Senate Education Committee

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 3, AB 1569, item number 5, AB 1590, item number 6, AB 1626, Item number 7, AB 1653. Item number 9, 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, IB 1159 by Assemblymember Addis, who's here.

Thank you. Is this on? Yeah.

Becca Kramer 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 ed tech 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 ed tech company asks 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 from 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

Thank you for your presentation. Before I call up Me Too's, I'm going to go ahead and call the roll since we now have a quorum. Secretary, if you could please call the roll. Senators Perez.

Ochoa Boog.

Choi.

Cortese.

Menjavar.

Thank you. We'll go ahead and hear Me Too's and support now. If you could please use the mic at the railing. Thank you, Chair and Members. Elmer Lizardo 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 Brachman with the California School Employees Association in support. Thanks. Good morning. Natalie Postel on behalf of Lieutenant Governor Lenny Kunalakis 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 Employee Association, Students Deserve, Children's Advocacy Institute, California National Organization for Women, the California LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network, Genders and Sexualities Alliance Network, Equal Rights Advocates, Indivisible California State Strong, Asian Solidarity Collective California Work and Family Coalition Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California Courage California Oakland Privacy Tech Equity Action Alliance for Californians for Community Empowerment Action, Californians Together, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of California, Kapora 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 no 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. Anybody else in opposition? Any other Me Too's in opposition? Sarah Nascido, 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. Anybody else? Alrighty, I'll turn it back now to the committee. Do we have any questions or comments from committee members? Yes, Senator Gomez 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 um so basically what we're just trying to um make sure here is that regular student uh communications are uh still allowed to continue so um being able to send book lists to college students um those type of conversations reminders There's 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 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. Having served with the assembly member, I know that's an issue. I thought it was a more serious issue. Yeah, 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 Cobaltin?

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, Assemblymember 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 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 is an iVote. I appreciate the work that you've done in this space.

Thank you, Assemblymember Addis. And do we have a motion for this item? We have a motion by Senator Gomez Reyes, and the motion is due pass to the Senate Privacy, Digital Technologies, and Consumer Protections Committee. Secretary, can you call the roll? Senators Perez? Aye. Perez, aye. Ochoa Bog? Not voting. Cabaldon? Choi? Not voting. Cortese? Aye. Cortese, aye. Menjivar? Reyes? Aye. Reyes, aye. 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 million because it is recognized that our part-time faculty are the foundation of our community college system. Yet, we're doing crucial work without health care insurance from their employer. Districts that offer qualifying coverage to their part faculty receive 50 reimbursement of the premium costs and the district can receive 100 of their premium reimbursement if they provide part faculty with the coverage that equals in quality the cost of their full 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 health care 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 $69.6 million of the available $200 million 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 the 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. FACC is proud to sponsor AB 1171. Dr. Patel has laid out the core problem well in 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 FACC'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, health care is not something that can be built once per year. need confidence that state dollars will remain available and faculty representatives need confidence that local negotiations can produce sustainable benefits. AB 1171 helps create the confidence by keeping part-time faculty health care 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 and healthcare are 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 reaches them. Thank you for your consideration, and fact respectfully request 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 Mock 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 Austin on behalf of the American Association of University Women of California in support. Thank you. We'll now hear from any witnesses in opposition. 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 have 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 million per year. Data for this year, because it is a reimbursement, is showing that it could be $70 to $80 million that's going out this year. It could go up to as high as $90 to $100 million 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 100% reimbursement does show up and will work so we are concerned about the that premature nature of it we're also concerned about the fact that the money does stay within the community college space the call the legislature and administration decides how to use those dollars as they think best and we think it does this bill would put an additional step on that process for you to manage those dollars and then finally we do oh do you acknowledge it is intently which we do think it it is a significant pressure on our districts to negotiate by 2030 as well. We just don't know what kind of money will be available by 2030 if the program is succeeding and will continue to grow as well going forward. And we are seeing a number of districts that are negotiating in 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 and members. Kyle Howell on behalf of the Association of California Community College Administrators and respectful opposition. Thank you. Thank you. Saying we have no one else, we'll return it back to the committee. Do we have questions and comments from any of the committee members? Yes, Senator Gomez-Reyes.

