By Chris Reefe, CSBA Legislative Director
With time to spare, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the final outcomes on Oct. 13 for all legislation that reached his desk at the end of the first year of the two-year 2025–26 legislative session. The Governor looked at more than 800 bills, including a number of high-profile education bills.
Notably, four CSBA-sponsored measures reached the Governor’s desk, with three signed into law and one vetoed:
Assembly Bill 1021 (Wicks, D-Oakland and Muratsuchi, D-Torrance): Education workforce housing
- This measure will further enhance the provisions provided in AB 2295, which CSBA co-sponsored to help streamline the process LEAs can follow to plan, fund and develop education workforce housing (EWH). AB 1021 will ensure that small and rural local educational agencies can pursue its benefits as well as exempting EWH projects from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
- Status: Signed on Oct. 10.
AB 1390 (Solache, D-Lynwood): School board member compensation
- This bill modernizes the 40-year-old compensation stipends afforded to school district and county office of education board members based upon LEA size by bringing existing stipend rates into alignment with the impacts of inflation and providing that district and county boards of education retain the authority to determine the amount of the stipend within the cap.
- Status: Signed on Oct. 11.
Senate Bill 374 (Archuleta, D-Pico Rivera): SB 1315 implementation
- This bill eliminates the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Part-B Addendum for the Local Control and Accountability Plan and extends by one year the deadline for the California Department of Education (CDE) to submit a report to the Legislature assessing the number and types of reports that LEAs are required to annually submit and which ones can be consolidated or eliminated.
- Status: Signed on Oct. 10.
AB 1224 (Valencia, D-Anaheim): 60-day substitutes
- This co-sponsored bill with the Association of California School Administrators, the California County Superintendents and the California Association of School Business Officials would have expanded the amount of time an authorized substitute teacher could serve in a classroom from 30 days to 60 days.
- Status: Vetoed on Oct. 6. Read the Governor’s veto message here.
Curriculum, instruction and instructional materials
AB 86 (Boerner): Health instruction – educational materials
- Would have required the State Board of Education to adopt instructional materials for health education for grades K-8, inclusive, on or before July 1, 2028.
- CSBA Position: Support
- Status: Vetoed on Oct. 1. Read the veto message here.
AB 715 (Zbur/Addis): Antisemitism
- Will put in place significant restrictions on instruction and instructional materials to prevent antisemitism and discrimination, including:
- Creates a statewide Office of Civil Rights (OCR) under the non-educationally based Government Operations Agency.
- Creates an antisemitism coordinator within the OCR who may provide professional development and corrective actions to LEAs found to be in violation of anti-discrimination laws involving antisemitism.
- Prohibits the use of instructional or professional development materials found to violate anti-discrimination laws involving antisemitism.
- Requires instruction and instructional materials to be factually accurate, align with the adopted curriculum and existing standards for instructional materials, and be consistent with accepted standards of professional responsibility.
- Authorizes the CDE to require LEAs to take unspecified corrective action if found to have violated existing law.
- Requires corrective action be taken by organizations contracted to provide instructional or professional development materials if those materials are found to be antisemitic.
- Addressing prejudice and discrimination is critical to providing a safe and supporting learning environment, which includes addressing incidences of antisemitism. However, concerns remain that AB 715 could result in a curtailing of academic freedom and have a chilling effect on how schools can talk about and address incidences of antisemitism, as well as other forms of prejudice.
- CSBA Position: Oppose
- Status: Signed on Oct. 7.
SB 48 (Gonzalez/Weber-Pierson/Fong/Ward): Discrimination prevention coordinators
- Originally a bill that established prohibitions on school site access and the sharing of related information with immigration officials, SB 48 was gut-and-amended in the last days of session as a companion measure to AB 715 (Zbur/Addis).
- Contingent upon the enactment of AB 715, this bill will create four additional coordinator positions within the OCR that would be housed at the Government Operations Agency pursuant to AB 715. A religious discrimination prevention coordinator, a race and ethnicity discrimination prevention coordinator, a gender discrimination prevention coordinator and an LGBTQ discrimination prevention coordinator would each be appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate.
- CSBA Position: Tracking
- Status: Signed on Oct. 7.
AB 1454 (Rivas): Literacy acquisition
- This bill will implement evidence-based reading instruction and professional development requirements. A compromise between two competing measures, AB 1121 and AB 1194, AB 1454 addresses using the science of reading.
- CSBA Position: Neutral
- Status: Signed on Oct. 9.
Governance
AB 640 (Muratsuchi): School district and county board member training
- This bill would require all LEA board members to receive training in public education school finance laws. Although it addresses many of CSBA’s concerns, language remained that could allow partisan-based and biased organizations to provide school board member trainings.
- CSBA Position: Oppose
- Status: Signed on Oct. 11.
SB 707 (Durazo): Brown Act
- Makes a number of revisions to the Brown Act, including:
- Extending the sunset date to Jan.1, 2030, on teleconferencing flexibility provisions allowing remote participation of an individual legislative body member based on “just cause” and “emergency circumstances,” and expands “just cause” to include specified military service.
