Governor Signs Bills of Interest to Community Colleges
With gubernatorial action now completed on bills that passed the Legislature this year, we can report that Governor Schwarzenegger signed 772 bills and vetoed 415 bills.
The Governor signed the following bills of significant interest to the California Community Colleges:
AB 352 (Chapter 422/2008) includes public schools and a public or private college or university within the definition of “public place” for purposes of existing law, making it an offense to openly display or expose an imitation firearm in a public place.
AB 519 (Chapter 727/2008) is the education Budget trailer bill.
AB 638 (Chapter 628/2008) creates the California Physician Assistant Loan Assumption Program, under which any person enrolled in or admitted to a physician assistant program at an eligible institution, and who meets other requirements, would be eligible to receive a conditional agreement for loan assumption, to be redeemed upon working for a specified period as a physician assistant in a designated medically underserved area.
AB 994 (Chapter 426/2008) extends the operative date of the Associate Degree Nursing (A.D.N.) Scholarship Pilot Program, which provides scholarships to students in counties determined to have the most need, to January 1, 2014; the program would have sunseted on January 1, 2009.
AB 1389 (Chapter 751/2008) makes various technical and statutory changes necessary to implement the 2008-09 Budget Act, including revising the payments and calculations used by the State Teachers’ Retirement System (STRS) for the Supplemental Benefits Maintenance Account (SBMA).The bill also establishes a process to improve the compliance of redevelopment agencies (RDAs) with existing law, which requires them to pass through to school districts, county offices of education, and community college districts (K-14 education agencies) a portion of their tax increment revenues from post-1993 project areas and expansions. That requires a portion of those pass-through payments to be reported by K-14 education agencies as property tax revenues for apportionment and Proposition 98 purposes.
AB 1927 (Chapter 299/2008) requires the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians to deny the application for accreditation made by, and revoke the accreditation given to, any vocational nursing or psychiatric technician school that does not give applicants credit for previous education and the opportunity to obtain credit for other acquired knowledge by the use of challenge examinations or other methods of evaluation. The Board would be required to prescribe, by regulation, the education for which credit is to be given and the amount of credit that is to be given for each type of education, including the amount of credit to be given to a psychiatric technician assistant, a certified nurse assistant, a nurse assistant who has provided direct nursing services in health facilities, and an applicant who has successfully completed equivalent courses offered by a secondary school that is accredited by the Department of Education in any state or by a nationally recognized, regional accrediting body.
AB 2261 (Chapter 671/2008) authorizes the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges to establish a pilot program to provide a coordinated statewide network of open education resources.
AB 2390 (Chapter 494/2008) extends current exemptions to the STRS postretirement earnings limitation.
AB 2470 (Chapter 676/2008) expands a current-law prohibition on weapons to make it a misdemeanor to bring or possess a less lethal weapon (i.e., a remote stun gun or taser) or stun gun, as defined, upon the grounds of or within a public or private college or university. Existing law makes it a crime for a person to openly display or expose any imitation firearm in a public place, except in specified circumstances; the bill expands the definition of “public place” to include a public or private college or university.
AB 2804 (Chapter 542/2008) authorizes community college districts that have committed to purchase and install a solar energy system and reserved funding to be made available upon installation of the system, to request the extension of a reservation expiration date for monetary incentives for such a system, up to a maximum of three extensions of 180 calendar days for each extension.
AB 3018 (Chapter 312/2008) enacts the California Green Collar Jobs Act of 2008, requiring the California Workforce Investment Board to establish the Green Collar Jobs Council that will be required, in consultation with representatives from various public and private groups, including a representative of the California Community Colleges, to develop a comprehensive array of programs, strategies, and resources to address the workforce needs that accompany California’s growing green economy and to establish, among other programs, green job training programs for eligible individuals.