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, are 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.

And I hear you.

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 kindergarten. That means we have less than $200 billion, 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. All right.

I understand the situation. And I appreciate Dr. Patel's work on this issue, and it is a very respectful position, but 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 something that 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 this pot, 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 Gomez-Reyes. Senator Chobo?

But I believe Senator Cobaldin is over there ready to give some feedback. Would love to hear what he has to say on this issue.

Thank you, Senator Choa Bogue. I'm going to turn it over to Senator Cobaldin.

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 in any of them, didn't have any benefits and all that. And 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 exhausted the vending machines on campus. And so I know very real what this looks like. And I was vice chancellor of the community college system now 24, 23 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, 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 2 and it's going to go back to normal whatever it's it this is this is where we're at and it's and it's not going to change and so we It is incumbent on districts to recognize that reality themselves. This isn't our obligation to pay for. Any right-thinking, well-managed community college district should have arrived at this on their own. 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 and and it's it's doing its job I think it's 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 you know that because this is not enough this is nowhere near enough money let's be honest to cover part-time that's a cover health insurance for every part-time faculty member in California 200 million dollars not anywhere near that so hopefully it will be oversubscribed and that in district should be moving in that direction so I was I think I pre pre notified the author I think I might I probably will lay off on this one I'm gonna vote for it the the the districts need to take this seriously we can still in the budget process the our chair and our vice chair can still in the budget subcommittee override all of this if they want to in 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 it's not we still have the discretion to unappropriate These funds, if $199 million of $200 million is sitting in the account unspent, we can still sweep it, even if the statute says otherwise, that's what trailer bills are for. So I don't think it's quite the end of the world. So I 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. 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 to 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 health care 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 health care coverage to part-time and multi-district part-time CCD faculty. I respectfully ask your aye vote today. Thank you.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair 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, 70% 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 90% 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 Hiannosa, youth leader and member of the Pinotville Band of Pomo Indians and Chad Mays offering testimony on behalf of the Soboba tribal government.

Thank you for your presentation. We'll now hear any Me Too's in support, if you can use the mic at the railing.

Now we will hear from any witnesses in opposition. Do we have any witnesses in opposition? Seeing no one rising, any me-tos. All righty, we will turn it back to the committee. Do we have any questions or comments from committee members? Senator Cobaltin? Yeah, 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 data is accurate 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 the school into the classroom as well but I just had 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 both in California but nationally because it could be a California student who's a who's a enrolled member 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 an example if you're the school admin the the counselor at the school or a teacher or 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 all be by computer where you have a drop-down or how are you imagining this would actually work in practice given the given both a number and the distinction between federally recognized and not recognized and how much school would grapple with that no thank you for the question there's already questions that are asked to students moving forward and the analysis did a good job at laying

Yeah, I totally get that. But it's what that next question is. So under the current framework, when you say are you Hispanic or Latino, and then after that it's race. But the list of races is pretty small, you know, four or five or six, depending on the form. And there may be – we deal with this in the API community as well, right, because we're trying to decipherate 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 100 of them, or for tribal affiliations, federally recognized ones, you know, 600 or more. Or like how, you know, is it, do you just fill in a blank? 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 follow-up question.

and according I know this is getting nerdy but this is I represent the Senate on the cradle to career data system as well and these are these are nice and I ran the data system for the community as well just trying to try to make sure we're getting it's going to deliver on the promise and so it's important that data be consistent across schools and what have you and so 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 take care of this but but that so if everybody fills in a blank line by hand then you you may get a lot of different um a lot of different answers that don't match up to a common rubric statewide and if we want to use the data in order to make policies and to provide reports back to tribes and to CTE and to families that's going to be important so it's I'm not I'm supportive of the bill for sure don't but I want to 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 it at the University was the when if you and in my district there plenty of folks that are are have trace their ancestry into two tribes or more mm-hmm right and so this has been an ongoing debate in the census and it's in and we do do this for race now where you can say two or more but you know you don't necessarily name them so these kinds of issues I think you know I hope you know as what goes out of this committee we'll get into just the guts of how this would actually work so that we're giving there'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 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 want to consider is it doesn't require CDE to engage in any tribal consultation, and CDE, 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 would likely show the same view that that should be a CDE should be required to consult with with with the with the tribal communities in California as they're developing the guidelines for how the reporting is going to occur. Thank you. Thank you for those questions and statements and through the chair.

