Today's Law As Amended


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AB-2071 Pupil instruction: English Learner Roadmap: grant program: parent toolkit.(2023-2024)



As Amends the Law Today


SECTION 1.
 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) Sixty percent of the young children in the state have a home language other than English. The state currently enrolls 1,100,000 pupils in kindergarten and grades 1 to 12, inclusive, that are English learners. For these pupils, academic gaps persist, many never achieve English proficiency, and academic outcomes remain unacceptably low.
(b) In 2017, the State Board of Education unanimously adopted a new, comprehensive, assets-oriented, and research-based California English Learner Roadmap State Board of Education Policy: Educational Programs and Services for English Learners (EL Roadmap Policy), which superseded the 1998 English Learner policy that was based upon Proposition 227.
(c) The EL Roadmap Policy explicitly focuses on English learner pupils in the context of the state’s efforts to improve the educational system, the quality of teaching and learning, and educational outcomes. Its purpose is to support local educational agencies as they incorporate English learner education into local programs, policies, and services.
(d) As a comprehensive policy, by design, the EL Roadmap Policy touches almost all aspects of schooling from preschool through high school and requires the involvement of and alignment of multiple roles, departments, and functions within a local district while calling upon district leadership to engage multiple stakeholders in taking shared responsibility for English learner education.
(e) As an aspirational assets-based policy, implementation of the EL Roadmap Policy is a long-term endeavor that requires thoughtful planning, priority setting, monitoring, and continuous improvement as well as the creation of local systems and policies aligned with the EL Roadmap Policy to ensure sustainability.
(f) The research-based principles of the EL Roadmap Policy further require aligned capacity building across multiple roles and the building of a district infrastructure for professional learning and instructional coherence.
(g) The EL Roadmap Policy is an assets-oriented policy that positions pupils’ cultures and languages as assets for their learning and seeks bilingualism and biliteracy as outcomes of schooling. As a result, the EL Roadmap Policy represents a paradigm shift from previous English learner policies.
(h) The EL Roadmap Policy explicitly calls for certain conditions to make enactment possible, such as seeking structural changes, attitudinal shifts, and system improvements. Thus, implementing the EL Roadmap Policy is a more complex and longer term investment in systems change than previous English learner policies.
(i) In the first five years since the 2017 adoption of the EL Roadmap Policy, implementation has produced some bright spots due to the effectiveness of the Educator Workforce Investment Grant program. However, this program alone is not enough to move the needle for systemic and broader change across the state.
(j) There are a handful of local educational agencies with strong leadership that have embraced the vision and principles of the EL Roadmap Policy and have invested in professional learning and capacity-building systems across their districts and have developed district-level plans and systems for coherence, clarity, accountability, and sustainability aligned to the EL Roadmap Policy. These districts have also seen strong academic and other positive outcomes for multilingual learners. However, there are not enough of these local educational agencies.
(k) Recent findings from the academic field have documented major barriers to implementation of the EL Roadmap Policy to include, among others, a widespread lack of awareness, understanding, and capacity among district staff, administrators, and district-level leadership related to building coherent and aligned local systems and mechanisms to give life to the EL Roadmap Policy principles and ensure that the promise of the EL Roadmap Policy reaches the 1,100,000 English learners in the state.
(l) Local educational agencies have been inundated with multiple new state-funded initiatives requiring complex local planning, but without connection to, or alignment with, the EL Roadmap Policy principles for effective English learner education.
(m) Incentives and support are needed to facilitate the engagement of local educational agencies in embracing and further implementing the EL Roadmap Policy.
(n) While some of the state’s local educational agencies have either fully implemented or are in the process of implementing the EL Roadmap Policy, others have not yet begun the process.
(o) Unfortunately, the state does not have an English learner parent toolkit that could serve as a guide to help local educational agencies who are currently implementing the EL Roadmap Policy, as well as those local educational agencies that plan on integrating the EL Roadmap Policy in the future.
(p) Without proper guidance, local educational agencies lack the necessary knowledge and experience to ensure parents and families of the state’s English learners play an integral role in the process of navigating the education system to lead their children to linguistic fluency and academic success in English and other languages.
(q) Parents need a clear guide that breaks down the ways in which they can participate in the implementation process for each principle of the EL Roadmap Policy.

SEC. 2.

