Budget Subcommittee No 3 Education Finance — 2026-05-05 (partial)

. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Good morning and welcome to the Assembly Budget Subcommittee Number 3 on Education Finance. I am Chair Assemblymember David Alvarez and welcome you all to today's agenda or today's meeting. We will have five presentation items and a sixth item we will allow for public comment at the end of today's agenda. And so today Today is our last hearing on pre-K through 12 issues until the May revision, which is only a few days away. And our plan is to hear the May revision on May 19th. So that's two weeks from today. So notice for everybody. I said we'd take public comment at the end, but there are a couple items in here that I'd be interested in hearing some public comment to help inform our discussion and questions. So if there's anyone who wishes to speak on an agenda item for 30 seconds of an item that is before us today, I'd ask you to come forward now. We'll take your brief comments and it'll help inform our conversation. If there anyone who like to speak on any of the issues before us today please come forward at this time We give you 30 seconds And then those who don come forward now will obviously have time at the end as well So take a few folks who decided to take the plunge Welcome. You're welcome. Good morning. Good morning, Chair Alvarez and members. My name is Roxanne Stelmacher. I'm with California Edge Coalition. And I'm here in strong support of the governor's $100 million dual enrollment investment. To strengthen this investment, we're urging state leaders to ensure that adult dual enrollment is included in this opportunity to apply these funds. As adult learners pursuing high school diploma and equivalency aren't always included in the discussion around dual enrollment. Since SB 554 passed in 2019, allowing for adult learners to enroll in dual enrollment courses, the policy has actually faced some real implementations and barriers to extending that to adult learners. These investments in dual enrollment are an opportunity to fix that. Funding should also support strong coordination between colleges and school districts to help ensure equitable outcomes for all dual enrollment students. Thank you for your time. Thank you. That was a very good use of that time. That was not one of the questions I had thought of, so appreciate that feedback. Anybody else? 30 seconds. Last call will be our last one to take advantage. Hello, my name is Rogelio Salazar. I'm here on behalf of the Childless Research Collective at San Diego State, led by Dr. Eric Felix. I am also completing my PhD next month at UCLA School of Education, where I've been following dual enrollment the last seven years. I strongly support the $100 million investment to expand CCAP grant program. Through my research, I've seen how this program changes lives. Daniela, a counselor in Los Angeles, supports first-generation Black and Latinx students, completing college courses as early as 14. Luis, a counselor in the Central Valley, engages Latinx immigrant families in Spanish and validates their funds of knowledge, helping them access college pathways early. These programs are effective, but under-resourced. This investment would scale proven efforts and expand access to students who need it most. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you both for taking advantage of that opportunity. Anybody else who speaks on the agenda today, you'll have time at the end of today's meeting. So with that, let's begin with issue one. I'd ask the panel who is going to be presenting this to come forward. The California Labor Workforce Development Agency, Credit to Career Office, Chancellor's Office at the Community Colleges, Government Ops, and the California Department of Education. We will hear an update on the administration's career master plan and California Education Interagency Council. So we will kick this off, I believe, with the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency. Welcome. Thank you so much, and good morning. I'm Abby Snay. I'm the Deputy Secretary for Workforce Strategy at the Labor and Workforce Development Agency. Thank you for the opportunity to brief you today on the very exciting innovation and collaboration we've been working on this last year in implementing the Career Education Master Plan. I want to share that before I joined the state, I ran a local direct service organization in the Bay Area for 40 years and worked with people in the community trying to find training programs and classes that could get them into jobs and into better jobs. And I saw their frustration trying to navigate the separate and disjointed workforce and education systems. I also have served as a board leader for the National Skills Coalition and seen these same frustrations playing out everywhere across the country Since I joined Secretary Knox at the Labor Agency in 2020, we've worked to better connect and integrate the state's workforce and education systems, and last year's adoption of the Master Plan for Career Education accelerated this work dramatically. The Career Education Master Plan lays out a blueprint for our colleges, our universities, and our workforce partners to work together in new ways to support millions of adults and youth in California who must build their skills and connect with good jobs in demand in this rapidly changing economy. The governor called for the master plan to ensure quality careers and jobs for students, whether their education journey ends at high school, post-secondary training, or a college degree. We also know that learners will enter and exit our education and training systems at different points across their lifetime and, and we see this so dramatically now at the adoption of AI, the skills required in the workforce will continue to change and so we are creating structures to be responsive to learners and to employers. You'll hear now from our colleagues at Cradle to Career, the Chancellor's Office, the Department of Education, the GovOps Agency and then more from LWDA. We'll be brief and then we'll be happy to respond to your comments. Thank you very much. Welcome. Good morning Mr. Chair and members. My name is Marianne Bates. I serve as the executive director of the California Cradle to Career Data System. The Cradle to Career Data System is powered by linking longitudinal data that C2C receives from our data partners. We first ingested data from eight partners in late 2023, and then just a few weeks ago in March, in our latest regular data import, we received data from 16 data providers across TK through 12 and higher education, workforce and earnings, and take-up of social services. The workforce data expansion from this past year is C2C's largest to date, and LWDA was a phenomenal partner on this. C2C worked with LWDA and its four departments to add job training and workforce data to C2C for the first time. By adding over 150 new workforce data elements to C2C, the state can better understand outcomes, pathways, and earnings for job training programs. This data, in addition to new post-secondary data from the Bureau of Private Post-Secondary Education and the National Student Clearinghouse, will serve as an unprecedented resource, with data connecting that to the TK-12 data, the job training, earnings data, and social services take-up. We expect that the data dashboards, data reports, and data files we release to be useful across the state, and in particular, we're also standing by to support the new Interagency Council once it is ready to request data reports from C2C. C2C builds dashboards based on the priorities of the 21-person C2C Governing Board. Last year, we released the Student Pathways Dashboard on the educational pathways from high school graduation through post-secondary education and employment. Last month, we updated that dashboard as scheduled with a new year of data and accessibility and usability improvements. We're pleased that our first dashboard has been used by more than 80,000 people. And organizations such as PPIC have used the underlying data that powers that dashboard to create their own data visualizations and reports. For greater access to the full data system, we are also building a secure data enclave, which we expect to pilot and launch this year. This enclave will allow researchers to submit research requests and unlock the full scope of the longitudinal data set for understanding the impact of policies. This enclave is a secure, privacy-protected environment, so the insights and what we learn from the studies will leave the enclave, but the data stays put. Now I'd like to turn the mic over to my colleague at the Chancellor's Office for updates on increasing opportunities for students.

I want to talk about a collaboration recently with the Community College Chancellor's Office and the ScholarShare Investment Board to solve a problem of siloed data. So the ScholarShare Investment Board knows which people have unclaimed or unspent CalKIDS accounts, but they don't know who's enrolled in college. And the chancellor's office knows who's enrolled, but they don't know who has unclaimed or unspent accounts. And so we use the data that we link in the C2C data set to send the chancellor's office reports identifying community college students who had not yet claimed their CalKids accounts. In just our first pilot round, C2C identified over 40,000 community college students with about $20 million in unclaimed scholarships. And so we're going to do this routinely for the community colleges moving forward and expect to identify many more students. A few weeks ago, I was presenting to the Board of Governors and shared this CalKIDS collaboration, and they invited a financial aid officer from Southwestern College in Chula Vista to join the presentation virtually. And she described how they reached out to more than 1,000 students on their campus about CalKIDS based on that C2C-linked data. And then she described that usually at that point in the year, they would receive maybe two or three CalCIDS checks per month. And then she held up a stack of checks, like a wad of cash, that had just come in, CalCIDS checks for their students in response to the outreach that they had done based on the data that we had linked and shared with the chancellor's office. So this is a great example of bridging data silos to increase opportunities for students. We're also putting the linked data to work for more general intergovernmental efficiency. C2C has delivered three years of reporting data on CalGrants to the Student Aid Commission on behalf of California's public higher education segments. And this summer, we will share with CSAC the latest batch of data based on the data we received from the segments a few weeks ago. And so this will enable CSAC to report to the legislature on persistence, enrollment, and graduation data per last year's omnibus bill. This collaboration simplifies campus-level reporting and provides privacy-protecting safeguards to students while facilitating CSAC's critical reporting. So now I'll turn it back to Vice Chancellor Ferguson for more updates.

We're going to call roll first.

Fong?

Padwick?

Wallace. All right. We have a quorum. Thank you. Mr. Fong.

