Education finance: Opportunity Youth Reengagement Program.

Existing law establishes a system of public elementary and secondary education in this state. Under this system, local educational agencies, which include school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools, provide instruction to pupils in kindergarten and grades 1 to 12, inclusive, at schoolsites throughout the state. Existing law establishes a public school financing system that requires state funding for county superintendents of schools, school districts, and charter schools to be calculated pursuant to a local control funding formula (LCFF) , as specified. This bill would, for each fiscal year, upon appropriation by the Legislature, require the Superintendent of Public Instruction to make an apportionment to local educational agencies that would equal the amounts apportioned in the supplemental grant provisions of the LCFF that are attributable to the number of reengaged opportunity youth, as defined, enrolled in that agency. The bill would require the funds apportioned pursuant to the bill to be used to serve the reengaged opportunity youth under the Opportunity Youth Reengagement Program, which the bill would establish. The bill would also authorize the expenditure of the above-referenced LCFF supplemental grant funds for purposes of the program. The bill would provide that a youth who is eligible to participate in the program funded under the bill would include a high school pupil formerly identified as a dropout, an expelled pupil, or a pupil who has not been enrolled for at least 90 days irrespective of designation, including, but not necessarily limited to, a pupil identified as a transfer pupil who has not reenrolled in a public elementary or secondary school for at least 90 days and a pupil who has been involved with the justice system, as specified. The bill would specify the reengagement services that could be provided to eligible youth by local educational agencies entering into agreements for provision of these services. The bill would require a local educational agency that receives funding under the bill to provide specified outcome data in its annual local control and accountability plan.