supports supports the goal of preparing young people to engage safely, responsibly, and confidently in today's digital world. For these reasons, TechNet respectfully urges an aye vote on the bill, and I thank you for your time.

Thank you for your presentation. We'll now hear from any me too's in support. You can use the mic at the railing.

Good morning, madam chair and members. My name is Patricia Rucker. I'm here to support this bill. I was a classroom teacher when telephones were still nailed to the wall, and I just need to say that the times have changed, not just because of technology, but there's an urgency of now that requires us to pay attention to this subject matter and this need for students. Thank you very much for this bill.

Good morning. Catherine Squire on behalf of the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls in Support.

Good morning. Sasha Horwitz, Los Angeles Unified School District in support.

Lucy Salcedo Carter with the Alameda County Office of Education in support.

Anybody else? Alrighty. And do we have any witnesses in opposition? Any witnesses in opposition? Seeing no one rising, I'll turn it back to the committee.

Do we have any comments or questions from committee members? Yes. Senator Gomez Reyes.

Excuse me. Call the next person.

I'll make some comments and if you could pass that over to her. I am I'm very supportive of the bill, Assemblymember Rodriguez, for the reasons that I stated before earlier. I know Assemblymember Krell's bill is focused on, you know, sexual human trafficking. Yours here is focused on, dating violence, and domestic violence, which is just as important of an issue.

I used to work at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights running an after school program, and, unfortunately, you know, have seen students go through these types of events.

And the reality is is that our young people need more information to be able to navigate these things and to understand where to get help. And so, I remember being in high school, and we phased out what was known as health and safety, which was which was our sexual ed requirement programs back in 2009. And, you know, it was it was it was not a good thing for our students.

They they need to have that kind of education in schools because oftentimes, it's not necessarily a conversation that students are having at home. So my recommendation is an aye vote.

I'll turn it over to Senator Gomez Reyes to to make her comments.

Thank you. Thank you to the author. For for it it's hard to believe you should you're a grandmother already but to the author as the mother and grandmother. As in the prior prior bill, I also thank CTA because having them weigh in on bills that eventually are going to be taught by the teachers is extremely important. It'll go through the process but eventually it's the teachers that will have to take on and teach these these this curriculum.

So I sincerely appreciate that. Thank you to you also, TechNet. With that I would move the bill.

Thank you and we now have a motion from Senator Gomez Reyes. Assembly member Rodriguez, would you like to close?

Yeah. Thank you. And with that, my Jacob just graduated from high school last week and the other one's going to high school, so thank you, Senator. And with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. And so the motion for Assemblymember Rodriguez's bill AB 1792 is do passed to the Senate Appropriations Committee Secretary. Can you call the roll?

[Roll Call]

Aye.

Perez, aye. Ochoa Bog? No. Ochoa Bog, no. Cabaldon?

Aye. Cabaldon, aye. Choi. Cortesi Menjivar? Reyes?

Aye.

Reyes, Aye.

And we will put that bill on call. Thank you so much, Assemblymember.

Thank you.

Let's go ahead and do consent because we do not have authors right now. We have a motion from Senator Gomez Reyes. Secretary, can you call the roll?

[Roll Call]

Perez, aye. Ochoa Bog? Aye. Ochoa Bog, aye. Cabaldon?

Aye.

Aye. Cabaldon, aye. Choi Cortese Menjivar

okay.