Sen. Melissa A. Melendez

This measure would proclaim August 8, 2016, to August 12, 2016, inclusive, as Concrete Pipe Week.

Existing law authorizes the Superintendent of Public Instruction, in order to assist the state in evaluating the effectiveness of special education programs, including transition and work experience programs, to collect and utilize social security numbers of individuals with exceptional needs as pupil identification numbers beginning in the 1993–94 fiscal year and phased in over a 2-year period. In a situation where a social security number is not available, existing law requires the Superintendent to assign another pupil identification number for purposes of evaluating special education programs and related services. This bill would repeal that authorization and would instead require the Superintendent, commencing with the 2017–18 fiscal year and phased in over a 2-year period, to assign a pupil identification number to individuals with exceptional needs for purposes of evaluating special education programs and related services. The bill would prohibit school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools from collecting or soliciting social security numbers or the last 4 digits of social security numbers from pupils or their parents or guardians unless otherwise required to do so by state or federal law, and would authorize the State Department of Education to additionally prohibit the collection and solicitation of other personally identifiable information, as recommended by the Superintendent and approved by the State Board of Education.

This measure would proclaim April 12, 2016, as Equal Pay Day in recognition of the need to eliminate the gender gap in earnings by women and to promote policies to ensure equal pay for all.

This measure would encourage teaching sun safety practices to children to enable them to identify the importance of sun safety, practice strategies to protect against the harmful effects of the sun, and understand why and how to stay safe from overexposure to the sun.

This measure would recognize the month of June 2016 as Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness Month, would recognize June 21, 2016, as The Longest Day in California, and would urge all residents to wear purple on this day to help spread global awareness of the Alzheimer's Association's vision of imagining a world without Alzheimer's disease.

This measure would recognize the year of 2016 as the 50th anniversary of California's community-based developmental services system, and would reaffirm the commitment of the Legislature to support this system. This measure would declare the importance of ensuring a sustainable system that protects the rights of individuals with developmental disabilities.

This measure would respectfully urge Congress to appropriate $248 million in funding to complete Phase 2 of the Calexico West Land Port of Entry reconfiguration and expansion project in order to realize the benefits the improvements of this project will have on the nation's economy.

This measure would request the federal government to change federal policy in order to allow California to equitably end the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cash-out policy, administered through the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and the State Supplementary Payment (SSP) programs, in a way that would maximize benefits to, and participation among, newly eligible individuals and mitigate or eliminate harm to low-income families and the approximately 60,000 medically needy children who could be made ineligible for certain benefits under a program without the cash-out policy.

This measure would recognize June 30, 2016, as California State Parks Discovery Day and urge all Californians to celebrate and visit state parks.