Education.

(1) Existing law requires the State Allocation Board to apportion certain funds from the State School Deferred Maintenance Fund to school districts, and specifies that those funds be apportioned after December 1 of each fiscal year. This bill would delete the provision specifying that those funds be apportioned after December 1. (2) Existing law authorizes the governing board of a school district to provide for the transportation of pupils to and from school by purchasing or renting vehicles, contracting and paying for the transportation of pupils to and from school by a common carrier or a municipally owned transit system, or contracting with and paying responsible private parties for the transportation. In each fiscal year, a school district or county office of education is entitled to receive the same transportation allowance that it received in the prior fiscal year, as calculated by the Superintendent of Public Instruction based on the approved costs of home-to-school transportation, as defined, of the district or county office. This bill would repeal a provision specifying that a charter school is eligible for funding pursuant to those provisions. (3) Under existing law, an elementary school that has been operated by the University of California at the Los Angeles campus prior to January 1, 1994, may apply to become a charter school. Existing law specifies, if an elementary school petitions either the governing board of the local school district or the State Board of Education to become a charter school, that the school shall receive state apportionments equal to the statewide average revenue limit for elementary schools plus other specified funding. This bill would repeal the provisions requiring the charter school to receive those funds. (4) Existing law requires the Superintendent, with approval of the state board, to develop the Academic Performance Index (API) consisting of a variety of indicators currently reported to the State Department of Education to track the achievement of schools and their pupils. Statutory provisions establish a specific calculation for graduation rates to be included within the API and require the Superintendent to provide an annual report to the Legislature on graduation and dropout rates in California. Existing law requires the API to be used for specified purposes, including, but not limited to, ranking all public schools in the state for purposes of the High Achieving/Improving Schools Program. This bill would include 5- and 6-year graduation rates in the indicators currently reported to the department for purposes of calculating a school's API. The bill would specify a formula to calculate these rates, and would provide that schools receive partial credit in their API scores for graduating pupils in 5 and 6 years, except that schools would be granted full credit for graduating in 5 or 6 years a pupil with disabilities who graduates in accordance with his or her individualized education program. (5) Existing law authorizes the allocation of economic impact aid funding to support educationally disadvantaged youth programs and bilingual education, and requires the Superintendent to determine an economic impact aid-eligible pupil count and calculate an amount of economic impact aid for each school district. For charter schools that are funded through the block grant funding model, as specified, the department is required to use counts as of October of the prior year of pupils 5 to 17 years of age, inclusive, who are living with families whose annual income is at or below the federal poverty guideline, as defined, without revision. This bill would delete the provision specifying that it shall be without revision. (6) Existing law requires the Superintendent to furnish the Controller with certain data no later than 6 months following the close of each fiscal year. This bill would instead require the Superintendent to make certain data available on an as-needed basis. (7) The bill also would update and correct various statutory cross references.