August 28, 2026 · Education · 2,420 words · 9 speakers · 27 segments
The Senate Education Committee has come to order. We have one bill on today's agenda, SB 685 by Senator Cortese. We are hearing this bill pursuant to Senate Rule 29.10 D because it was amended in the Assembly to replace its contents. This is the first time this bill has been heard by this committee in its current form. Ministers are asked to limit their testimony to two minutes to ensure the committee is able to complete today's agenda in a timely fashion. We do have a quorum, so I'm going to have Secretary call the roll very quickly.
Senators Perez? Here. Perez here. Ochoa Bogues? Here.
Ochoa Bogues here. Cabaldon? Here.
Cabaldon here.
Choi? Cortese? Here.
Cortese here. Gonzalez? Here.
The quorum has been established, and welcome, Senator Cortese. You can get started whenever you'd like.
Thank you, Madam Chair and members. We appreciate the opportunity to present SB 685 at this time. I'm going to keep my remarks a little bit minimized and let our witness, who I'll introduce in a moment, say what she needs to say. And, of course, we'd both be available for questions. This bill has to do with a Ninth Circuit decision, Loffman v. California Department of Education, which basically changed the way we would deal with individualized education programs that used to be limited to non-sectarian schools. That designation is no longer something that we can sustain from the standpoint of the courts. So a lot of work has been done. A lot of work has been done by the California Department of Education to bring and help craft this legislation that not only aligns with the court decision, but makes it such that all schools, sectarian schools as well, can provide this special education so long as they comply with the requirements. That are outlined in the bill and that have traditionally been been required in our world of education here in California. So I'm With that going to turn it over to Kimberly Rosenberger on behalf of who's here on behalf of the California Department of Education And let me just say it appropriate time and respectfully request your aye vote
Thank You madam chair members Kimberly Rosenberger deputy superintendent public instruction for external affairs here on behalf of the state superintendent we are very appreciative of the work of the senator and also both committees this is addressing a court decision for a very small population of students non-public schools serve less than 1% of students these are students with incredibly high needs that the LEAs are unable to serve we make sure that we're maintaining the extension of the LEA and what they're serving and so by making sure we expand to nonsectarian. We're also carrying over the Lofman decision of ensuring that they get a secular education and they're providing the state mandated LEA curriculum that is appropriate for the school and reflective of the contract they hold. This bill just carries over existing protections and safeguards for students particularly around credentialing fingerprinting and reporting mechanisms We were really sure to be thoughtful on making sure that the student population that is the most vulnerable was protected and that we maintain California Constitution Education Code protections and state other state laws. Thank you. Thank you for your
presentation. Do we have any Me Too's here to register support? if you could use the mic.
Cassie Manzini on behalf of the California School Employees Association in support. Thank you.
Mitch Steiger with CFT also in support.
Great. Thank you. Do we have anybody here in opposition? Any opposition? Please rise. Seeing no in rising, I'll turn it back to the committee. Do we have committee comments or questions? We have a motion by Senator Gonzalez.
Senator Ochoa Bogue has a question. I do. Sorry, I just got the analysis right now, so I'm trying to read really quickly to understand. I'm kind of curious as to how this looks in the real world. Because I know we've got the philosophical part and we've got the theory part, and then we have the practical part. So it says here that the Pacific Justice Institute in its formal letter, a secular view is an antithesis to a religious view. While both may be respectful and neutral, they are not compatible with one another. This is a thinly veiled attempt to restrict aid to schools which allow sectarian content. how do you plan on doing how does this work because I can't see a parent choosing a sectarian school and then having or being able to follow this I don't see how this works I don't think the burden falls on the parent it's that the school those schools will now come into alignment with what non-sectarian schools have been doing all along
But let me defer to the witness to answer more technically.
It's a school. It's an education institutional requirement to comply with state law. And I'll echo. This isn't a school choice situation. This is when a school cannot meet the IEP of the student, often because they have significant needs, they will contract with a school that has those additional services to best ensure the student is getting their public right to an education. So it's a contract between the LEA and the school. And in the Loughman decision, it did say we have the term nonsectarian for certified public schools. They were saying that's an unfair barrier to say no religious schools can apply, but they must provide a secular education. And so multiple times throughout the court decision, they say being religious shouldn't be a barrier, but they still have to provide the state mandated secular education. education. And so if it's in conflict, that's because there still is maintained the separation of church and state. It's just saying that because you identify as a religious institution, that shouldn't be an immediate prohibition for you being certified as a public school. If you want to offer these services, and you can do so in a secular manner per the Lofman decision, then you should be able to apply. As the language was drafted previously, if you wanted to offer consistent with state mandate, secular education, you weren't able to apply because of your religious identification. That is what we're addressing here.