Thank you for the question. Mr. Chair, fellow committee members, my name is Justin Howard. I'm the Deputy Secretary for Fiscal Policy and Administration at the Government Operations Agency. As you correctly pointed out, the budget included $1.5 million for the Government Operations Agency to essentially stand up and help manage the California Education Interagency Council. To date, we've done a lot of work behind the scenes, particularly with posting and hiring positions. So I am pleased, as you noted, we did hire the executive officer who started officially yesterday. So she is on day two of her role with our agency. But more importantly with that, we've done a lot of other work. Particularly, we've established and modified IAs to provide accounting, budgeting support, human resource support, as well as information technology support. We've acquired domain names for website purposes and emails. We've established a separate program that's going to be standalone and unique within our agency, so you can track it as a separate kind of essentially as its own mini department outside of the office of the secretary. Payroll headers working with SEO and Department of Finance. So essentially what we've done to date is we've done all of the behind-the-scenes activity to get the office up and running. Now, the legislation kind of lays out a variety of things that are supposed to be accomplished within some specific time. So including we've got to hold our first meeting by the end of June. So that's one thing that we're going to be working with the executive officer on getting going. Outside of that as well, there are other activities that need to be done, including entering into an MOU with CTC for accessing their data to inform the council on things that they're going to want to do. In addition to that, it requires the council to have a strategic plan done by, I believe, I think it's the end of November, I think that the statute specifies. And so those are going to be the first things that the council is going to need to work on to get done this calendar year. Once that strategic plan is done my understanding is there supposed to be a work plan that follows the strategic plan that involves consultation with the Education Committee here in this assembly as well as the Senate as well as interested stakeholders So she going to have a lot on her plate I can speak to what ultimately will be into the strategic plan because that will be informed by the council along with the executive officer as they proceed their work But nonetheless, we are ready to hit the ground running. Now that she's hired, we can now hire the remaining staff to support her, which we needed that first domino to go before we did the rest. So, but we are ready to go.

I think that's a great question. I don't think I'm the one who's capable of answering that. I think that's something that's going to ultimately need to develop. I know this statute kind of lays out some kind of broad goals that they need to achieve. So that's something that they will work on and incorporate into their strategic plan through conversations with folks like yourselves and other interested parties as well as the council members themselves. So a little premature for me to guess what those will be, but ultimately we will lay out those for you.

So I think I can pick up again and talk a bit about regional coordination. The Labor and Workforce Development Agency has focused on deepening coordination at the regional level between the community colleges and the public workforce system. And this year, right now, we are leveraging federal dollars to support 10 workforce development boards across the state to work more closely with community colleges to build programs that meet employer need and move people into good jobs through apprenticeships, through work-based learning, through internships, and whole new training pipelines. LWDA is approving recommendations as we speak and should be very soon announcing these 10 funded programs. We are also excited, and I think as another reflection of this coordination with the Chancellor's Office, that we will be joining forces with the Chancellor's Office to support these regional partnerships through technical assistance with a very heavy focus on employer partnerships. I'm also pleased to let you know about a regional demonstration project that's in full gear in LA in partnership with Unite LA, which is focusing on opportunity youth as a population, on health career pathways as an occupation, and has been at the local level pulling together teams of community colleges, community-based organizations, workforce boards, with heavy involvement and real involvement of young people themselves to identify where the pain points occur in a learner's journey and have them work on changes to reduce or eliminate those pain points and ensure that more young people build the skills and credentials and certificates to enter the truly expanding field of health care with its great career pathways for people. So I think I can wrap us up. We want to thank you again for having us here today, and we are really looking ahead to the leadership that the new CEIC will provide in the next year, and we'll continue to deepen this collaboration and together support the millions of adults and youth in California in achieving their dreams. So thank you, and we are all open to additional questions.

I have kind of a tangent question as it relates to, you touched upon Mr. Ferguson, dual enrollment. And I know we have a whole panel on dual enrollment, but in that conversation, where do APs fit in? So AP and IB are generally outside of the dual enrollment sphere, but you can receive credit.

Yeah, so I think from an adult perspective, we may not see it as competing interests. But from a student perspective, certainly they're weighing the positives and negatives of weighted grades, weighted GPAs, admission to college, et cetera, as compared to a direct college transcript. And I think if there was some guidance for our young people as they enter into high school around that, the values of that, making those choices, it would certainly be helpful. because, as you know, one of the things I keep talking about is youth mental health and I think some of those downward pressures they're experiencing because of these choices that they're having to make as early as ninth grade, whether they go into an IB program or whether they start taking AP classes as freshmen in high school. This is constantly on the minds of, you know, how is this going to play into their pathway to college or their pathway to their career? So I hope that we can kind of take a look at that a little more closely and carefully within that framework of college to career or cradle to career. Another question I have is within this interagency that we're setting up for education, and we have the labor and workforce development, we're partnering with our local EDCs as well, right? Just so I have clarity, like all the systems are coming together for that.

Okay, excellent. Thank you. Just to follow up on that, I think Dr. Patel is referring to the local economic development councils and the regions. Is that coordination happening, EDCs?

Yeah, that's okay.

I think thank you. I think we I think we caught that The strategic plan will be ready. No in November is that the date? That's the day prescribed in Scott. Yes. By the end of November, okay?

The strategic framework or strategic plan. What are some of the other outcomes that are expected this year for the Council.

So it sounds and it makes sense that for the first, you know, for this time, it's really to set up what will be the council itself to then lead to actual work product in the next years. As part of the strategic plan, will there be a short-term, medium-term, long-term goals that are going to be adopted? Or are you going to wait for this to come forward?

Sure. You know, one of the things we've been hearing a lot in this committee, but also in policy committees, is that perhaps it's time to revisit the master plan for higher education. Where does that fit into this work? How is that topic of conversation, or is it just at the moment not really the focus?

I do want to emphasize the fact that as we do develop this strategic plan the committees are going to be involved because the statute expressly states that we are to engage both the assembly and Senate education committees So we will be working closely with your staff and interested members in developing that strategic plan So I just want to make sure that clear So we should expect to hear throughout the summer from you

I will say there's a value add for the Higher Master Plan in the Student Pathways Dashboard because we are building on our TK-12 for the bigger picture of our students, and the dashboard does include information on wage earnings by degree type, so AABA, community college certificates. So it is building out into the master plan, and so we'll have details that we think are valuable, both for that aspect as well as for the cradle to career. So the data has its limitations of what we do and don't collect for building off TK-12, but we do think that the value add there helps inform the master plan.

college's perspective on what role that plays in all this? Yeah, I think what it will come down to for the coordinating body is the focus on course articulation and program articulation. That really is the underpinnings of common course numbering. It's how do the courses translate from one system to another? How do the courses translate or the work for, say, IP, ABE apply from one system to another? So I think to your broader issue, certainly that can be a function that the coordinating committee could look at. But I think I would sort of say there are two sort of high-level thoughts that come to mind. First, thinking of it strategically as one system of education in California, and that's TK all the way through 20. and then secondarily thinking of it as a focus on our students and meeting community need because at the end of the day, our systems are here to support our communities, to support our economy, to see good outcomes for our communities. And just would say as those sort of broad North Stars, those would be a couple of things that I'd ask be considered as you work through that master plan.

Generally speaking, it requires to make recommendations, but there's no force of effect of those recommendations. So to the extent that council came forward and they had statutory changes, they would ask for the legislature to take action on any recommendation. But you're correct. They cannot basically force it. something to implement something.

I have to get back to you Off the top of my head I don call the reporting requirements but I do know that the council has to meet at a minimum twice a year It can meet more frequently and those are all public hearings and there will be frequent report outs as part of any public hearing updates on things that are taking place

So I think that work remains to be done.

Dr. Pichal, do you have any other questions?

