Policy Committee Quarterly Meeting Summary
March 5, 2014
California Budget
· Introduced in January and included a boost in funding for education, much of which will be utilized to cover prior deficits and shortfalls.
· Increases local control of educational funds through the Local Control Funding Formula.
· Does not include any change in after school funding in the new budget
· Does not include significant changes to child care funding and does not include any effort to restore the over one billion dollars in cuts to child care that have taken place in prior years. Last year there was a 25 million dollar increase to child care and early childhood education, however this does not come close to the cuts that have taken place in prior years.
· Increased local control could present important opportunities for increased expanded learning (after school, summer learning).
· Materials have been created that can be used to advocate for expanded learning in LCFF / LCAPs:
o By Children Now
§ CALIFORNIA FUNDING BRIEF: ACCOUNTABLE FOR ATTENDANCE
o Partnership for Children and Youth
§ Leveraging Summer for Student Success
§ Making Your Program a District Priority
o And CA3.
§ Support Local After-School Programs with Funds from the Local Control Funding Formula
· Access a Success story of Bellflower Unified School District’s LCFF implementation can be found on the CA3 advocacy web page.
New California Legislation
The deadline to introduce bills was on Feb. 21, 2014. There are a few bills that impact expanded learning programs.
California State Senate
± SB 949 (Jackson) – This bill would make after-school programs that meet certain health guidelines eligible to be designated as “Distinguished Program.” This is an updated version of SB 464 from last year. This bill is sponsored by YMCA of California.
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± SB 1221 (Hancock) – This bill would give priority points to programs that provide year-round learning opportunities. This bill updates program reporting requirements by removing defunct standardized tests, focusing on program and school-day attendance by student identifier number, and requiring evidence of a program quality improvement processes. This bill also requires CDE to develop a biennial report to the legislature. This bill is sponsored by the CA Department of Education and the Partnership for Children & Youth.
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± SB 1000 (Monning) – This bill would require new safety warning labels on sugary drinks sold in California.
California State Assembly
AB 1879 (Calderon) – This bill would require school districts to consult with after school representatives when developing their local control and accountability plans (LCAP).
Comments – some stakeholders have stated that is not specific enough to focus on ASES and 21st CCLC. The bill does not specify who the after school representative is.
AB 1944 (Garcia) – This bill would repeal the language in the law relative to placement of 11- and 12-year-olds in publicly-funded child care that requires a parent to certify that a before- or after-school program is not available.This bill is sponsored by the CA Alternative Payment Programs Association, which suggests that the certification is burdensome and unnecessary and is not even being used.
Federal Updates from the Afterschool Alliance
The Federal Budget
Yesterday President Obama released his Fiscal Year 2015 budget and submitted it to conference. The budget proposes:
· To keep 21st CCLC level, with funding at 1.149 billion dollars.
· To open 21st CCLC to extended learning time (allowing for a longer school day and school year) which has not been supported historically through the appropriations process.
· To change the 21st CCLC to a national competition rather than funding formula to states. This also has not had traction with Congress to date.
· That Title 1 funded is maintained at current levels.
· 100 million dollars for Promise Neighborhood funding.
· A new program for high school re-design that rewards schools that establish partnerships with employers and colleges to provide relevant learning opportunities for youth.
· A new proposal for Connect-ED, focused on increasing teacher capacity to utilize educational technology.
· A new Race to the top program, race to the top for equity and opportunity that is designed to close opportunity and achievement gaps.
· To Increase child development funds, consistent with increases over the past several years. There is a proposed increase of over 800 million dollar increase for these funds.
· A cut in the Community Service Block Grant funding
· STEM – the president proposes a reorganization of all the federal STEM programs. Consolidation has not historically represented increases in such funding, but rather overall decreases in funding.
· Over one billion dollars for Americorps, which is slightly above last years funding levels and funds a projected 114K Americorps members.
· The Afterschool Alliance has created a blog outlining the President’s proposed budget and the impacts for afterschool.
After School and ESEA reauthorization
House Bill Introduced - After School For America’s Children Act
· The After School for Americas children Act was introduced by Representative Dan Kildee (Michigan). There is opportunity for CA Representatives to become sponsors of this bill, this is the house version of a companion bill (S. 326 – After School for America’s Children Act) introduced by Boxer in February 2013.
Administrative Updates
CDE After School Division Strategic Plan
· In December the CDE released the final version of their strategic plan. In this plan there are field-based recommendations including corresponding implementation teams., ome of which are led by ASD, the field, and some co-led by ASD and the field. The implemetiaon team timelines are unclear.
· There has been reorganization of staffing within the division to address the implementation of the strategic plan. Now that the 21st CCLC readers conference has been completed, it is possible this work may ramp up.
Quality Standards / Work Group on Quality Standards Phase II
· The CDE After School Division recently released the Quality Standards for expanded learning in CA. Quality Standards were created through a work group of the CAN Quality Committee with input from the field. The purpose of these standards is to communicate promising practices. They are not intended for evaluation, and are non-mandatory.
· One of the recommendations is that there would be more clarity added to the standards in practice (i.e. indicators, descriptors) which are being developed by the work group of quality standards phase II. There will likely be opportunities for field input to quality standards.
ASES Universal announcements delayed due to lack of FRPM data
· Free and Reduced Priced Meal (FRPM) data is used to make ASES and 21st CCLC funding allotments. Because of the new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) this data must be recorded differently. CALPADS will not have the data available by March 15th. Therefore the announcement of the most recent round of ASES Universal funds will be delayed until the 13-14 FRPM data is available.
Updates to CDE After School Division Statewide Evaluation
· With the legislative suspension of student assessment tests, CDE recognition that STAR test data will not be available, therefore the CDE will modify the statewide evaluation report to remove submission of STAR test data.. Data on school and after school attendance data will still need to be reported.
Scheduled Reduction in unused Supplemental Funds in 2016-17 based on 2015-16 data
· Context: In the past, there was no reduction to supplemental funds if sites that have supplemental funding (inner session, holidays, and summer) and were not utilizing the total funds, or using them sparsely. This means that many youth were not being served by these funds. The CDE determined that it could not reduce these funds without appropriate technical assistance provision. There will be reductions beginning in 2016-17 based on data from 2015-16. This gives plenty of time for grantees to access technical assistance through summer matters and others in order to boost practice.
Meeting Attendees
CAN Staff: Jeff Davis
Aleah / RosarioZak / Parpia
Rhonda / Guaderrama
Michael / Klein
Sarah / Heidel
Jamie / Culbertson
Jessica / Gunderson
Bruno / Marchesi
Brian / Lee
Jennifer / Rinehart
Mary Jo / Ginty
Debbie / Jauch
Kathy / Lewis
Normandie / Nigh
Steve / Fowler
Laila / Jenkins-Perez