Sen. Gloria Romero

Existing law, the Leroy F. Greene School Facilities Act of 1998 (the Greene Act) , requires the State Allocation Board to allocate to applicant school districts prescribed per-unhoused-pupil state funding for construction and modernization of school facilities, including hardship funding and supplemental funding for site development and acquisition. This bill, on and after July 1, 2011, would require all new construction projects submitted to the Division of the State Architect pursuant to the Greene Act to include locks that allow doors to classrooms and rooms with an occupancy of 5 or more persons to be locked from the inside, except as specified.

Existing law establishes the California State University and its various campuses under the administration of the Trustees of the California State University. Existing law requires the California State University to offer undergraduate and graduate instruction through the master's degree in the liberal arts and sciences and professional education, including teacher education. This bill, until July 1, 2018, would authorize the California State University to establish a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree pilot program at 3 campuses chosen by the Board of Trustees to award the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. The bill would distinguish the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from the doctor of philosophy degree offered at the University of California. The bill would require the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree pilot program to be designed to enable professionals to earn the degree while working full time, train nurses for advanced practice, and prepare clinical faculty to teach in postsecondary nursing programs. The bill would require the California State University to enroll and maintain no more than 90 full-time equivalent students in the degree pilot program at all 3 campuses combined. The bill would require initial funding to come from existing budgets, without diminishing the quality of undergraduate programs or reducing enrollment therein. The bill would require the California State University, the Legislative Analyst's Office, and the Department of Finance to jointly conduct a statewide evaluation of the degree pilot program and report the results to the Legislature and the Governor on or before January 1, 2017.

Existing law, intended to strengthen existing accountability requirements, requires the California Postsecondary Education Commission, each November 15, to submit a higher education report to the Legislature and the Governor that provides information to the citizens of the state on the significant indicators of performance of the public colleges and universities. This bill would require the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, the Trustees of the California State University, the California Postsecondary Education Commission, and the Student Aid Commission, including any auxiliary organization, to provide for live audio transmission of all meetings, which are open to the public pursuant to specified law, through a technology that is accessible to as large a segment of the public as possible. This bill would also request the Regents of the University of California to comply with these provisions.

(1) Existing law requires every entity offering or conducting private school instruction on the elementary or high school level to annually verify information by filing with the Superintendent of Public Instruction an affidavit or statement under penalty of perjury setting forth specified information relating to the current year. The affidavit or statement must be made available to any parent or guardian whose child is currently enrolled or is considering whether to enroll his or her child in the school, as specified. If the employees of any entities that have a contract with a private school to provide specified services may have any contact with pupils, those employees are required to submit their fingerprints to the Department of Justice for a background check. The Department of Justice is authorized to notify the private school when the employee has a pending criminal case, or a criminal conviction, of specified crimes. Private schools contracting with an entity for construction or other related services where employees of the entity will have other than limited contact with pupils, are required to ensure the safety of the pupils by utilizing one or more methods. This bill would apply a substantially identical verification requirement to heritage schools, which is a school for children that serves children who are at least 4 years and 9 months of age to 18 years of age and who attend a public or private full-time school, and which offers foreign language education or tutoring and cultural education relating to a foreign country. The bill would require every person, firm, association, partnership, or corporation operating a heritage school to annually file with the Superintendent an electronic registration form, under penalty of perjury, by the owner or other head setting forth specified information, together with a fee determined by the Superintendent to be sufficient to cover, but not exceed, the costs of the department in implementing these provisions. Because the bill creates a new crime, it would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require heritage school contractors to submit to the Department of Justice fingerprint images and related information required by the Department of Justice of all employees of specified entities that contract with a heritage school to obtain criminal history information, as specified. The Department of Justice would be required to forward requests for criminal history information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, review reply information received from the bureau, and provide a determination and response to the heritage school contractor. The bill would require the contractor to request subsequent arrest information, as specified, from the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice would be required to charge a sufficient fee for the costs of processing requests for criminal history information. The heritage school would also be required to maintain membership in a state or national cultural or language association, comply with relevant applicable local regulations, and not operate out of a residential home. The bill would require the director of a heritage school to undergo at least 15 hours of health and safety training, as specified, and would require employees and volunteers of the heritage school to be in good health, as verified by a health screening performed by a licensed physician and surgeon. The bill would exempt a heritage school from licensure by the State Department of Social Services as a child day care center, as specified. The bill would require a heritage school to provide a notice to the parent or guardian of a pupil enrolling in the school stating that the school is exempt from child care licensure and that attendance at a heritage school does not satisfy state compulsory education requirements. The bill would establish the Heritage Enrichment Resource Fund. The Superintendent would be authorized to expend moneys deposited in the fund, upon appropriation by statute, as specified. (2) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. (3) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