Yes, Senator Chobok. Thank you. So I also had a couple of concerns about how do you identify as, you know, when you have a multicultural-ly identified person 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. Their kids, they should be attended to and taken care of regardless of where they identify. But I do have a question. When the students are identifying themselves, how do they decide how much and where they were going to identify themselves, especially if they're mixed students? How do you guide these students to decide, okay, do you identify as a Latino or Native American or Caucasian or Asian or black? How do the students define and identify themselves when they're mixed on these identification as they're clicking everything down? That's my biggest concern is when these kids are, especially in California where many of our children are multi-ethnic, how do you how do they how are we going to guide these students to do 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 kind of 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

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 going to know who they are and what tribe 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 do they prioritize based on their ethnic background? For instance, 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 students who are literally maybe 25, 25, 25, 25 of different ethnicities, how do we guide the students to prioritize 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 what I'm trying to figure out, logistically speaking. What is that going to look like for the student?

I don't think – we can talk. We're friends, for the record. We're like brother and sister. The individual would actually know. So we can talk about this. I think – I don't think we're – I don't think either you're understanding where I'm trying to get at. 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 going to know we have genetic tests. We're going to know, you know, where we are. Not for the tribes, not for the, for the, but what I'm saying is when these kids are multi-ethnic, we're going to have a system that's going to prioritize, you know, who they identify as. And when they're multi-ethnic, how do they decide, how do we guide them to decide which one they're going to prioritize when they're looking and clicking at those boxes? How many can they click? And, you know, how do they, the logistics of it is what I think is going to be a little difficult for some of our kids who are multi-ethnic. That's my concern that I have. I'm just going to be curious as to what that's going to look like in the practical part of it. And then the modalities part of it is looking at the programs. I wanted some examples of the programs that these children would be missing out if they weren't identifying. That's my thing. But we can have further discussions one-on-one. All right.

Yeah. Thank you. And I do just want to note 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 and 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 our of the individuals that are completing these 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. You 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. 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 our 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 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 want to see this disaggregated. I worked with the 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 I vote and Oh senator Gomez Reyes has a comment that she would like to make.

