Legislative Update from Dawn Koepke

Adult Education 2023 End of Session California Legislative Wrap Up

The 2023 Legislative Session has officially come to an end. On Thursday, September 14th, after working for several hours, the California State Assembly gaveled down first just before midnight, with the State Senate doing the same shortly after.  
 
The end of session is always a busy time around the Capitol as policymakers work to determine the fate of hundreds of bills. On Monday, September 11th, it was reported that about 720 bills were still pending consideration by Legislators.  
 
As of Thursday morning, many of the most contested items for the year had already been taken up for a vote. However, a couple of bills still lingered. A handful of those measures were subject to Proposition 54, which prohibits the Legislature from passing any bill unless published 72 hours before the vote. Thus, these bills were not eligible to be taken up until the afternoon/early evening.  

In terms of CCAE and CAEAA legislative priorities this year, we offer the following update: 

SB 447 (Atkins): GO-Biz: Building & Reinforcing Inclusive, Diverse, Gender Supportive Equity Project                                            
Would lift California’s travel ban to states with anti-LGBTQ+ laws and establishes at the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) the Building and Reinforcing Inclusive, Diverse, Gender-Supportive Equity Project (BRIDGE Project) to promote social equity, civil rights, and antidiscrimination through education, marketing, and advertising campaigns. The bill allows media campaigns to be on a national scale and allows campaigns to target states with anti-LGBTQ+ laws. This bill specifies GO-Biz is to create a BRIDGE Project fund where money is to be available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to support the BRIDGE Project. GO-Biz is to establish a process to receive donations to the fund. In addition, the bill specifies GO-Biz may contract with a nonprofit agency that is the “leading producer of public service advertisements and is able to use the services of volunteer advertising agencies and donated media to conduct the marketing activities.” The bill also requires GO-Biz to convene an advisory committee of no more than ten members to advise GO-Biz on BRIDGE Project media campaigns. Lastly, the bill establishes certain requirements for media campaigns funded by the project. 

• Position: CCAE & CAEAA SUPPORT 
  • As the state with the largest and most prominent adult education program, California has the opportunity to provide important guidance, support, and advocacy across the country in support of adult education programs that often are focused on those in need of English as a Second Language (ESL) programming, citizenship classes in order to obtain residency, and those who are the most marginalized in our communities in need of basic skills and short-term career training opportunities.  Further, adult education programs in California are offered on K12 campuses that provide for stronger access, comfort, and growth for immigrant and refugee populations who may find larger college-type campuses more intimidating and threatening in terms of residency status issues.  Unfortunately, however, California’s restrictions on travel to discriminatory states has left California’s Adult Education Program leaders and adult educators out of important dialogue, professional development opportunities and federal advocacy.  CCAE and CAEAA strongly support rescinding the travel restrictions and focusing on development of a robust civil rights and antidiscrimination campaign to ensure California’s values and priorities for protecting and serving the most marginalized and underrepresented in our communities are heard in those states. 
• Status: Passed the Legislature; Pending Governor’s Action 

AB 377 (Muratsuchi): California CTE Incentive Grant Program: Strong Workforce Program
Would have required the consolidation of specified K-12 career technical education (CTE) programs; increased ongoing funding for the Career Technical Education Incentive Grant program (CTEIG) administered by the California Department of Education (CDE); required specified CTE staffing at the state and regional level to support local CTE programs and pathways; and deleted authorization for the K-12 Strong Workforce Program (SWP) administered by the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges (CCCCO). Would also require the CDE to establish a stakeholder workgroup to consider improvements to the CTEIG program. 