SB 361 (Chapter 514/2008) requires, when full funding is not provided in the annual Budget Act, that the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) prioritize its workload to ensure that, at a minimum specified responsibilities are completed in a timely manner. The bill requires CPEC to make reports relating to campus security and the occurrence of hate violence available to the Legislature and the general public on its Internet website, and deletes certain requirements regarding the reports. The bill deletes the requirement that CPEC review and evaluate the Student Opportunity and Access Program, and the requirement that CPEC prepare and submit a biennial report regarding standardized tests of the state’s test subjects to the Governor, the Legislature, the Regents of the University of California, the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, the Trustees of the California State University, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
SB 588 (Chapter 704/2008) requires the Department of General Services (DGS) to develop and submit, in consultation with the Board of Governors, by June 1, 2009, to the California Building Standards Commission, proposed building standards for adoption as part of the California Building Standards Code that will govern the construction, reconstruction, modification, or expansion of school buildings of a community college district, if the community college district elects not to utilize the Field Act. DGS would be required to review and include, where appropriate, in these standards the standards that govern the California State University.
The Governor took the unusual action of issuing a signing message for the bill, writing:
“While Senate Bill 588 moves the issue in the right direction, it does not completely fulfill the spirit of the intent of the Legislature when it passed specific provisions in AB 127 (Chapter 35, Statutes of 2006), and the voters when those provisions in Proposition 1D were approved in November 2006. Therefore, I am signing SB 588 as an interim step for community colleges to utilize, with the expectation that the issue of allowing the California community colleges to utilize either the Field Act or the California Building Standards Code, without additional bureaucracy is addressed and look forward to addressing this issue in a comprehensive manner in any future education bond measure.
SB 890 (Chapter 472/2008) establishes the voluntary Early Commitment to College Program.
SB 946 (Chapter 473/2008) expresses legislative findings and declarations relating to the Early Assessment Program (EAP), a collaborative effort established by the California State University (CSU) to enable pupils to learn about their readiness for college-level English and mathematics before their senior year of high school. The bill expresses legislative intent that the existing EAP be modified by expanding it to include the California Community Colleges. The bill also expresses legislative intent that the existing EAP student notification system, as currently operated by agreement between CSU and the California Department of Education, be modified to include specified requirements. The bill authorizes individual results of the California Standards Test (CST) and the augmented CST, in addition to any other purposes, to be used by community college districts to provide diagnostic advice to, or for the placement of, prospective community college students participating in the EAP. As authorized by specified law, the individual results of the CST would be provided to the office of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges, which would coordinate with community college districts that choose to voluntarily participate in the EAP. The bill specifies that certain provisions apply to those community college districts that choose to work directly with high school pupils who took the CST and choose to offer assistance to these pupils in strengthening their college readiness skills.
SB 1298 (Chapter 561/2008) establishes processes by which local educational agencies and public institutions of higher education issue, maintain, and report information using the unique statewide student identifiers. The bill (a) convenes a high-level working group to decide the best governance structure for the data system, (b) directs the State Chief Information Officer to prepare a strategy plan outlining a clear path for technical implementation, and (c) requires the various education segments to begin using a common student identifier, so that once a governance structure and technical architecture are in place, records can be linked from pre-K through the university.
In signing the bill, the Governor issued a lengthy press release that stressed parents’ ability to make better informed decisions about their children’s education.
SB 1370 (Chapter 525/2008) prohibits an employee from being dismissed, suspended, disciplined, reassigned, transferred, or otherwise retaliated against for acting to protect a student engaged in conduct authorized by a specified provision of state law or refusing to infringe upon conduct that is protected pursuant to constitutional provisions.
SB 1437 (Chapter 718/2008) maintains concurrent enrollment law by extending, to January 1, 2014, the sunset date for exemptions to the cap on the percentage of pupils that K-12 school principals may recommend for enrollment at community colleges during summer sessions. The bill also makes community colleges eligible for receipt of funding under the California Teleconnect Fund (CTF) program administered by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The bill also recognizes the California Virtual Campus (CVC), pursuant to funding provided to the CCC Board of Governors (BOG) in the annual Budget Act, and allows the CVC to support various activities and goals.
Other bills of interest signed by the Governor included:
SB 1457 (Chapter 474/2008) creates the California Scholarshare Advancement Vehicle for Education (CalSAVE) program to fund scholarships for beneficiaries to be determined by the Scholarship Investment Board; beneficiaries could include, but would not be limited to, foster youth, youth in at-risk categories, individuals with demonstrated economic need, former and active members of the California National Guard, individuals seeking undergraduate or post-baccalaureate courses in disciplines in which the state faces shortages, including nursing and teaching, and other categories to be determined by the Board.
—Deborah Harmon