All right. Well, thank you. Appreciate the panel. Thank you for this. We will hold—this is an informational item only, so we will move on to related, as we heard a little bit of exchange on this, on dual enrollment. The panel will hear the January budget proposal, which provides an additional $100 million for dual enrollment programs. So we'll first hear the proposal from Department of Finance. We'll then hear from the Legislative Analyst Office on their assessment of the proposal. We have the California Community College Chancellor's Office here and again, the California Department of Education to provide questions or follow up on any questions from the members. Let's kick it off with Department of Finance with the proposal. Welcome.

questions. Thank you. Legislative Analyst's Office, please. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. Michael Oferos with the Legislative Analyst's Office. So we're recommending that the legislature reject the $100 million in one-time funding, as we think that it would not address any barriers to implementing dual enrollment programs. We note that it is not clear whether there are any fiscal barriers to implementing dual enrollment, as the state's funding model currently benefits both schools and community colleges. We have seen participation in CCAP programs in particular increase significantly in recent years. Full-time equivalent enrollment in CCAP programs grew 82% from 2020, 2021, and 2023, 2024, from about 13,000 full-time equivalent students to over 24,000. The state has also taken action recently that has made it easier for school districts to implement dual enrollment programs by allowing them to partner with other community colleges outside of the local service area. Lastly, we also note that the LEAs can use funding from the proposed discretionary block grant to expand dual enrollment programs for the same purposes. So LEAs that are interested in using one-time funding to expand or implement dual enrollment can use funding from the block grant for those purposes. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Yeah, Chris Ferguson, Executive Vice Chancellor of Finance and Strategic Initiatives at the California Community College Chancellor's Office. So why does we're certainly strong supporters of the proposed investment? Why does it matter to us? And that is because by connecting high school learning to college level coursework, dual enrollment extends academic pathways, reduces excess units and accelerates students progress toward a credential, a certificate, a degree in a very timely manner and at a lower cost point as a result. But that said, we do understand that while participation in dual enrollment is increasing, we note that low-income and rural students often face barriers to access, underscoring the need for targeted strategies. So as you can contemplate the proposed investment, we would certainly ask for consideration around how do we best provide statewide technical assistance to schools that may not be engaged in dual enrollment programs now It could include AP or IB as well but just to ensure that we maximizing the return to our students and helping those school districts that may not know how to establish the program or how the relationships or the CCAP agreements are developed. So, again, we remain highly supportive of dual enrollment. We have as a strategy within our overall vision of seeing that every high school student is able to take at least 12 units of transferable coursework. Last year, this committee and the legislature in the state enacted changes to ensure the dual enrollment courses count for purposes of A through G when applying to UC and CSU. So, again, we remain highly supportive of dual enrollment. And with that, if you, at the appropriate time, happy to answer any questions that may be out there.

Yeah. Kimberly Rosenberger on behalf of State Superintendent of Public Destruction, Tony Thurman and CDE. Just piggybacking off of what my colleague from community colleges said, we think this is a good investment on a really strong foundation that we've built. we do think that there are some barriers in our rural and small for the technical assistant needs so we are recommending that 10 million of that 100 million go to establish a dual enrollment technical assistance system we get questions regularly when they change their schedule how to adjust how to become an earlier middle school or early college middle college so the interest is there the growth is there and we we believe that this is a strong investment we do in response to the questions about the expansion grants, we don't think it's necessary for expansion grants to mirror the funding levels of planning or startup grants. Given that they're relatively modest awards, we think the funds are already limited to the capacity to support program development and that maintaining equivalent funding levels for expansion reflects the reality that scaling early college, middle college programs entail. They're significant in cost staffing, coordination student support services and instructional alignment. The latter one, instructional alignment, often is a barrier that they ask us for assistance in and is why we are really supportive of the recommendation to align the instructional minutes to that of the dual enrollment for middle college, early college. We do wanna speak to the flexibility.

Okay, thank you all of you. I going to begin by asking some pretty basic questions and hopefully you all can help me better understand where we at and where we headed here The, let's start with the issue of the instructional minutes. I'm trying to understand why this is significant. I thought we already ensured that ADA was fully covered for those enrolled dually enrolled students. What does this change do for either districts or for the community college? What is this impact?

Okay.

Is that typically what we're seeing maybe for the department, that that's what typically a student is experiencing?

Have we identified this as a barrier for some schools? Is this something that was raised during the last round of technical support for people who want to do this program?

So was this proposal recommendation from the department?

So what is the feedback loop on these? How are we regularly getting input from the implementers of this at the local level as to what works and doesn't work?

but how are we getting feedback in a formal way to make sure that the investments are resulting in the things that we are hoping they result in and that we are adapting things like required instructional minutes and some of the other likely technical issues. Like I know there's a policy vehicle on requirement of a principal signature, which I had heard personally on the ground became challenging. There must be more of those. So how is that coming forward to who? Who's in charge of this?

So today we heard some public testimony that was new to me on the issue of adult learners, learners and that it sounds like they are currently Districts are not currently allowed to Deep does anybody know of several response to this issue of adults dual enrollment and and some concern there and is our School districts who's being shortchanged. What is what is the dynamic here?

should expect in the second round of the report. So the first round it looks like we've got just basically basically but important raw data on enrollment and completion course completion and all of that. Is the second round of the report going to be focused on more directly on what subgroups are participating communities up and down the state there's been some concern raised by individuals that there's an equity concern of who's participating and who's not what kind of data should we expect in this second report I can start and

That was just required for all dual enrollment. Is that the case?

The first version of this grant program.

Is that what is being requested or we follow the same for the next round, for the $100 million?

Lastly, I'm interested in why the LAO believes that sort of a focus on this. I understand that you've directed our attention that there's a very substantial discretionary block grant being proposed in this budget that could potentially serve this purpose. But it also may not be used for this purpose. So just curious as to why the recommendation to not to reject this proposal specifically.

Not my attention, and you just said it again, is this concern which I would align myself with of ongoing activities funded. And so what have we, do we have evidence of that occurring in any specific way that we can either ensure that that doesn't happen or that it does happen in ways that we want to ensure that there's stability to this program and that the quality and the teachers move from schools and administrators move, and to be able to actually sustain dual enrollment campus to campus probably requires some ongoing maintenance. That is an ongoing cost, so to your concern, but maybe it's an ongoing cost that is important enough to maintain for the purpose of the success of this program.

no need to respond on this side of the table so we can get other questions in. But one, reporting requirements on the use of the funds to understand whether they're one-time, truly in nature, or ongoing, I think is, is if they are only being used for instructional materials, I think you raise a good point. Where is the funding coming for the next cohort of kids who are going to be doing this? And so perhaps some reporting on what the expenditures were utilized for may be important for this program. And two is, I didn't write it down so I'm forgetting, reporting and the other thing you raised first was oh that they're already doing this and it's sort of become a more of a regular thing for districts but there I believe there's no requirement for any of the either a DA or FTE equivalent for either one of either colleges or districts to set some of that aside for ongoing maintenance of dual enrollment programs right there's no requirement of that okay those two are interesting points and I'll just leave it at that I'm one because we would disagree that the money is only used for instructional materials I don't think he said that that sometimes it gets used for instructional materials yeah and and that is you know if that is the case we need to understand that yeah yeah if I

Thank you. All right, Dr. Patel.

It is a philosophical question. I will say I think the the reason we are supportive of the 180 minutes is because 240 often prohibits any more than one daytime higher education course being offered and so We still have to meet the fundamental requirements for teaching We still have to do the required testing So I do believe that the enthusiasm we see around this and the impact on the schools because they wouldn't want to push students into this if it was going to have a detrimental effect on their LCAPs, on their reporting requirements. So I think they are trying to make sure the foundational instructions are there. I think where we find the benefit is because they have to stagger lunch, because there's transportation, those are usually the things that are impacting the day where they have to make sure they get those 180 minutes out the gate and then also have appropriate staffing, especially for smaller schools where things have to be staggered. So we think that this allows for the flexibility for schools to build and want to participate. Three-quarter ADA, they're often less inclined to expand because between that and declining enrollment, they're already struggling with fiscal issues. I can't say if students feel that they're getting the full day, but I do think that this flexibility allows them then to get course offerings that are broader and more focused on what students are interested in. So we are supportive of it because of the feedback we've gotten from the field to that extent.

So some of the funds that are used are for capacity building, for scaling partnerships, so it's consistent and aligned with the community schools, and we do think it could be used to combine the two. I think Erin probably should get engraved blending and braiding, but this is consistent with that concept, so we think that helps with sustainability. Thank you.

Certainly we can look at that. I think we know how many students who have graduated also participated in dual enrollment, but I don't know that we know that they left early. Okay.

We don't have that data.

Yeah. Yes, it is.

No, we're not seeing that. But what we are seeing more of is students coming out with their diploma and an AA. So instead, they're coming out with advanced degrees in the timeline. It's more what the data is reflecting, not that they're trying to exit school earlier. I think in part because that dual enrollment keeps them in the system longer, but or through the typical graduation.

So the feedback we've heard is that, you know, managing these partnerships are complex and resource-intensive, so the small and rural generally don't have the same scalability to do so. And, you know, we've coordinated, put heads together and what would be helpful, the technical assistance we thought would be targeted towards those designing the agreements, scheduling, compliance. And in other cases, schools may find that alternative pathways, such as AP courses, are better aligned with their instructional models, staffing capacity, and local priorities. So I would say it's the instruction minutes, it's the staffing, and it's like what the district itself wants to see, whether they have a CSU in their home base so it makes sense for them to partner, whether it's a community college and building on that. So there is a variability that makes it hard for us to do a blanket size. This is how the guidance you should be doing. And that's why we think the technical assistance that's more targeted and can serve the need is very helpful, especially because we just do get that outreach. And even though we have a lot of interest, we are often hearing that they're not understanding how to get into the program, but they're interested. And some, we found, are doing the program and just haven't given themselves a title, so they're not getting the funding they should be. So we think that that benefit would be helpful across the board.

