Child care: state preschool programs: expulsion.

Existing law, the Child Care and Development Services Act, requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to administer child care and development programs that offer a full range of services for eligible children from infancy to 13 years of age, including California state preschool programs. The act requires families to meet certain requirements to be eligible for federal and state subsidized child development services. The act authorizes the Superintendent to enter into and execute local contractual agreements with any public or private entity or agency for the delivery of child care and development services. This bill would prohibit a contracting agency from expelling or unenrolling a child from a state preschool program because of a child's behavior unless the contracting agency has expeditiously pursued and documented reasonable steps to maintain the child's safe participation in the program and determines, in consultation with specified parties, that the child's continued enrollment would present a continued serious safety threat to the child or other enrolled children, and has referred the parents or legal guardians to other potentially appropriate placements, the local child care resource and referral agency, or any other referral service available in the local community. Existing law provides for the licensure, by the State Department of Social Services, of facilities that provide day care for children, including day care centers and family day care homes. Existing law authorizes the department to impose civil penalties for certain violations of the licensing requirements and their corresponding regulations. Existing law requires each licensed child day care facility to post various documents and provide various notices to parents in response to certain citations. Existing law provides that failure to comply with these requirements results in an immediate civil penalty. This bill would require the department to consider, in determining whether to issue a citation to or impose a civil penalty on a child day care facility that contracts with the State Department of Education, whether the child day care facility is in the process of complying with the procedure described above.