Okay, so I'm struggling because I literally just got the language, and so I can't read everything right now to be able to have it profound. So I'm not going to be supporting this bill today. It's one of the reasons why I'm always really concerned about bills coming in at the very last minute for us to be able to, after we're voting on hundreds of bills, this end, but I know that this is part of the process we're able to do that. But I am extremely concerned about bringing this bill right for not having gone through the process and having the time So I going to vote no today on this bill and I look forward to having more discussions on it in the near future
Thank you. Senator Cabaldon.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to support it. I understand the reason also for the lateness. It's just that this bill couldn't have been introduced at the beginning of the year because there was no settlement in place on the Ninth Circuit case. So the timing, I would prefer something other than the third to the last day myself. But in general, I think that this one is driven by the timing of the court decision and then the ensuing settlement. And just to make the finer point on the issue of the sectarian question, because I think the opposition letter also had this a bit wrong. So the opposition letter did say that this essentially gives with one hand and takes away with the other and it makes it worse by saying by essentially having the requirement for non-sectarian services but that is I think the as the witnesses said that's not what's going on here the under under under current law that needs to be fixed a sectarian school cannot cannot sign a contract with the state to provide IEP services this bill would allow that to occur and instead say that the The services being provided under the contract with the state have to be nonsectarian. That does not mean that the school can't offer sectarian education. It can, but not as part of the contract that the taxpayers of California are paying for. That seems to me like a very surgical approach to try to both comply with the court case and what the court case was about, which was assuring that sectarian schools, if they can provide the nonsectarian services, they should be able to do so. So this seems like a much, like it opens the door for far more sectarian schools to be able to provide these services, which is a value, I think, for kids and families around the state, while still assuring the core objective that that original law was about. So I'm intending to support it today. I would have liked to have more time as well, but I think the rationale here is very compelling.
Sorry, could I just ask for one question?
Yes, Senator Chobot.
I apologize, but just, sorry, curiosity. So does this mean that the schools will be able to still provide everything else that they would otherwise provide, as long as they're providing the secular educational requirements?
As I read it, yes, because the school, if I'm attending a Catholic school, and it has a Catholic education, whatever, as part of that program, that, yes, they can provide that, but not under the contract with the state. So the state's contracting for non-sectarian services, just like it always has before. But this bill says, but I can go to this school, which before I couldn't. Now I can go to this school, and the school can be reimbursed for the non-sectarian direct IEP services that are in place. We don't know exactly how the schools are going to navigate that segregation, if you will. I mean, there's ideology about it's better, you know, in schools right now, in public schools right now. There's always a debate going on that you want more inclusion and you want all the kids in exactly the same curriculum. This probably doesn't lend itself to that very well with a religious school, but it doesn't prohibit the religious school from navigating this by having a separate sectarian curriculum. regardless of what's going on in the rest of the school. I mean, this is not attempting to tell them how to do that. It's just basically saying if you want one of these contracts, which you've never been able to get before, ever, then you're going to have to show, you just going to have to comport with the separation of church and state issues that come before all other schools in publicly funded education here in California So I don know
Okay, so even more so, so the question of the logistics, it would be important to talk to the stakeholders to see what this looks like once again in practice. But I can see the huge conundrum that we find ourselves in. So even more so, I will not be able to support the bill, but I'm really, really intrigued about ensuring that I moving forward have conversations with with our schools to to see what this will look like in practice so thank you for bringing this forward and for at least starting the conversations on this issue grateful
that for the discussion and senator Cortese thank you for bringing for this bill you're responding to a very important court decision that's happened which is part of the reason why this is a gut amendment was heard in the Assembly Education Committee and so I just want to make a note of that and the only reason this wasn't on the agenda earlier in the week is we just didn't have your amendments quite yet processed so it was just a timeline piece but I'm very supportive and recommend an IVO and I'll let you close well let me just close
by saying thank you very much for your engagement for the committee's engagement understanding and support of what's going on here we felt the same way in the other house going in and having people understand exactly what's going on here. I'm optimistic for whatever it's worth, and it's probably nothing to do with persuading you on the vote today, but honestly based on my own lived experience of public schools having had, and some still do, the practice of pulling children out for religious education during the course of a day and religious schools being able to separate out non-religious education during the course of their day but again the bill doesn't dictate anything in terms of how to do that and hopefully there'll be good navigation on that in the future in the meantime in order to comport with the new laws we would respectfully ask for your I vote thank you we have two motions by Senator Gonzales and Senator
Cabalden secretary can you call the roll oh and the motion is that the assembly amendments be concurred in senators press hi Oh Chobo no Cabalden Cabalden I join Cortese Cortese I Gonzalez Gonzalez I raise raise I will put that bill on call thank you so much Senator Cortese and I know many of our members are going to be stepping away now that we've finished but this is our last committee hearing for the year and the end of the two-year session and I just want to give a very big thank you to the staff that have done such a tremendous job this year the entire team it's been really really incredible. We've heard hundreds of bills and I think everybody should just be really really proud of all of the team and the consultants and the staff that have been working so hard on this committee. So thank you all so much. So we will actually be closing the roll and the Senate Education Committee is, oh, and And the vote on SB 685 will be a 5-1 vote, so that bill is out. And we will go ahead and adjourn this committee. Thank you all so much.