With just days left before the Oct. 14 deadline to sign or veto all legislation, CSBA advocacy has secured a number of major legislative victories. Four CSBA-sponsored bills were signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom over the weekend to help increase funding for student health, increase support for districts facing cyberattacks, help county boards appoint student members and extend the opportunity for boards to meet remotely during states of emergency.
- Assembly Bill 417 (Bennett, D-Ventura): Provides needed follow up to 2022 legislation that authorized a county board of education to select a student in a district school to fill a position on the county office board reserved for a pupil. In the absence of a petition for student representation, AB 417 permits a county board to appoint one of its own students from a school directly under its jurisdiction to the position.
- AB 483 (Muratsuchi, D-Torrance): Expands access to school-based health and mental health services and increases funding for school districts by improving the Medi-Cal Local Education Agency Medi-Cal Billing Option Program (LEA BOP). The bill modifies and imposes new requirements related to timelines, reporting, technical assistance, stakeholder engagement and guidance for LEA BOP.
- AB 557 (Hart, D-Santa Barbara): Extends the opportunity for school boards to offer virtual meeting options during states of emergency.
- AB 1023 (Papan, D-San Mateo): Increases cybersecurity support for school districts by requiring the California Cybersecurity Integration Center (Cal-CSIC) to include a representative from the California Department of Education and coordinate information sharing with school districts, county offices of education and charter schools.
One additional sponsored bill aimed at providing immediate relief during the teacher shortage, Senate Bill 765 (Portantino, D-Glendale), is still awaiting final action by the Governor. In addition, CSBA advocacy helped to secure the Governor’s vetoes of AB 1699 (McCarty, D-Sacramento) and SB 433 (Cortese, D-Santa Clara), which would have significantly eroded local control over classified staff hiring and disciplinary decisions.
CSBA’s dogged advocacy secures critical vetoes of two problematic bills
At the top of CSBA’s list of priority opposition bills were AB 1699 (McCarty, D-Sacramento) and SB 433 (Cortese, D-Santa Clara), which would have significantly eroded local control over classified staff hiring and disciplinary decisions.
AB 1699 (McCarty, D-Sacramento) would have mandated “right of first refusal” for classified staff hiring policies for all LEAs. CSBA members were critical to this veto, responding in record numbers to the call to action and generating more than 500 individual veto requests sent to the Governor, who vetoed the bill on Oct. 7. A true team effort, CSBA worked with a large coalition of school districts and educational advocacy organizations, including the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA), the California County Superintendents, California Association of School Business Officials (CASBO), Small School Districts’ Association (SSDA) and others.
CSBA also successfully led a coalition of statewide K-12 and community college associations in opposition of SB 433. The bill would have removed the authority of a duly elected school district and community college board to render personnel decisions concerning classified staff, contrary to the spirit of local control and removing yet another layer of locally elected and governance authority and delegating it to an unelected entity. The coalition’s work was reflected in the Governor’s decision to veto the bill on Oct. 7.
Gov. Newsom now has until midnight on Oct. 14 to sign or veto all remaining legislation pending on his desk. CSBA will continue to keep members informed on major decisions as they develop.