• Position: CCAE & CAEAA SUPPORT   
  • CCAE & CAEAA requested an amendment to have adult schools included as part of the stakeholder workgroup’s membership that is further refined in Section 53076(b)(2) of the bill.  As shared with the author’s office, adult schools are part of K12 school districts and while they serve students 18 years and older in things like CTE programs, they receive many of the K12 students once they graduate or even in dual enrollment situations once they are 18.  Further, adult schools also share the same CTE facilities and equipment, and their costs in some cases.  So, in order to coordinate services to provide better continuity of education for students, the California Council for Adult Education (CCAE) and California Adult Education Administrators Association (CAEAA) have requested an adult school representative be included in the stakeholder workgroup.  The amendment was accepted and the bill is now in print with our requested amendment. 
• Status: Held on Suspense in the Senate Appropriations Committee   

AB 897 (McCarty): Certificated school employees: probationary employees: service credit
Requires an employer of an adult education teacher to grant the teacher permanent employee status after a two-year probationary period.  Additionally, it requires an employer of a certificated school employee working at least 60% of a full time position, and who has served for at least 75% of the number of days of their assignment, to consider the employee as having served a complete school year for purposes of granting permanent status, as well as requires an LEA to notify an employee hired using categorical state funding of the following information at the time of hire: the expected end date of employment, the source of funding, and the nature of the categorically funded program or project. 

• Position: CCAE & CAEAA SUPPORT 
• Status: Passed the Legislature; Pending Governor’s Action  

ACR 31 (Pacheco): Adult Education Week
Proclaims the week of March 19, 2023 to March 25, 2023, inclusive, as Adult Education Week, and would honor the teachers, administrators, classified staff, and students of adult education programs statewide for their efforts, persistence, and accomplishments. 

• Position: CCAE & CAEAA SUPPORT / Sponsor 
• Status: Chaptered and Filed with the Secretary of State on May 3, 2023 

The following bills also passed the Legislature and may be of interest to the adult education field: 

• AB 557 (Hart), Open meetings: local agencies: teleconferences. Eliminates the sunset date on provisions of law allowing local agencies to use teleconferencing without complying with specified Ralph M. Brown Act (Brown Act) requirements during a proclaimed state of emergency. 
• AB 873 (Berman), Pupil instruction: media literacy: curriculum frameworks. Requires the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) to consider incorporating the Model Library Standards and media literacy content at each grade level when the English Language Arts/English Language Development (ELA/ELD) curriculum framework is next revised, and media literacy content into the mathematics, science, and history-social science curriculum frameworks (H-SS Framework) when those frameworks are next revised after January 1, 2024. 
• SB 544 (Laird), Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act: teleconferencing. Revises, until January 1, 2026, certain teleconference requirements under the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, which requires all meetings of a state body be open and public. 

Other noteworthy end of session activity that may be of interest included some last-minute deals as follows: 

• AB 1228 (Holden), Fast food restaurant industry: Fast Food Council: health, safety, employment, and minimum wage. This bill represents a deal between labor unions and the fast food industry.  Specifically, it raises the statewide minimum wage to $20 per hour for fast-food workers effective April 1, 2024.  This bill is contingent on the withdrawal of the referendum against AB 257 — last year’s bill that created the Fast Food Council within the Department of Industrial Relations to establish minimum standards on wages, hours, and other working conditions.  Notably, AB 1288 would also establish a new Fast Food Council. 
• SB 525 (Durazo), Minimum wages: health care workers.  This represents an agreement between the California Hospital Association and SEIU California.  Specifically, this bill includes four different schedules that would eventually set a $25 minimum across the healthcare industry.  The bill would also prohibit local measures that aim to increase compensation for medical workers.  

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With the Legislature now adjourned, the focus shifts to the Governor’s office.  Governor Gavin Newsom has until October 14th to act on the bills passed by the Legislature.  If signed, most bills go into effect at the start of the new year, unless they have an urgency clause or specify otherwise.  
  
The Legislature will reconvene on January 3rd for the 2024 legislative session.  As a reminder, this year was the first year of a two-year legislative session, some of the bills that stalled may be brought back in 2024 for reconsideration.  These measures are commonly referred to as “two-year bills” and must clear their house of origin by January 31st.  Stay tuned…  
  
In terms of next steps, CCAE and CAEAA have already begun the planning process to determine our legislative and budget priorities for the next few years.  Among the topics being discussed in detail include ongoing discussions regarding possible reforms to the Adult Education Program, funding, teacher credentialing, and more.  We look forward to further discussion with the field on these items in the coming months.   ​