Yeah, I think we would add there's probably five core areas that lead to some of those barriers. So course scheduling, there's different calendars or misalignment between high school and college academic calendars which can make it difficult to schedule those courses That can include the start dates or you know potential holidays that one may recognize and the other may not Faculty availability it challenges around secure and qualified instructors whether that's through high school teacher equivalency who meet minimum falls or by finding, you know, college faculty that are able to teach at that high school site. faculty perceptions, specifically in districts with declining enrollment. There are also sensitivities from high school staff who may perceive CCAP expansion as replacing high school courses or positions when teachers do not meet qualifications to teach that college-level coursework. The other two would be around our learning management system alignment and student transition. As you're probably aware, the segments all use Canvas for their learning management system. Not all school districts use Canvas for their students, so there may be issues there. And then, of course, on that student focus, it's student course load and capacity. There will be some students who can view dual enrollment with their traditional high school work, as well as, say, extracurricular activities or athletics as creating a large load for that particular student.

The grant awards, I think, are what you're referring to, called out in statute are mirrored after the prior investment. So we didn't make any changes there, but we are looking at the information that was provided in the reports from CDE to inform any subsequent changes. At this point, it's the $250,000 and the $100,000 that was allocated in the prior round. and those are generally for startup and planning costs.

Thank you, Dr. Patel. Mr. Fong.

Yeah, Edgar Carolla with the LAO. I don't think, we don't have any specific recommendations on that specific issue. I think to the extent that they're similar, you know, similar types of agreements where we providing college level course to high school students I think that makes sense But I don think we have any specific recommendations or anything we can give you in terms of background right now but we can follow with our colleagues in the higher ed side to see if there anything that we can share with