where it talks about, are you Hispanic, Latino? And then under that, yes, then no matter what you say, you still Latino Hispanic But if you say yes I am or no I not then you go are you Native American Are you API And then the drop down from each of those And if it's only Native American, then you're Native American, and you put your tribal affiliation. And I think that it's not going to be easy, as my colleague Senator Cabaldon has said. It may not be the easiest thing at first. 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 try to find the best way to do that so that it maybe it is just writing it in because 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. And quite frankly, it's something we should have done a long time ago 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 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, Assemblymember Ramos, to close. I just want to thank you, and thank you for truly the discussions, enlightening, on where we're going. And certainly we have to start somewhere, and we welcome 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 Native Americans, that have been overlooked. I ask for your aye vote, Madam Chair. Thank you, Assemblymember Ramos. And that motion is due pass to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Do we have a motion from Senator Gomez-Riaz? We have a motion. Secretary, can you call the roll? Senators Perez, Aye. Perez, Aye. Ochobog, Aye. Ochobog, Aye. Cabaldon, Aye. Cabaldon, Aye. Choi. Cortese, Aye. Cortese, Aye. Menjivar, Reyes, Aye. Reyes, Aye. 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 20 of children experience mental health issues and three out of every 10 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 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 the safety courses do not include any instruction about how to support student athletes' mental health. 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. I 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. I 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. I would ask for your support on the measure. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now hear witnesses or Me Too's if you want to use the mic at the railing. Leah Barrows on behalf of California Hospital Association in support. Good morning. Sarek Kaminsky 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 we 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 due passed to the Senate Appropriations Committee and the motion is by Senator Gomez Reyes. 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, aye. Menjavar? Reyes? Aye. Reyes, aye. Excellent. We will put that bill on call. Thank you so much, Assemblymember Pacheco. 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 Ms. 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 10 years ago. It was AB 1227 by Assemblymember 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 great appropriate. Fast forward 10 years later, and we need an update. There's a lot of new things going on. The two most important things about this bill, I would say, is number one, it extends curriculum K through 12. Current law starts in seventh grade. Unfortunately, it's just not early enough. I prosecuted a case involving 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 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. Ms. Emerald? Good morning. My name is Emerald Merubio, representing California Survivor Coalition, a proud sponsor of AB 1766. 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 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 swim pools. At the time, I didn't understand that it was a tactic for him to gradually conditioned me to be a target object of his pedophilic fantasies. He preyed 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 going to be the one in big trouble if you ever tell. From age six to 12, I endeared 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 going to get out of this? I didn't know at the time that trading sex 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's 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 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 when I how or why I went from this 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 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 how or why? How did you get your basic needs met? I urge you to support and pass AB 1766 as it would expand human trafficking prevention and 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 intrafamilial trafficking, build some safety skills, and recommend annual training for school staff. Thank you. Thank you. We do have a two-minute time period, so I'd let you go over, but if you could be brief in your comments, I would certainly appreciate it. Thank you. Absolutely. Good morning, Chair Perez and members of the committee. My name is Ashley Bryant. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Three Strands Global Foundation. Actually, Assemblymember Krell spoke of AB 1227. We were the original sponsor of that bill with Assemblyman Bonta at the time, so it's been 10 years. And over the last 16 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've learned by working directly with young people ages 5 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 12th 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, intrafamilial 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 into 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 12th grade students who recognize unsafe situations in their communities and how they can be better equipped 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, co-sponsor and strong supporter of the bill. you Tiffany mock 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 Horowitz Los Angeles Unified School District in support Lucy Salcedo 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. 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 Ruiza on behalf of Three Strands Global Foundation Survivor Advocacy Board in full support Good morning Chair and 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. 