(1) Existing law requires the State Board of Education to adopt a state master plan for services to migrant children, as defined, that includes the provision of specified services and activities. Under existing law, a child may be deemed a "migrant child" for a period not to exceed 5 years during which the child resides in an area where programs are provided for migrant children. Existing law requires priority to be given to programs and activities for migrant children and prohibits migrant programs from being provided solely for children who have ceased to migrate. This bill would reduce the number of years a child may be deemed a migrant child from 5 years to 3 years. The bill would delete the provisions above regarding priority and the prohibition against programs solely for children who have ceased to migrate, and would instead specify that priority for services shall be consistent with federal law. (2) Existing law requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to establish the service regional system as the primary method for the delivery of services to migrant children and requires that regions be contiguous, with no less than 1,500, and no more than 8,000, migratory children. The bill would delete the cap on the number of migratory children that may be served in a region. (3) Existing law requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to sponsor an annual State Parent Advisory Council Conference, and requires the council to prepare and submit a report to the Legislature, the State Board of Education, and the Governor regarding the status of the migrant education program. Existing law also requires the Superintendent and each operating agency to establish and implement training programs for members of the statewide and operating agency parent advisory councils to enable them to carry out their responsibilities. The bill would require the report to include an evaluation of the program, a review of annual needs, a year-end assessment, policy recommendations, and the data collected regarding the program. The bill would require the council to submit the report within 120 days from the conclusion of a training program on preparing the report provided by the Superintendent. (4) The bill also would make clarifying and nonsubstantive changes.

Existing law requires a person between 6 and 18 years of age not otherwise exempted to attend the public full-time day school or continuation school or classes in the school district where the person's parent or legal guardian is located. Existing law provides various exceptions to this residency requirement, including, but not limited to, authorizing a pupil to attend school in a school district in which his or her parent or guardian is employed. This bill would require a school district to accept a wide range of documents and representations from the parent or guardian of a pupil as reasonable evidence that the pupil meets those residency requirements, including, but not limited to, property tax payment receipts, rental property contract, lease, or payment receipts, utility service contract, lease, or payment receipts, pay stubs, voter registration, correspondence from a government agency, and a declaration of residency executed by the parent or guardian of a pupil who is a homeless child or youth, as defined. The bill, if an employee of a school district reasonably believes that the parent or guardian of a pupil has provided false or unreliable evidence of residency, would authorize a school district to make reasonable efforts to determine whether the pupil actually meets the residency requirements.

This measure would recognize March 31, 2010, as the anniversary of the birth of César Chávez, and would call upon all Californians to participate in appropriate observances to remember César Chávez as a symbol of hope and justice to all persons.

Under existing law, any person who receives an overpayment of unemployment compensation benefits is liable for the amount overpaid. Existing law also permits the Director of Employment Development to take specified steps to recover overpayment of unemployment compensation benefits and unemployment compensation disability benefits, including filing a civil action against the liable person within one year after certain actions have been taken. Existing law also permits the director to initiate summary judgment proceedings against a liable person to recover overpayment of unemployment compensation benefits due to fraud, misrepresentation, or willful nondisclosure on the part of the recipient. This bill would require the Director of Employment Development to find an overpayment of unemployment benefits where the individual who received them was an elected official whose claim was based solely on income received as an elected official. This bill would permit the director, in addition to filing a civil action against the liable person for the overpayment amount, to initiate summary judgment proceedings against such a person to recover these overpayment amounts, as provided. Existing law requires every employer, with specified exceptions, to pay contributions to the Unemployment Fund at specified rates, for the purpose of funding unemployment insurance benefits for eligible unemployed workers. Existing law defines "employment" for those purposes and, with respect to certain public entities, exempts from that definition certain services performed by an individual in the exercise of his or her duties as an elected official. This bill would require the Employment Development Department, by July 1, 2011, to adopt regulations to clarify that the above-described provision governing eligibility for unemployment compensation excludes elected officials from coverage under the unemployment insurance compensation system for purposes of benefit eligibility. The bill would also require the department to revise language in a specified California employment guide with regard to the exclusion of elected officials from unemployment insurance coverage and benefit eligibility, as specified.

Existing law creates the Federal Trust Fund in the State Treasury for the deposit of moneys received from the federal government where the expenditure is administered through or under the direction of any state agency. This bill would appropriate $1,201,534,585 from the Federal Trust Fund to the Office of Planning and Research for the 2010–11 fiscal year upon notification to the state of a funding award pursuant to the federal Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act. From that amount, the bill would require the Office of Planning and Research to transfer $1,201,406,585 to the State Department of Education for purposes of implementing that federal act and make $128,000 available to the Office of Planning and Research for the purposes of providing oversight of funds allocated to local educational agencies pursuant to the bill. Of the amount transferred to the department, the bill would require that $1,199,906,585 be allocated to local educational agencies, as specified, and would make $1,500,000 available to the department for administrative purposes related to that allocation. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

This measure would proclaim April 12 through April 18, 2010, as California Holocaust Memorial Week and would urge Californians to observe these days of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust in an appropriate manner.