I think with the expansion and opportunities for dual enrollment, this is one of the growth areas for our community colleges, and it's been a tremendous opportunity for a number of students. And I'm glad earlier I know Vice Chancellor mentioned the different statistics in terms of dual enrollment participation as well. So this question is now for the Department of Finance. I know we've also had robust conversations around middle and early college high schools and the implementation there, but should some of the funds that are being proposed be prioritized for our CCAP programs? Amber Alexander, you know, with Department of Finance. Yes, there are two components of the proposal. There's the early and middle college high school component that we've been talking about robustly. There's also kind of a second piece that's specific for the CCAP agreements, and that's $100,000 to establish CCAP agreements in partnership with community colleges and consistent with the existing CCAP requirements. Okay, thank you for that context as well. And I think anything we could continue to do to expand dual enrollment programs and make it easier for our students to access these types of programs is going to be critical for us going forward. And I know that we've pushed a number of policies around making it more expansive and easier for our students to access these types of programs. And it's anything we can do around this space. I'd love to continue partnering with you. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Just one additional question from some testimony or a letter that I had received on the issue of alignment with A through G. But I thought I heard somebody on the panel, I can't remember who, say that that is already required for CCAP. but this letter, I believe it was from Ed Trust West, states that is requesting that we make that change. Can somebody shed some light on that issue? So if I recall, last year there was trailer bill language that specified clarity around dual enrollment courses, counting toward A through G admissions requirements, if I recall correctly. And it was to make that clarity, again, if I recall correctly. Can anybody else provide any context to that? If not, we're going to ask you to respond. It says, current state law does not require dual enrollment partnerships to align to college coursework with high school graduation requirements or A through G admissions requirements. And so there are some suggestions on how to do that. but can we, can I ask all of us to follow up on that? Okay, thank you. Yeah, absolutely, and it is possible that I am mistaken. Okay, we'll hold it open and we'll further discuss this. Thank you so much, appreciate all the panel members for this item. We will now move on to the long-term English language learners panel. Panel will hear the trailer bill proposals regarding students who are long-term English language learners We will again have the Department of Finance LAO and CDE for this and we will kick it off with finance with details of the proposal Whenever you're ready, please begin. I have my... This thing. Great. Good morning, Chair Alvarez and members. Should I narrate the Department of Finance? The governor's budget includes trailer bill language to clarify and align the long-term English learner definition, or LTEL, across various data reporting systems. As background, an LTEL is generally defined as an English learner student who has not achieved English language proficiency within a specified number of years. Identifying LTELs and students at risk of becoming LTELs or RTELs allow LEAs to better respond to student needs and provide targeted supports and interventions to help these students gain English language proficiency. Currently, the definition of an LTEL is different for reporting between the California School Dashboard and what is used for DataQuest, the assessment reporting system. These assessments are the California Assessment for Student Performance and Progress, or CAASPP, and the English Language Proficiency Assessment for California, or ELPAC. After the LTEL student group was added to the dashboard in 2024, the State Board of Education and the California Department of Education heard subsequent feedback from LEAs about the need to align these two different definitions, as an LEA could look at their data on the dashboard and pull their assessment data and would see different counts of students and potentially different results. Consequently, the administration is proposing to clarify and update these definitions to better identify and meet the needs of California English language learner students. Specifically, this proposal includes the following changes. Number one, removes the additional criteria used to classify a student as an LTEL and simply defines an LTEL as a student who has not attained English proficiency within seven years of additional classification. This is aligned with the definition used for the dashboard and is consistent with the English learner roadmap that indicates that the normative period to become proficient in English is five to seven years. Number two, it simplifies the definition of a student at risk of becoming a long-term English learner, otherwise known as an RTEL, as a student who has not attained English proficiency within a six-year period. This six-year period aims to support the timely identification of these students and intervene before they become LTELs. The proposed changes reduce confusion in the field, do not create additional reporting burdens on LEAs, and allow educator schools in the state to have timely, accurate data about English learner students to help inform instructions to support students. That concludes my remarks. I'm joined by my colleague, Paula Tang, from the Department of Finance. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. We'll hear from the LAO next. Good morning, Sarah Cortez, LAO. I'm just available for questions. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Department? Kimberly Rosenberger with a CDE. The definitions of long-term English learners, students and students at risk of becoming LTEL should readily support local education agencies and effectively identifying supporting students. As currently defined, its test scores, which could take up to six months. Time is of the essence for these students, and streamlining the definitions allows LEAs to design specific goals and strategies that focus on program decisions and service. From a strategic data management perspective, this change would allow school districts immediate access to this information using the CDE's data system to see which students in their care are identified not only as LTEL, but also the at risk of LTELs. While the shift also aligns with these existing LTEL definition that is used for the dashboard, the definition is making definitions easier to use in the field is helpful unilaterally across the board. The line of definitions gets information out for who the students are into the hands of educators sooner so that supports and assistance can be identified for these students. And also it helps the alleviate concerns we've heard from the school district on their confusion and consternation of two different definitions when one's applied to accountability and one's applied to implementation. So for both those reasons, we recommend this change. Thank you. Okay. We have no more presentations on this. I want to ask Finance and California Department of Education if you've heard from English language learner advocates expressing their concern about this change to this definition as it would no longer identify students who have been English learners for the last, for example, four or five years, and therefore we may miss the ability to do some intervention with these students. Have you heard those concerns? Yes, Chaudenari's Department of Finance. And so the four to five years, I believe you're referencing the arts, health or at risk long-term English learners. The administration's intent for this proposal was to provide access to timely and accurate data of potential students at risk. And the English learner roadmap provides the, and national research provides the normative time period as five, between five to seven years. And so the administration's intention is for the alignment with this timeframe and to give students the closer to the end of that time period to learn English. And the administration is aware of these concerns and planning to take them into consideration for the May revision. Okay. California Department of Education. We provide support for at-risk for five years. We have heard those concerns. I think the biggest concern we've heard is this change may result in like an over-identification. But we believe that the timing is why it's important. But we are mindful of the concerns we've heard from the field. I believe we've also seen, and I'm not recalling which research citation it was, But the problem with long-term identification or misidentification of English learners as being problematic, I know that was something I read in the last six months. I'm not recalling exactly where. So having heard those concerns and trying to not overstep my authority as chair of a budget committee, I think this is an appropriate conversation for a policy committee to make. So I'd next like to turn to Dr. Patel, who is chair of our education committee, for questions. Thank you for that. And certainly this is something that raised eyebrows that it was in through the budget process rather than through a policy committee. So I wanted to get some understanding of why we're using that track instead of bringing it through a more robust policy discussion. Yes so the administration believes that these are technical amendments to further align with the English California English Learner Roadmap but we happy to work with the legislature on this proposal And we are also happy to work with the governor's office, so I want to make sure that that is also out there. We want to help our students and make sure that they are receiving all the supports and services that they need, but also that community stakeholder feedback is also in the process. Just out of curiosity, how, and this is a genuinely open question, how do we navigate the system of LTELs or our LTEL at-risk students when they have a coincidence of a speech or language processing disability? I would defer to CDE. I would call my colleague Alicia to speak to that question. Good morning. Alicia Moreno-Ramirez for the Department of Education. There are two different forms of assessment when it comes to dual-identified students. There are forms of assessment that are specific to English language development and separate forms of methods of assessment to identify students with disabilities. And the intent really is to utilize multiple measures in order to fully understand where students are in their language capacities in terms of language development specifically to kind of hash out what the needs are and respond accordingly. Thank you. I want to make sure that we're being able to distinguish between those two as students learn and grow. Also what causes the six-month delay in or the what where does that timeline come from? Well under the current existing definition, we're using test scores. And so it's just the timing of when that the testing happens and the data is released versus the enrollment basis, which is what the definition is proposing switching to. And you said that there's some, I didn't catch it fully, that there's a process to shorten that timeline for the release of data or that LEAs will have access to that data sooner? So there's two definitions that are currently in existing statute. And so this proposal from, which I think, you know, this does not come out of CDE. We're providing technical assistance both in the policy and budget, but I believe that the original definition came out of budget language, and so that's where we saw it first. There's two different definitions, and so one's for implementation, for program implementation, and one's for accountability. And so I think by changing these to align the definition of LTEL, schools get the data readily, but also there's less of field confusion because we're only applying one application across the board. Thank you for that. We certainly want to shorten those windows as much as possible. Every month matters for a child's learning, especially when they're trying to develop English language skills. I think that challenge was also there with just CASP data in general, that there was a very long delay between when the data was released and when schools could start implementing changes or adjustments based on those results, those testing results. You had something. Yes, Paula Tan from the Department of Finance. So to help clarify, because it's very confusing with the two different definitions, the definition that is being amended is for the data quest or for assessments. That definition was included in statute in 1999, and the dashboard definition is in 2024. And so part of the intent was to update the definition with this new definition that is researched back because we know based on the current research that it takes five to seven years typically for a student to learn English And with the assessment data that my colleague from the Department of Education had indicated, it's prior year's assessment data. And so that's the data that comes, that DataQuest uses for assessment data to identify students. And so that's why we're proposing to go back to the research and to go to this updated data and align the definitions to what the research indicates, which is a five- to seven-year period. Okay, thank you. I'm still going to process and think about that, but thank you. And again, to confirm, there is no budget request with this. And so, to your point, Dr. Patel, staff was recommending that this is rejected, and this is referred to your policy committee. And that is a recommendation. We would have to take a vote on that. a motion and a vote. So we can do that now. I'll make a motion. All right. We have a motion to reject. Let's call the roll. Alvarez. Aye. Huang. Hadwick. Patel. Aye. Wallace. All right. That's two votes. We'll hold the issue open. Thank you. Sorry. If I may, I'd like for the record, I'd like to say that the administration still supports our proposal as included in the governor's budget. Okay, but we also heard that you're willing to work with the legislature. Yeah, all right. Thank you. We will move on to issue number four, supporting inclusive practices. This panel will hear the January budget proposal impacting supporting inclusive practices projects. So I'd ask the panel for this to please come forward. We will first hear the proposal from Department of Finance. We will then hear from the Legislative Analyst's Office, Department