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, having the author with the former prosecutor in human trafficking. Second, having CTA in support of this bill, because the teachers are ones are going to have to spend the time 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. That's the sort of testimony that makes a difference in seeing the value in putting a bill like this before us. I do want to thank you for that, to open yourself up to the rest of us and to hear your story. Thank you so much. With that, I would move the bill. Thank you, Senator Gomez-Reyes. Senator Cabaldon? Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to support this bill based on the testimony and the work that the author has done and the importance of the issue and the need and also communications and outreach that's happening inside my own district. And so I look forward to the work on it and also the teachers being here and others is extremely important. I just want to flag, and I know the chair's heard me talk about this many times before, more generally about this topic. This committee's rules, this committee has a unique set of rules in the capital, which is we don't do curriculum bills directly. This bill is completely consistent and crafted with that in mind. But we have essentially barred ourselves. We've placed a little bit of a control on ourselves to say, hey, left to our own devices, each of us will 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. on. You can't go to Thanksgiving or to the supermarket where people say, you know what, we could get rid of misinformation in society if we just had a class that every kid had to take on it financial literacy whatever it is it very common outside of the school system for society to say 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 there's really no evidence to support that in the history of curriculum that these that these kind of 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 rules 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 committee instructional quality commission composive educators mainly is supposed to weigh the whole the whole not one issue at a time but way the entire curriculum say oh my god there's 17 proposals on the health curriculum issue and we need to figure out what no what's the priority what how do we know and so we've limited ourselves to exactly this process which is the letter we will only hear bills here 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 see 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 there 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 the service to to students or to the schools that are like struggling 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 glad we're hearing this bill for real um this is a compelling case the testimony it's well crafted and hope that IQC will give this the serious consideration that it needs. But I wanted to be clear because I know there have been some questions about why not every single bill that 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. And this bill, I think very appropriately, is quite specific. 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 assure in the curriculum and that we're able to assess later. So I thank the author and the sponsors for their work to try to craft something that makes sense, but also to urge us to have some humility overall in our Sacramento-based curriculum decisions that have real consequences for teachers and students in the classroom when they're just trying to get through the curriculum that we've laid out. So with that, I do intend to vote for the bill and thank 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 Crowell I'm very supportive of your bill my recommendation is an I vote and I appreciate you creating a bill that kind of follows in line with that IQC process I want to 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 assembly member 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 and 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 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 an 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 are 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 I'm very supportive of this effort. Appreciate you bringing this forward, Assemblywoman. My recommendation is an aye vote, as I've shared, and I'll turn it over to you to close. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, for your work in this space as well, and appreciate the comments of the other senators today. Most of all, just want to 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 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. Thank you. And we have a motion from Senator Gomez Reyes. And the motion is due past the Senate Appropriations Committee. Secretary, if you can call the roll. Senators Perez. Aye. Perez, aye. Ochoa Bogues, Ochoa Bogues, Cabaldon, Cabaldon, I, Choi, Cortese, Mendivar, Reyes, I. 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 rating. 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 have seen first hand how quickly the world our children are growing up in 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 many parents are still learning how to navigate. We are already seeing these dangers. Recently reports showed that AI tools on Elon Musk's 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 job 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 deep fakes, sextortion, online grooming, cyber stalking, and AI generated exploitation. By helping our education guidance keep up with new technology, AB 1792 gives students age appropriate information about the online challenges they may face. It helps educators teach these 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. Good morning, channel 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 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. and communication platforms 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 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 now hear from any me in support You can use the mic at the railing Good morning Madam Chair and members My name is Patricia Rucker I 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 needs 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 all righty 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