 Chapter 5.5 (commencing with Section 424) is added to Part 1 of Division 1 of Title 1 of the Education Code, to read:

CHAPTER  5.5. English Learner Roadmap Implementation Grant Pilot Program
Article  1. Incentive and Support Grants for English Learner Roadmap Implementation
424.
 For purposes of this article, the following definitions apply:
(a) “Designated ELD” means instruction provided during a time during the regular schoolday for focused instruction on the state-adopted ELD standards to assist English learners to develop critical English language skills necessary for academic content learning in English.
(b) “EL Roadmap Policy” means the California English Learner Roadmap State Board of Education Policy: Educational Programs and Services for English Learners adopted by the state board on July 12, 2017.
(c) “ELD” means English language development.
(d) “English learner” has the same meaning as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 306.
(e) “Integrated ELD” means instruction in which the state-adopted ELD standards are used in tandem with the state-adopted academic content standards and includes specifically designed academic instruction in English.
(f) “Local educational agency” means a school district, county office of education, or charter school.
(g) “Long-term English learner” has the same meaning as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 313.1.
(h) “Newcomer pupil” has the same meaning as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 54450.
425.
 The English Learner Roadmap Implementation Grant Pilot Program is hereby established with the goal of locally planning and implementing the EL Roadmap Policy by doing all of the following:
(a) Developing local comprehensive EL Roadmap Policy implementation plans with clear and measurable goals that focus on the four principles of the EL Roadmap Policy.
(b) Aligning local policies and guidance, including, but not limited to, master plans and local educational agency vision and goal statements, to the EL Roadmap Policy.
(c) Building shared understanding and ownership across multiple roles, departments, and stakeholders related to applying the vision and principles of the EL Roadmap Policy to local context and need.
(d) Creating coherent local systems to support instructional improvement for English learners that are consistent with the EL Roadmap Policy.
(e) Establishing or strengthening progress monitoring and data systems to focus continuous improvement on programs and services aligned to the vision, principles, and goals of the EL Roadmap Policy.
(f) Building capacity and instituting aligned professional learning across multiple roles for implementing evidence-based practices for English learner success aligned to the EL Roadmap Policy.
(g) Including a focus on the implementation of integrated ELD, designated ELD, and bilingual and dual language pathways for pupils in transitional kindergarten, kindergarten, and grades 1 to 12, inclusive.
(h) Aligning school resources with the EL Roadmap Policy implementation plan to enact the four principles of the EL Roadmap Policy.
(i) Engaging technical assistance and professional learning services to bring English learner and dual language expertise for a local educational agency’s planning and implementation process as well as provide facilitation support, as needed.
(j) Aligning goals, actions, and services for English learners in local control and accountability plans to the EL Roadmap Policy principles.
(k) To the extent possible, implementing the parent toolkit developed pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 429.
426.
 (a) The department shall administer the English Learner Roadmap Implementation Grant Pilot Program, which shall be a three-year grant program. On or before September 1, 2025, the department shall award one-time grants to be expended before September 1, 2028, for the purposes described in Section 425, as follows:
(1) No more than eight grants of up to one million five hundred thousand dollars ($1,500,000) per grant to local educational agencies that are in the top 19 local educational agencies in the state with the highest number of enrolled English learner pupils and in which 19 percent or more of its total enrolled pupils are English learners.
(2) No more than four grants of up to seven hundred fifty thousand dollars ($750,000) per grant to local educational agencies that are not in the top 19 local educational agencies in the state with the highest number of enrolled English learner pupils but have 1,000 or more enrolled English learner pupils and in which 19 percent or more of its total enrolled pupils are English learners.
(b) The department shall ensure grant recipients selected for purposes of this article, to the maximum extent possible, are balanced with regard to geographic regions and urban and rural settings.
(c) An applicant shall include both of the following in its application:
(1) Pupil enrollment data for the three years before the date of the application, disaggregated by all of the following:
(A) Number of English learner pupils, including long-term English learner pupils and newcomer pupils.
(B) Number of reclassified fluent English proficient pupils.
(C) Number of pupils who are determined to be initially fluent English proficient or English-only speakers.
(D) Languages spoken by English learner pupils.
(2) How the applicant will be equipped to serve as a demonstration site to model how successful EL Roadmap Policy implementation works.
427.
 (a) In administering the English Learner Roadmap Implementation Grant Pilot Program, the department shall perform all of the following functions:
(1) (A) Determine application procedures and selection criteria for grant awards.
(B) Create a rubric of key elements of successful programs based on the EL Roadmap Policy to be part of the application process.
(2) Review applications and award grants.
(3) Identify data to be collected by grant recipients for reporting to the department.
(4) Identify how the department will collect data from grant recipients and make that data available to the public.
(5) (A) Meet quarterly with leaders from the grant recipients, to be known as a community of practice, for purposes of sharing lessons, models, materials, tools, or other resources that may be developed in the course of the planning and implementation phases.
(B) The department is encouraged to seek the participation of parent leaders in the community of practice process and is encouraged to provide interpretation and translation services, as necessary.
(b) A grant recipient shall use the grant received under this article for any of the following purposes:
(1) Hiring staff to be assigned to the administration of the grant program.
(2) Purchase of instructional materials.
(3) Professional learning, including compensating teachers for their participation.
(4) Development of local educational agency and site implementation plans.
(5) Professional development, including substitutes for teachers, administrators, and support staff.
(6) Coaches and coaching.
(7) Trainings to implement the parent toolkit developed pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 429, including childcare.
(c) A grant recipient shall use the grant to supplement, not supplant, funding used to support English learner pupils.
428.
 (a) Notwithstanding Section 10231.5 of the Government Code, the department shall submit a progress report to the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature on or before January 31, 2027, that includes all of the following:
(1) Data identified by the department pursuant to paragraph (3) of subdivision (a) of Section 427.
(2) A description of how each grant recipient has used the grant funds.
(3) A description of teacher, administrator, parent, and community involvement.
(4) The number of pupils, parents, teachers, administrators, and support staff that received support from the grant.
(b) Notwithstanding Section 10231.5 of the Government Code, in addition to the progress report described in subdivision (a), the department shall submit a final report to the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature on or before December 1, 2028, that includes all of the following:
(1) A description of successes and challenges or barriers faced in the implementation of the grant program and recommendations to address identified challenges or barriers.
(2) The final number of pupils served.
(3) The final number of parents who participated in the program and a description of their involvement.
(4) A description of services or programs, or both, provided at each site.
(5) A description of services or professional learning, or both, provided and disaggregated by teacher, administrator, and parent involvement.
(6) A breakdown of costs disaggregated by services and programs provided to pupils.
428.5.
 The implementation of this article is contingent upon an appropriation by the Legislature for these purposes in the annual Budget Act or another statute.
428.7.
 This article shall remain in effect only until January 1, 2029, and as of that date is repealed.
Article  2. California English Learner Roadmap: Parent Toolkit
429.
 (a) On or before March 15, 2026, the state board shall:
(1) Develop and adopt a “California English Learner Roadmap: Parent Toolkit” that will be made available to families served by local educational agencies that are implementing the EL Roadmap Policy. The parent toolkit shall include all of the following:
(A) Questions that parents can ask schools, including user-friendly descriptors of each of the four principles of the EL Roadmap Policy.
(B) Language that is translated into the parents’ primary language.
(C) An introduction on how to the use the parent toolkit, how the toolkit is aligned to the EL Roadmap Policy, and a summary of the four principles.
(D) How parents can apply their learning from the parent toolkit to the promotion of biliteracy.
(E) A glossary of terms.
(2) Convene a workgroup to assist in the development of the parent toolkit that may include parent leaders, local educational agency English learner administrators or specialists, representatives from institutions of higher education, or one or more nonprofit organizations with expertise in developing and providing high-quality professional learning focused on serving English learners as well as implementing the EL Roadmap Policy.
(b) On or before March 15, 2027, the department shall develop forms to be used by parents of English learner pupils that may be used to request services from the pupil’s teacher or administrator as they relate to the parent toolkit.
(c) For purposes of this article, the following definitions apply:
(1) “EL Roadmap Policy” means the California English Learner Roadmap State Board of Education Policy: Educational Programs and Services for English Learners adopted by the state board on July 12, 2017.
(2) “Local educational agency” means a school district, county office of education, or charter school.
429.5.
 The implementation of this article is contingent upon an appropriation by the Legislature for these purposes in the annual Budget Act or another statute.