of Education, and a special guest, Marysville Joint Unified School District. Speak on this as well. Welcome. Let's begin with finance, please. Good morning, Chair and members. The governor's budget proposes amendments to the supporting inclusive practices project funding appropriated in the 2021 Budget Act to extend the encumbrance date from June 30, 2026 to June 30, 2027. That concludes my remarks, and I'm happy to take questions at the appropriate time. Oh, I'm so sorry. Elena Powell, Department of Finance. Thank you. We have comments from the LAO. Good morning. Sarah Cortez, LAO. No prepared comments, but available for questions. Thank you. Do we have any other comments? Department of Education? Kimberly Rosenberger, Department of Education. SIP is promising, and the data supports success, but we do have concerns about the organizational infrastructure to expand without compounding the fiscal management problems already documented under existing contract authority. Okay, thank you. Now we'll hear from the Marysville School District. Welcome. Hi, good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Jolie Critchfield and I serve as the director of child development for Marysville Joint Unified School District. Over the last five years, our partnership with the Supporting Inclusive Innovative Practices Project has been transformational for our district. What began as a focus on inclusive preschools practices has grown into a district-wide commitment to meaningful inclusion, belonging, and rightful present for students with disabilities. With SIPP support we were able to bring preschool services back in 23 from a more restrictive county settings into our district schools allowing our youngest learners to access learning alongside their peers in more authentic and inclusive environments. The shift not only improved outcomes for children and families, but also allowed our district to reduce reliance on more costly separate county-operated placements by building internal capacity and strengthening inclusive services within our own schools. We also saw important benefits for students without disabilities. Inclusive environments helped recognize disability as a natural and valued aspect of human diversity and created opportunities for students to build empathy and understanding, communication skills, and authentic relationship with peers of all abilities from an early age. But perhaps the most importantly, SIP has helped us move beyond viewing inclusion as simply a special education initiative. This work became about designing general education environment, school culture, instructional design, and shared responsibly for all students. Today, Marysville is a SIP demonstration site, and we are continuing to scale this work across grade levels. We are currently hosting a SIP inclusion academy involving every district school site where teams are developing plans focused on access, belonging, and equitable outcomes for students with disabilities. SIP helped us change not only where students learn, but how adults think who belongs. And this has made a lasting impact on our district. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. You know, it's not often that we have expenditures that it's year six, entering year six. And even though it's a relatively, put that in quotes, small amount that has not been encumbered. And so I think that the question first that comes to mind is why? Why is that not happening? So I think I'd like to ask Department of Education and Finance as prepared. And really, my question three is sort of where I'm focused at, which is, are there areas in the state where we are seeing more challenges with implementation with state preschool inclusion? either targets or are we seeing anything and do we hope that the remaining funds would be utilized in those areas? What is the hope with the authorization to extend this into the next couple of years? Who's going to take advantage of this that has not taken advantage of it or who should who has not okay I mean I think this is a difficult question because we are you know we think SIP's really promising but there's a lot of infrastructural issues especially with how it's structured with the contract where there's limitations on how CDE can provide support that we have concerns with expansion, especially with meeting state preschool inclusion targets. It would duplicate existing CDE-funded infrastructure that's already purpose-built for that work. I think our concern with that expansion too is just the staffing requirements that are needed, the infrastructure just... Is that at CDE or at the site level? At site level. Currently, as the contract structured in the budget, we provide as much assistance as possible. It's regular, but we don't really have kind of oversight or teeth to ensure we're meeting certain metrics. And so we think oftentimes the support is pretty substantial and fall short of where we hope to go on a scalability level at this time for those reasons. So in your opinion, and then I do want to ask finance, who, given those challenges, who's going to want to apply to take this on? I don't know if Shiloh would like to see. There's a spot over here, too. Yeah, I'm happy to come over there. Oh, okay. Good morning. My name is Shiloh Duncan-Bestriel. I am the Associate Director over Data Monitoring and LEA Support at the Special Education Division. I directly oversee this contract. Okay. And so this contract has, over the past five years, the supporting inclusive project itself has not always spent all the funds that are in the contract. They do amazing work and districts love working with them. And they serve about 20% of our most at-need districts, districts who are in the bottom 10% of the, you know, in terms of outcomes for students with disabilities, but those districts often have varied needs. Some of them are inclusion, where their problems So practice are identified for inclusion and some of them are other things. And so I think they are fulfilling a really good need, but they're not always expending all of the funds within their contract. And so that has sort of compounded over the years. The way the budget language has been written is that it's very specific. So I couldn't take those funds and use them in a different capacity. I have to use them for this specific group. So the Riverside County Office of Education, which is listed in the budget language, and also El Dorado County Office of Education. So we continue to support them, and we believe they have scaled up over the last five years, and we believe this next year they will be able to expend the full $15 million that was allocated. And also, just to your point on the early childhood, there is the Early Childhood Special Education Network, and that provides significant amount of technical assistance to LEA, SELPA's, and County Office of Ed, and they're the smallest area of work for SIP, so we think that the structure right now that DCSE is best suited to serve that particular contingent of school-age children. Okay. I... Oh, sorry, thank you. I heard two different responses, and so I may be confused here. I thought at the beginning CDE was saying we don't think it's a good use because it won't be. People aren't up. The uptake isn't there, but I thought I just heard that we think this year it will be utilized. And so please help me understand that. The difference between utilizing the existing funds versus expanding, I think, is what we're differentiating. Okay. Yeah, we think that they're moving towards the direction we need. We still have limitations on having them meet certain requirements We normally would with a contractor But I think we kind of also what we hearing based on the questions and feedback I've gotten is scaling at a larger level. And I think that's kind of where we are apprehensive. It's not that the program, we think investments in this program are positive and good, but we don't think they're ready for prime time to make them scalable to a larger level. Okay. Mr. Chair, Kevin Schaefer, director of SIP is here. He can also provide some feedback to that. Please come forward. You can speak right there to the microphone. It was difficult for me to hear the comments. Can we review the comments really quick? Sorry. Sure. Well, the questions were around who my questions were that they provided some response to were who's going to actually utilize the program. I heard some concerns about the uptake not being there. And so do you have anything you can add to that? Yeah, we work with districts specifically focused on preschool as part of the contract. And then we also provide inclusion academies for the districts, the county offices and the SELPAs that also bring in LEA teams to train and create plans based on data to expand the work that we do, not just with our grantees, but across all districts that choose to be part of the inclusion academies. Okay, that's still not clarity. I'll turn over to Dr. Patel for questions. So I think part of the confusion may be SIP as it relates to preschool versus SIP as it relates to LEAs as a whole. I think as part of Poway Unified, we were a demonstration site like Marysville, and we saw profound transformation with support from the Tompkins School on Disabilities at Chapman University. We were able to work with them very closely and improve outcomes, improve the ability for our educators to work with students with disabilities to implement UDL. and we actually saw improved participation, reduced bullying, as well as reduced litigation in our schools. So I think how we separate capacity within our preschools versus the tools that are being provided to LEAs as a whole is different. And I think that's maybe where there's some confusion. There's a long waiting list for LEAs to participate. And so expanding opportunities and increasing resources for LEAs to participate in supporting inclusive practices, I think is warranted based on the data and outcomes we've seen. It is a successful program is what I'm hearing. So expanding in that capacity seems to be justifiable. I'm not sure where we're going with the preschool aspect of it. That wasn't on my radar. I think we were responding to questions we were provided asking specifically about preschool. And so that's why we were differentiating between the technical assistance we provide for preschool versus for SIP as a whole. And then to go back, I think to clarify, Ana, we should break them out, the preschool versus. So we're like there's two programs that are happening at that level. There is a role for SIP in the early childhood, but there also is an existing structure within CDE that provides those supports. and I think our concern too was the concept of expanding while we're still trying to ensure that SIPs using the rest of their funds to continue doing the work that they are contractually obligated to do and it I think we are all kind of talking about similar things but it is good to reiterate certain points So I think our concern is expanding to preschools and certain other areas while also having the same funding resources that already are contractually obligated. And then the concern around duplication of program support at the early childhood level. And I want to be clear, I'm not saying SIP isn't successful. We think it is a successful program, but we have had to work really closely with them to ensure the use of their funds and meeting certain reporting requirements, contractual requirements, that we usually have a different relationship with a contractor. And I think that's where our concern was with some of the questions we were receiving is we want to make sure that they're utilizing the $4.5 million to meet their contractual obligations. we are concerned about an expansion into early childhood within that existing fund because there is already an existing program that is serving that same need. And then additionally, if we are to expand or scale, we would hope that we could provide additional feedback on how those metrics are met, the reporting requirements, things like that, because we don't have a traditional relationship with them as a contractor because of how it's structured in the budget. and that limits our ability to ensure that certain outcomes and timelines are met. Yeah, we would certainly want to support making sure that the reporting requirements are met and that the appropriate amounts of support are given and the communication is done to ensure that these programs are rolled out effectively and expanded effectively. Specifically on the amount of money that couldn't be spent, if we look at the timeline of when that budget was allocated versus where we are now, That is inclusive of while we were in COVID. And so there were challenges around expending all of those allocated dollars because we were in COVID. And that created its own unique set of circumstances around hiring and in class and classroom based instruction, as well as all kinds of other countless complications with learning. But a lot of that was due to, or I'm guessing, was due to this being during the time of COVID in our slow ramp up to going back to classroom-based learning. Does that sound about right? So, yeah, during the first years, about 40% was unused of the first couple years. And then the last budget year, which I have, I believe it's 24, 25, it was about only 20% went unused. Okay. And I do, we have been back in the classroom for years now and they're still not expending all of the use. And part of it is we have contract development delays that are contract driven. There's incomplete submissions, calculation errors, formula problems. So it is a lot of hands on support needed that not a concern for CDE, but we do want to clarify that there is a distinction in how the funds are getting out. And we are finding that those are at the ground level and needing much more support in part because there isn't a traditional relationship. So there's not kind of that accountability requirement that is standard. So we know staffing is an issue across the board. We wouldn't say it's unique to this. So one of the issues we did see was, yes, there was fiscal staff turnover, and that created a lot of reporting issues. But also it's not built into the contract, the staffing requirements. And so I think that causes a little bit of the instability as well that is separate and apart from COVID. So is that something that we now through learning about this program that we could build in Absolutely I think there it a learning experience Yeah sure And I think we should yeah we would make recommendations on certain feedback we gotten and things we've learned to help improve the program. Again, we do think the program has been well-regarded and successful, but there may be some additional changes we can make to ensure that those outcomes and the money is