Thank you. Thank you to the author. It's hard to believe you're a grandmother already, but to the author as the mother and grandmother. As in the 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 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, Assemblymember Rodriguez. Would you like to close?

Thank you. And so the motion for Assemblymember Rodriguez bill AB 1792 is due past to the Senate Appropriations Committee Secretary can you call the roll Senators Perez Aye Perez aye Ochoa Bog. No. Ochoa Bog, no. Cabaldon.

Cabaldon, aye.

Cortese.

Reyes. Aye.

Thank you.

Senators Perez? Aye.

Cabaldon?

Cabaldon, aye.

Aye.

Good morning, Chair and members. Sasha Horowitz on behalf of the Los Angeles Unified School District. As Assemblymember Fong shared, AB 1809 is a simple bill addressing a project delivery method for school construction and procurement. It extends the sunset on the job order contracting or JOC statutes used by both school districts and community colleges, along with some other technical cleanups. JOC is an optional cost-effective procedure for bidding public works projects known for accelerating completion, reducing costs, and contracting complexity while following all competitive bidding laws. The JOC law preserves a more efficient and cost-effective process for addressing maintenance and construction needs by allowing a school district or community college to effectively bundle individual maintenance and construction contracts into a single master contract. The service terms are negotiated in advance, ensuring that contractors are available and ready to start work as soon as services are needed. Finally, these contracts are paid locally and do not have any state costs. With that, we respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Great. We'll do Me Too's now in support. If you could use the mic at the railing. Madam Chair and members, Mike West on behalf of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, in support. Thank you Chair and members, Mark McDonald on behalf of the Los Angeles Community College District, in support. Good morning, Dan Merwin on behalf of the California School Boards Association, in support. Good morning, Michelle on behalf of California Association of School Business Officials, in support. Excellent. Any of those witnesses in opposition, if you could please rise. Good morning, Madam Chair. Richard Markison on behalf of the Western Electrical Contractors Association in opposition. Weka supports job order contracting. JOC is a valuable procurement tool because it allows school districts to complete routine projects, as the author described, more quickly with less administrative burden and sometimes at a lower cost. What we oppose is the condition that the legislature has attached to it. Under current law, a school district or a community college district cannot use job order contracting unless it first enters into a project labor agreement that applies not just to the JOC contracts, but to every district construction project. That means that before a school district can use this contracting method designed to save money and time, they must first negotiate a labor agreement with the construction unions. That's a fundamental contradiction. The purpose of JOC is to reduce complexity. The existing statute adds complexity. The purpose of JOC is to reduce costs. Yet the available research on project labor agreements raises serious questions about cost impacts. A RAND study of Los Angeles measure HHH found that the PLA increased construction costs on affected projects by 15 percent. At the same time PLAs reduced participation by many qualified merit shop contractors including small businesses DVBEs and local contractors that may rely on shock contracts as an entry point into public works And perhaps most importantly you should be cautious about using the experience of a few large urban districts to dictate policy for every school and community college district in California. Los Angeles is not Lassen County. It's not Modoc County. It's not Solano County. Los Angeles is not the dozens of small and rural districts that depend on a limited pool of local contractors maintain their schools. Telling every district in California that they must adopt a district-wide PLA to access JOC is paternalism at its worst. It assumes Sacramento knows better than local elected school boards how to manage their own construction projects. If JOC truly delivers value, districts should be free to use it without first obtaining permission through a labor agreement. We can respectfully ask that the committee amend the bill to remove the PLA mandates and restore JOC as a procurement tool available to all school districts and all qualified contractors. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Do we have anybody else here in opposition? Seeing no one rising, I'll turn it back to the committee. Do we have any questions or comments? All righty. Assemblymember Fong, I'm supportive of your bill. My recommendation is an aye vote, and I will turn it over to you to close. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you for the conversations here today. And in terms of the project labor agreement provision that was added in 2015 with Assembly Bill 1431, so I really appreciate the context and really appreciate the conversation here today. And with that, I would certainly ask for an aye vote. And so the recommendation or the motion for AB 1809 is due pass to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Do we have a motion?

We have a motion by Senator Cabaldon. Secretary, if you can call the roll. Senators Perez.

Perez, aye. Ochoa Bog.

Cabaldon, aye. Choi, Cortese, Menjivar, Reyes. Great. All righty, and we will put that bill on call. Thank you so much, Assemblymember Fong. I know Assemblymember Wallace was here, but Assemblymember Berman is next. I will let you determine who you would like to go first. All righty. I want to thank my colleague from Palm Springs. Palm Springs? Palm Springs. And you can get started whenever you're ready, Assemblymember Berman. Thank you, Chair and Senators. AB2121. responds to the Trump administration's systematic dismantling of federal student success programs by removing barriers that prevent community colleges from backfilling this loss in federal funding. Specifically, this bill would provide local control to community colleges by allowing them to backfill the federal cuts to minority-serving institutions and TRIO programs. By temporarily excluding those backfill dollars from the 50% law that requires community college districts to spend at least half of their unrestricted funding on classroom instructors, community colleges can preserve these federally defunded student support programs. Importantly, this bill includes multiple safeguards for faculty, such as not reducing spending on classroom instructors. AB 2121 also adds transparency requirements through annual district certifications and includes a sunset after five years, or upon restoration of federal funding, whichever occurs first. Finally in order to prevent the immediate disruption of essential student support services that are critical for our most vulnerable and historically marginalized students This bill would take effect immediately and I respectfully ask for your aye vote And I'm joined today by Chancellor Bradley Davis of the West Valley Mission Community College District and Leilani Huerta-Hernandez, President of the Associated Students of West Valley College.

Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members. My name is Leilani Huerta Hernandez, and I am here today because this bill isn't just policy to me. It's personal. West Valley College is a Hispanic-serving institution, but that is more than just a designation. It reflects who we are. The majority of our students are Latino, Asian, American, Pacific Islander, and students of color. Many of us come from immigrant families and are first generation, navigating systems that were never built with us in mind. The federal programs at stake exist for students like us. They exist because someone recognized that getting into college is not the same thing as getting through it. I am a proud first generation Latina student. When I started college, I didn't know how to register for classes or apply for financial aid. I was doing it all on my own and at one point I almost didn make it I came very close to dropping out during my first year and without the support from programs like these I would not be here today I work with students who need support every day who balance school work and family Students who want to succeed but cannot do it alone. When the federal government walked away from us, our district stepped up. They committed their own dollars to make sure students like me would not lose the support from the people and the services who help us continue. All we are asking is that the state not stand in the way of that commitment. This bill is not just a number and it's not just a piece of paper. It is support for students who have been told their whole lives that they cannot make it. Your decision today is an investment in us, in our futures, in our ability to walk across that stage at graduation with pride and say we made it. And when we do, it will be because of people like you who believed in us enough to invest in our success. On behalf of the students of West Valley College, I respectfully ask for your support. Thank you.

One of my favorite topics. Senator Tomas Reyes? Hispanic-serving institutions, black-serving institutions, AAPI, which will soon be brought before this committee by Assemblymember Fong designation as well. These are important designations. And Leilani, I really appreciate your testimony. your testimony, I think, when you talk about navigating systems that were never meant for students like us, that's exactly right. And many of us have experienced it years ago. And the fact that you are still experiencing it this many years later, for me, is a problem. We are in the crosshairs, as you mentioned, of the attacks by the federal government on our students, on our students of color primarily, and finding ways to try to make sure that these programs that have been so successful continue. Just while we wait two years or wait less maybe, we'll soon know. But this is what we have to do sometimes. The bill is a very important bill. I do want to acknowledge, though, the opposition. I think that finding ways, we do have to make sure that we are protecting our faculty, their salaries, their benefits. And I think that as your discussions continue, that is something that is extremely important. I said on many bills before about for me how important it is to hear from CTA on these bills to hear from faculty because in the end they're the ones that are teaching our students. It's not the administrators. It is the faculty that are teaching our students. So I do ask that those conversations continue extremely important for us as we navigate these difficult times. But number one has to be our students. finding ways to protect our students and to provide the best benefits for them. So with that, at the appropriate time, I will move the bill.

Senator Cabaldon. The attacks on equity from the federal government are the point. This is not collateral damage. The federal administration has withdrawn these and billions of other dollars from higher education institutions with the express purpose of trying to erase not just these programs, but just the very notion that equity matters and that we need to invest in it. And that's why it's even more important. It is all the reason that Leilani mentioned, but also that if we don't fight back on that and we don't stand with presidents and chancellors and boards of trustees and others on campuses who are taking the time to come to Sacramento on an issue that they know is politically fraught, it always has been, that we have to stand with them and give them the tools that they need to be able to respond and respond quickly, respond definitively, not do something and then hope that the Board of Governors will approve it. The Board of Governors, I think, likely would in many of these cases. But you can't, as the Chancellor said, you cannot make those decisions on the hope that you will get approval from the board later on. And so we've seen this in many other domains. Last year, the legislature passed and the governor signed a bill of mine that said, look, because of what the federal administration is doing to accreditation, we're going to take the extraordinary step of saying if you lose your accreditation under certain circumstances, you can still operate in California. I love the 50% law too, but that's even more important, like just the fundamentals, like should you exist at all? Those are the kinds of steps that we have to be taking right now. And so I salute the chancellor and others who are, when the moment matters, standing with students, standing with justice and equity as a concept as well as a program. And I think this is an appropriate way to handle it. If the board would have approved it anyway, then there's no harm, no foul here. The carve-out is the same as that. It just provides the certainty and the cover and the knowledge that if there happens to be a president or a chancellor and a shared governance budget process and what have you that says, no, we're making a stand here. We're going to stand up for these programs, that they can do so knowing that we have their back. And so I'm very glad to see this bill here. you know with UC and CSU we're experiencing similar challenges and we're grappling with how do we provide the grace and the flexibility to the institutions to be able to respond effectively and with the values that we want them to reflect to reinforce and to fight for nationally and so I certainly plan to support the bill thank the author for and the district for