Instruction.

(1) Existing law authorizes school districts that maintain high schools to establish work experience programs for the purpose of providing pupils with instruction in skills, attitudes, and understandings necessary for success in employment. This bill would state the findings of the Legislature regarding work-based learning, as defined. This bill would authorize school districts that maintain high schools to establish work-based learning programs, and to purchase liability insurance for pupils enrolled in programs of study involving work-based learning, off school grounds. The bill would authorize partnership academies, regional occupational programs, and local educational agencies to deliver work-based learning opportunities for pupils that may include work experience education, community classrooms, cooperative career technical education programs, and job shadowing experience, as specified. The bill would authorize regional and local business organizations, in conjunction with school districts and community colleges, and any other representatives deemed appropriate, to develop principles and guidelines for the establishment of work-based learning programs. (2) Existing law requires that, in order to be eligible for specified funds, a school district take steps to ensure that each pupil in each school in the district has sufficient textbooks, as defined. This bill would provide that for purposes of these provisions, sufficient textbooks may include digital materials, as long as each pupil has the ability to access the digital material at home and, at a minimum, has the same content in class and to take home as all other pupils in the same class or course in the district. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.