spent, that CDE would be happy to provide additional feedback to you and the chair. So who drives the decisions around making those contracts and what's included in the contract and how those are done? Budget language? Yeah, the budget language drives a big portion of it. And then we work really closely with each contractor to help develop out both a scope of work and a budget that they feel like they could implement annually. So they, and specifically this contract will drive a lot of that. The contractor drives that. They provide us their scope of work and their budget along with all of their invoices. Great. So this sounds like this is something that CDE can work directly with the Department of Finance and build it into budget language? Yeah, I think. Or do you need some policy decision that helps? Does it need to come over to the policy side where we get it? I think if it was to be put in budget language, we would welcome feedback. You know, it is a three-party decision, but we can provide that. There's two questions I think that we want to appreciate why we're discussing these things. It's just the current SIP encumbrance extension, which is one thing, but there's also a background conversation happening, and I think that's why we're highlighting the concerns where it's about expansion or scaling, and that's why we're flagging if we were to do more than just extend the encumbrance deadlines, we would caution that certain other statutory changes be made in budget to ensure that the contracts are meeting what the legislature and CDE hope the outcomes can be in program. OK, thank you. OK, thank you. Thank you to the panel. Hold the issue open. And we'll move on to issue number five, which is on charter school facilities. If I can please ask the panelists to come forward, Department of Finance, Legislative Analyst Office, and the State Treasurer's Office on this one. This panel will present on the January budget proposal impacting the Charter School Facility Grant Program. So we will kick it off with the proposal from Finance. and welcome. Good morning, Ethan Schroeder with the Department of Finance. I'll be providing an overview of the Charter School Facility Grant Program proposals within the Governor's budget. The Charter School Facility Grant Program provides annual grants to help offset facility costs to charter schools that serve a high percentage of students eligible for free or reduced prized meals, or in a public elementary school boundary that serve a similar demographic. For the charter school facility grant program, the governor's budget poses a total ongoing $9.2 million in Proposition 98 increase. They consist of $1.8 million for a 2.41% cost of living adjustment and $7.4 million to adjust increased current service levels. I'd be happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time. Thank you. LAO, please. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Michael Fedders with the Legislative Analyst's Office. We don't have any concerns with the proposal. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. We'll hear from the State Treasurer's Office next. Hi, Katrina Johansson. Thank you for having us, Chair and members. Since 2013-14, CSFA has administered the Charter School Facility Grant Program infidelity with the law. The state audit found that to be true back in 2022. So there were a number of questions that were proposed, and I didn't know if the committee would like me to walk through our... Sure, go ahead. Okay. So the first question was, is the Charter School Facility Grant Program intended to be an entitlement program? I would say that the Charter School Facility Grant Program is an annual funding program open to all eligible charter schools. Charter schools must apply annually to be considered for an award under the program. individual funding award amounts are dependent on annual program funding, which is set through an annual appropriation calculated based on statute, which is Ed Code Section 47614.5 with the COLA and CSL adjustments. It was proposed that we address the issue of do regular public schools have parity in access to funding for facilities compared to this program? Traditional public schools, as you may know, have greater access to facility funding through local general obligation bond proceeds and state general bond proceeds. Traditional public schools receive 100% of facility costs through local and state debt issuance. At best, charter school facility costs are reimbursed at 75% of facility costs, which many cap below the 75% threshold due to the program's ADA calculation, per pupil funding rates, and appraisal caps. And then we provided data, I believe, to the chair's office as it relates to the historical oversubscription. I think it was in the report. Yeah, so you can refer to that on page 15 of the report. And then we were asked about funding that went to Highlands Charter School through the program from 2019 to 2024. Between 2019 and 2024, Highlands Charter received approximately $7 million from eligible facility expenses. The school did not receive funding in 23-24, no 24-25, nor 25-26. They were deemed ineligible given the good standing certification that we require from the authorizer. In 2022, they did receive other costs totaling over $2 million. and we reviewed invoices for those amounts, and we also reviewed over 53 appraisals. So there's an appraisal requirement in the program for new facility agreements, and we can provide those as well if the committee would like to see those. We were asked, does the program need better protections against abuse, as seen in Highlands Charter use of the program? We try and prevent abuse through the program. Highlands met all program eligibility criteria to be deemed eligible for funding. Per program regulation and statute, we rely on average daily attendance and free and reduced price meal data from CDE and authorizer feedback to determine program eligibility. Award caps are set in law and program regulations. CSFA has been and will continue to be receptive to suggested changes to the program. For example, the program was audited in 2022, and the state auditor found that the program is administered with fidelity to the law, the program prevents school closures, and charter schools benefiting from both the facility grant program and our conduit financing program do not violate state law. The state auditor presented program recommendations which GSFA has either fully implemented or is in the process of implementing such as form 700 submissions for new facility agreements and Random sampling to identify related parties and conflicts of interest We would highlight that this program is highly scrutinized and heavily analyzed We welcome safeguards such as the one identified in the governor's current budget proposal that would require authorizers to conduct site visits and evaluate financial liability more closely. And then we were asked what percentage of the program's funds have been used to renovate and improve privately owned properties. Based on data for the last five funding rounds, other costs were available in 22-23 and 23-24. So this was a carve-out of $30 million on top of funding available for lease cost. In 2022, the other cost allocation accounted for 16% of total program allocation, and in 23-24, that amount represented 15% of a total appropriation. And then should public funds be allowed to renovate privately owned property? I just want to highlight that public funds are used throughout the state to lease private facilities for state offices, health facilities, daycare centers, as well as educational facilities. Some of these lease costs may be funding renovation and other improvements to privately owned properties through tenant improvements that might be included in a lease. And then should the Charter School Facility Grant Program have the same restrictions as the Office of Public School Construction's Charter Facility Program, which we also co-administer, and restrict capital improvements to public agency held title? We would just want to note that public agency held facilities are very scarce and charters must compete to occupy those district sites. Okay, thank you very much for your presentation. Let me just, one question, and I don't know who may answer this, but we can see if LAO can provide some input. This is a request to, actually let me ask Department of Finance. The request of $7.42 million is to meet current service levels. and increased demand. How is that determined? How is the service level determined? So how the program growth is calculated. So there are two adjustments we make in the Charged School Facility Grant program, and they're kind of related, so I'm going to walk through them both. But the first is the COLA adjustment, and the second adjustment is the size of the program based on the current year data on ADA or Charged Schools. So consistent with the calculations that has outlined in the statute, CSA provides us with ADA and rent cost lease for eligible Charged Schools. We then perform two calculations first we identify 75% of the eligible schools rent or lease costs Second we take the ADA and we multiply that by the current year cold rate The lesser of those two copies are then find it each school doesn't a map the difference between those dozen amounts our previous year's allocation Is the workload adjust or the current service? And we provide those projections to the Department of Finance, so I You went through that very quickly, so I think what I captured is if there's a there are more, if there were to be more student enrollment, then does that move your formula in the direction of you identifying a higher service level required? Yeah, that'd be correct. So I think it's 75% of the lease cost of the eligible charter schools that kind of reach the threshold of the free or reduced price meals, or also ADA increases at those charter schools, or if a new charter school has increased ADA So it kind of capturing all those things Okay Anita Lee with the Department of Finance I think I might help with this So I think previously we mentioned that if you are a charter school that meets the qualifications you become eligible right So there is ADA growth for those that are already existing into the program. That's one piece of it. And then the second piece is if more programs become eligible, then their ADA also then enters into the calculation. So there's kind of two pieces to that current service level adjustment. When you say more programs, that means more charter schools. Correct. Yes. I mean, that's the only way you get more programs here. Yeah. So I think I'm just distinguishing to hopefully answer the question that there's just two pieces. Okay. All the ADA factors into both pieces, but they are kind of distinct. So I just wanted to flag that for you. And for the Treasurer's Office, the questions five and six are to the concern of, you know, a potential private benefit that is received as a result of investments with public dollars. So how are we I? Don't think there's a mass Exodus or or shutting down of Charter schools, but what are the mechanisms in place to prevent from some substantial investment happening on some facility that then no longer operates as a school? This is an annual grant program. So we're paying annual ongoing ongoing facility and rental agreement. So in terms of the $30 million, those were costs that met the definition in our regulations and in statute. So things like HVAC, so they were needed in that given year, and there was a lot of deferred and pent-up demand for those other costs. But you don't require that there be a long-term lease, for example, if someone's going to make an investment of that kind. That's a pretty expensive investment. We do not look at a long-term lease. So that has not been something that we've looked at. I mean, other programs, like our CSAP program, is a 30-year loan program. Some of the bond financings that we see are 40-year bonds. And if there's any proceeds or assets that are left, for example, if a charter school closes, there's nonprofit law that would govern how those assets are liquidated and handled. but that's not something that, you know, for an annual grant program that we're analyzing. So, and I know this happens, a charter school could move from one site to another and every year request support from this grant program. They could, yeah, but they would need any new lease agreement would come with an appraisal. So we're looking at fair market value. We're looking at all the caps that exist in the program. But for the $30 million or the millions in terms of investments made on a privately owned property, you could make that improvement and then move on two years later. But the landlord could be making the improvement as well, and that could be built into the lease. So there could be a cost to the state regardless of how that improvement is being funded. Yeah, and obviously we want quality classroom settings, but certainly not. Taxpayers should not be funding renovation of buildings that are privately held and then benefit from that in the long term. So maybe something to look at later. There hasn't been money left over for other costs. We didn't have any money available last year. There no money contemplated this year for other costs This is to meet the base of the demand for lease and rent agreements There not a carve this year for other costs So there hasn been other costs available since 23 So the 7.4 and the 1.8 gets us to where we think program demand will be. We received, for this funding round, 480 applications up from 470 applications the prior year, up from 452 the prior year. So those are applications. Those are not eligible awards. So there's a delta between the two, given the vetting that we do. All right. Thank you. Dr. Patel, do you have any questions? Thank you for this presentation. Of course, the Highlands issue is very concerning. But when we look at the bigger picture, what role does the charter authorizer play in SB 740 grant process? The authorizer provides us certification that the charter is in compliance with the terms of its charter and not necessarily in good standing, but not, you know, their charter isn't about to be revoked. There's no violation. So we are getting real-time data from the authorizer at which we had on Highlands. And the minute we didn't have it, we pulled back funding. Okay. So it's an eligibility threshold. In light of the risks of abuse or fraud or situations like that, are the authorizers in a position to know whether that's coming or do they get a sense of that? I'm not sure. I'm honestly not sure. I mean, we have very detailed information that comes from certain authorizers. For example, LAUSD provides us a very detailed letter about each school that we ask, and that's over 150 schools. So it really depends on the authorizer, the kind of information that we're getting. But schools need that or they do not receive an award. So that's interesting. So there's no standard amount of information that's helpful? Is there a gold standard or a rubric? We have one form, and it's up to – I mean, now it's very prescribed. And I can point you to our regulations where we talk about good standing. Bear with me. Because if we know that someone like LA Unified, if they're providing the appropriate amount of information to help you make those determinations, maybe we should look at that as a template. I mean, we need, it's a pass-fail, so either they're, and I can read you the definition of good standing. Good standing shall mean the applicant satisfies all three of the following conditions. Number one, compliance with the terms of its charter agreement. Number two, no pending or outstanding notices of violation described in Education Code Section 47607G. And three, no pending or outstanding notices of intent to revoke described in Education Code Section 47607H. The authorities will rely on information prepared by the chartering authority and the submission of a good standing certification form incorporated herein by reference. So our regulations have been, you know, we're a public agency. We have stakeholders weigh in on our regulations. So the definition of good standing has changed over time. So, I mean, that's where we are right now. Okay. Department of Finance, did you have anything to add? Okay. In light of concerns around public dollars being used to improve private facilities or privately held facilities. What are the, or are there any restrictions around when the charter school is dissolved or properties are sold? Are there any encumbrances around that? Does any of that money get returned to the state? For this program? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this program is looked at as an annual facility reimbursement program. So there is, and then on our longer-term program, CSFP, the state makes, you know, multimillion-dollar investment through our charter school facility program, and then those facilities are held in trust for the state's public education system. And there, you know, there's succession provisions that if an existing charter doesn't need the site anymore, a successor charter has the first right to occupy that site. And then when we talk about bond finance facilities, those are held by nonprofits, and nonprofit law governs those. But I'm not a nonprofit expert, so I imagine there might be folks here that might want to share that information. Sure. Thank you. In the case that the charter had taken over a facility that was once a public school facility, does the public school system have a right back into that list of first right of refusal? Under CSFP, they do. The first is for a successor charter. If you can't find a charter, it would be the district. And if the district doesn't need it, it can be deemed surplus property. Yeah, I mean, that's in 17078. Public LEA gets back into the list. They can, yeah. That's 17078.62 of the Ed Code. That's the charter school facility program, which is modeled after SFP. Okay, thank you. And then should the CSFG program have the same restrictions as the Office of Public School Construction's charter facility program and thereby restricting capital improvements to public agency held title? I think if, and I'm not a charter advocate, so I'm not, I don't have, you know, this data, but my sense is if there were more district facilities available to charters, so Prop 39, you know, charters compete for a facility for one year or they're co-locating and they have to move. Right. So, you know, I would ask a charter advocate to answer that. You know, I think that facilities are scarce, district facilities are scarce. So my sense is that that's why so many charters are in privately leased facilities. Yeah. Well, I'm just thinking of the big picture of as we look at declining enrollment, but also school districts' abilities to build housing and affordable housing for staff. What are what does the landscape of uses look like and potential look like so thank you for answering those questions Thank you Mr. Fong do you have questions for this panel? Okay All right, then thank you. We will hold this open and We now are gonna Do a vote on the end there was a motion Mr. Fong on Issue number three To reject and refer to the policy committee So we'll call the roll for this Fong Fong aye that has three votes right and has been rejected by the subcommittee We are now going to move on to non presentation items just I'm going to note them There will be no presentation unless subcommittee members would like to ask any questions. We have an education trailer bill proposal on curriculum embedded in performance tasks of science. Another one on section 117 of chapter 48 Statues of 2023 on the literacy roadmap encumbrance We have a budget change proposal increase the fiscal crisis management assessment team by of Proposition 98 An additional proposal budget change, California School Information Systems funding by $966,000 of ongoing, and a budget change proposal increasing the K-12 high-speed network funding by $629,000 of ongoing Proposition 98. See no reason to pull or any desire. So, oh, we do have a comment. Dr. Patel. I just want to make a comment in support of item three, which is for FICMAT getting an increased budget. I think as we look at declining enrollment and the challenges that our school districts are going to be facing in the near future, having some extra resources with FICMAT will be super helpful. So thank you. Thank you for making that comment. I agree with that. Okay. Well, that brings us to the end of the agenda items, but we will take public comments now. Anyone who did not get a chance to speak when we opened, you will have an opportunity now. Please come forward. Please state your name. We will give you 30 seconds. And welcome, first speaker. Sorry, Chair. I thought it was a minute. Chris Bollinger on behalf of Highland's Charter. We just want to thank the staff for taking our meeting yesterday. We disagree with the characterization of the committee analysis. The word abuse is not found a single time in the state audit report, nor is there any connection to SB 740 funds. The two issues found in the state audit report pertain to teacher credentials. Highlands maintained adult education teaching credentials. The second item pertains to attendance practices. Highlands checked attendance once a day. Now the standard is being asked of them is four or five times a day. five times a day. They're in a single classroom setting. This is not a traditional school. And so for those reasons, you know, we've got 15,000 students that are now without services. We have 600 employees that are now without jobs. This is a humanitarian crisis, and we would ask for an oversight hearing into the matter. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Chair members. Natalie Shin here on behalf of Californians Together. We are in strong support of the increased funding for dual enrollment. We are also strongly opposed of the proposed changes to the definition of students at risk of becoming long-term English learners, and thank you for rejecting this proposal. The proposed definition delays identification and eliminates two years' worth of targeted support during a critical window where it would have the greatest impact on students' success and prevent them from becoming long-term English learners. Intervention during early elementary years is vital for more focused acceleration on language development and academic growth. Waiting until year six means many students will have missed out on the critical supports they deserve. This is not just a simple definition change, but a shift from prevention to delay. We urge you to ensure that no more students are able to fall through the cracks and we prioritize academic achievement over simplifying data metrics. Thank you. Thank you. Laura Kerr with the Charter School Development Center on issue number five. The Charter School Facility Grant Program is a model. The LAO recognized that in 2015 with a report where they recognized the program for its ongoing facilities costs versus the bond program, which is all about one-time funding and modernization. So we think the program is great and should be scaled up. And the LEO recommended adding all public schools to that program rather than cutting this one. On Highlands, we think the core issue there is authorizing and the conflicts that exist in a school district-based authorizing program. Highlands took $13 million over five years. I sorry Twin Rivers took million over five years and didn even do the basics of authorization And finally the church will Your time is up Thank you Okay Deborah Maltisa-Zabala on behalf of the California Association of Sururban School Districts. On issue two, dual enrollment, CalSSD supports a proposed $100 million for dual enrollment grant programs with flexibility for middle college, early college, and CCAP, and eligibility for regional occupational center programs. These pathways and opportunities engage students and improve persistence, completion, and college and career readiness. Additionally, funding will increase access to these opportunities and support more consistent implementation. Thank you very much for all you do first. Thank you. Good morning, Chair and members. Cristina Salazar with the Riverside County Superintendent of Schools. We're in support of the expansion of the dual enrollment, particularly for justice-involved youth. And based on today's conversation, we want to highlight the importance of data sharing and for more CalKIDS participation. We also want to say that we support the administration proposal on the definition of long-term English learners. Having two definitions has been a confusion for the field. And then finally, we're in strong support of the extension of the supporting inclusive practices. As a SIP partner, we currently serve 114 grantees and continue to see a strong interest for additional grantees. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Tavia Lawson. I'm a proud parent of a 26-year-old son who's autistic. I'm also the CAC chair of the East San Gabriel Valley SOPA. I'm very appreciative of the discussions that took place today around the California Department of Education and also supportive inclusive practices. I've seen firsthand what inclusion and belonging can do for our students in early intervention going all the way from K to 12 even into the college years. So I'm in strong support of CE. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Sarabachas with children now in support of item one and two. And then for item three, supportive of your action that you've taken today echoing California's Together's comments. Thanks. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and members. Carol Gonzalez, on behalf of EdTrust West, Hope, and the Dual Enrollment Coalition to align our comments with folks before us about the $100 million investment for dual enrollment. We see it as a pathway to close equity gaps. And we also want to echo the importance of aligning the ADA minimum minute requirement with other middle college programs so that there's parity. And on behalf of Trust West, they also want to echo the importance of technical assistance for dual enrollment and elevate the concerns with the English learner language that you all voted on. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning Michelle Warshaw on behalf of the California Teachers Association We align our comments with Californians together and have concerns with the at long English learner proposal The proposal would not capture students who have been English learners for four to five years and we urge the legislature to reject this definition. On the charter schools facility grant program, we do have some concerns with the amount of public Prop 98 dollars going to privately held facilities with limited oversight, and we would like to see increased accountability and a rejection of the proposed additional appropriations. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Alvarez and members. Kyle Hyland on behalf of the Career Technical Education Joint Powers Authority Coalition. We want to express our strong support for the proposed trailer bill language clarifying that regional occupational centers and programs are eligible partners in CCAP, Early College and Middle College programs. This clarification helps remove statutory ambiguity and will help expand access to workforce-aligned dual enrollment opportunities for students across California. We also want to support the proposed trailable language that includes ROCPs as eligible applicants for CCAP early college and middle college grant funding. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and members. Magali Zagal with Greenberg-Trorig on behalf of self-administrators of California. First, I do want to express our strong support for the SIP project for the reasons stated during today's discussion, but we do have a supportive amended position on the underlying bill, AB 2468. We very much look forward to continued conversations with the author's office. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and members. Sarah Boabibsa on behalf of the Institute for College Access and Success. Here this morning in support of the $100 million investment on dual enrollment program expansion, as well as support for the California Education Interagency Council, which we believe will be an integral next step in connecting workforce, connecting efforts through the LWDA, especially with the Workforce Penelope Go Live date of July 1. and we continue to, we look forward to continuing discussions with you all on how the HGG Agency Council can be empowered to make these critical decisions. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning. Cassie Mancini on behalf of the California School Employees Association here to comment on issue number five. CSEA is respectfully opposed to the governor's proposal to provide a $7.42 million service level adjustment to the Charter School Facility Grant Program. This program is being used by charter schools to receive lease payment grants for facilities that they own themselves through their related party LLCs. The titles to these facilities are not held by the public, despite their bonds being paid off these grants and other Prop 98 funds. It makes no sense for the state to continue to invest in vast amount of money into these properties. The state has absolutely no claim for. For these reasons, CSEA urges the legislature to reject additional appropriations to this program until it is reformed to address title-holding issues. Thank you. Thank you.

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