- Clarifying that the existing authority to remove or limit participation by persons who disrupt, disturb, impede or render infeasible the orderly conduct of a meeting applies to members of the public participating in a meeting via a two-way telephonic service or a two-way audiovisual platform.
- Providing that teleconferencing requirements do not apply when a disabled member of the elected body is participating remotely.
- Clarifying the circumstances under which an agenda must provide an opportunity for members of the public to address the body on an item that has already been considered by a committee.
- CSBA Position: Tracking
- Status: Signed on Oct. 3.
Immigration enforcement
AB 49 (Muratsuchi): Immigration enforcement
- This bill would prohibit LEAs from allowing immigration enforcement officers to enter nonpublic areas of a school site without providing a valid judicial warrant, judicial subpoena or court order. Funding is needed to help implement this measure to ensure that school staff have the requisite training and resources to know what they should and should not do when an immigration enforcement occurs on a school campus.
- CSBA Position: Support if Amended
- Status: Signed on Sept. 20.
AB 495 (C. Rodriguez): Family Preparedness Act of 2025
- This bill updates the existing Caregiver’s Authorization Affidavit to allow a trusted adult to care for a child when their parent or guardian is detained or deported by federal immigration authorities.
- It also requires the California Attorney General to, no later than July 1, 2026, publish model policies on how LEAs must limit assistance with federal immigration enforcements and requires LEAs to align their policies with the model policies.
- CSBA Position: Tracking
- Status: Signed on Oct. 12.
AB 1348 (Bains): Immigration enforcement activities
- This bill would expand the existing J-13A process, which LEAs may use when there is a material decrease in average daily attendance (ADA) due to an emergency such as a fire or flood, to also include ADA decreases that result due to immigration enforcement activities. LEAs seeking to use this provision would be required to have certain plans in place to provide instructional continuity.
- CSBA Position: Support
- Status: Vetoed on Oct. 13. Read the veto message here.
SB 98 (Renée Pérez): Immigration enforcement actions at schools
- Would require all school, county and charter schools to notify all students, parents, faculty, staff and school community members of immigration enforcement activities on campuses. Amendments were taken to address CSBA concerns to permit LEAs to determine how and when to issue the notification.
- CSBA Position: Neutral
- Status: Signed on Sept. 20.
Labor relations and employee misconduct
SB 848 (Perez): School employee misconduct
- This bill establishes new requirements to improve pupil safety by addressing school employee misconduct, clarifying professional boundaries, enhancing comprehensive school safety plans, expanding child abuse prevention training requirements, requiring instructional programming on abuse prevention and creating a statewide system for tracking employee misconduct investigations. It also adds administrators to the list of mandated reporters.
- CSBA Position: Support if Amended
- Status: Signed on Oct.
Nonclassroom-based (NCB) charter school reform legislation
SB 414 (Ashby): NCB charter schools
- This bill would make changes to the oversight, auditing and funding systems for NCB charter schools, including:
- Rebrands NCB charter schools as “flex-based” charter schools.
- Updates and expands audit procedures for all LEAs.
- Late amendments to the bill created a new Office of the Education Inspector General to investigate fraud and financial mismanagement.
- Establishes statewide contracting requirements to prevent misuse of public funds, increases accountability for charter authorizers through technical assistance and oversight grants.
- Extends the moratorium on new flex-based charter schools through June 30, 2026.
- CSBA Position: Oppose (due to lack of funding for charter authorizers and the ability for NCB charters to be permitted to operate outside of their authorizer’s jurisdiction)
- Status: Vetoed on Oct. 13. Read the veto message here.
School facilities and school meals
AB 503 (M. Gonzalez): School facilities share of maintenance costs
- Restores a provision of law that allows LEAs, when making their facilities available for use by outside entities, to charge a fee representative of the share of maintenance costs.
- CSBA Position: Tracking
- Status: Signed on Oct. 1.
AB 1264 (Gabriel): Ultra-processed school foods
- Requires the state to define ultra-processed foods and prohibits LEAs from serving school meals that includes ultra-processed foods beginning July 1, 2035. Tasks the California Department of Public Health with developing regulations to determine “potentially harmful” ultra-processed foods.
- CSBA Position: Oppose (due to lack of funding)
- Status: Signed on Oct. 8.
Social media and internet use
AB 772 (Lowenthal): Off-campus bullying and cyberbullying
- Requires LEAs to modify existing policies or adopt new policies on addressing cyberbullying that occurs during non-school hours and off-campus. Also requires the CDE to adopt a model policy LEAs may adopt.
- CSBA Position: Oppose Unless Amended
- Status: Signed on Oct. 11.
AB 1043 (Wicks): Digital Age Assurance Act
- Establishes the Digital Age Assurance Act, which requires social media companies to verify the approximate age of a child when online to comply with existing law requiring age verification.
- CSBA Position: Tracking
- Status: Signed on Oct. 13.
What’s next?
The Legislature has adjourned for the rest of the calendar year and will reconvene on Jan. 5 to begin the second year of the two-year 2025–26 legislative session.
The Governor is required to present his proposed budget no later than Jan. 10, 2026.
