Today's Law As Amended


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AB-731 Pupil literacy: home book delivery: grant program.(2023-2024)



As Amends the Law Today


SECTION 1.
 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) Only one-half of the state’s third grade pupils are reading at grade level. The challenge of achieving grade-level literacy for pupils was exacerbated by the pandemic.
(b) The state has taken important steps and provided significant investments in early literacy in the past several years. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, the state settled the Ella T. v. State of California lawsuit, which was a challenge to the state’s efforts to ensure all students were reading at grade level by third grade. One element of the settlement required the state to provide fifty million dollars ($50,000,000) in funding to improve reading in the 75 lowest performing elementary schools in the state.
(c) The state has additionally made large allocations of funds to improve instruction in reading, including investments for local educational agencies to hire literacy coaches and reading specialists.
(d) The Superintendent of Public Instruction has led efforts throughout the pandemic to secure donations of reading materials for young children and has developed a state plan for literacy and reading by the third grade.
(e) The state has not invested in supplemental free reading materials in more than 25 years and school libraries, especially in elementary schools, have few free reading materials that are of interest to today’s early learners, or are age or culturally appropriate for pupils.
(f) As a result, many of our youngest pupils have limited access to books in their school or at home.
(g) Research is clear that having books in the home can be a critical step to learning and learning to love reading and that home libraries benefit young English learners.
(h) In 2022, the Legislature approved funding for home book delivery for very young children, from birth to five years of age, to support the Statewide Imagination Library program in the state.
(i) This proposed grant program fills a gap in the state’s current literacy efforts by establishing a school-to-home book delivery program to provide diverse, quality, and culturally relevant reading materials to pupils in transitional kindergarten through third grade. The program is targeted at pupils in schools with high proportions of pupils that are unduplicated pupils for purposes of the local control funding formula, including pupils that are eligible for free and reduced-price meals, classified as English learners, or classified as foster youth.
(j) While the state has invested in a home book delivery program for very young children, the state lacks a program coordinated with schools to ensure our youngest pupils have books to take home that are culturally relevant and reflect the diversity of our state.
(k) Other states have established successful home book delivery programs for very young children as well as pupils in transitional kindergarten and kindergarten through third grade. Some states use federal funds and some build upon philanthropic support.

SEC. 2.

 Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 54030) is added to Part 29 of Division 4 of Title 2 of the Education Code, to read:

CHAPTER  2. Home Book Delivery and School Connection Grant Program
54030.
 This chapter shall be known, and may be cited, as the Home Book Delivery and School Connection Grant Program.
54031.
 (a) The Home Book Delivery and School Connection Grant Program is hereby established, as a pilot program to be administered by the State Department of Education, for purposes of increasing access to books that are culturally relevant and reflect the diversity of the state, and build connections between school and home to support pupils in achieving grade-level reading by third grade.
(b) (1) The department shall award formula grants to up to 75 local educational agencies that opt in to the grant program. The department shall fund the local educational agencies with pupils in transitional kindergarten, kindergarten, and grades 1 to 3, inclusive, that have the highest percentage of third-grade pupils scoring at the lowest performance level on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress in English language arts. In identifying local educational agencies eligible for this program, the department shall do both of the following:
(A) Target local educational agencies with high proportions of pupils that are eligible for free and reduced-price meals, classified as English learners, or classified as foster youth for purposes of the local control funding formula, or are reading substantially below grade level.
(B) Give priority to schools with pupils in transitional kindergarten or kindergarten and grades 1 to 3, inclusive, or both, that were identified as being a part of the state’s 75 lowest performing elementary schools in the Ella T. v. State of California lawsuit.
(2) The department may select a county office of education to assist in administration of the grant program, including by notifying eligible local educational agencies or developing a timeline for the home book delivery to begin in the 2023–24 school year.
(c) (1) The department shall deliver, on a regular schedule, a minimum of 12 books per year to the homes of pupils in participating local educational agencies.
(2) Families shall select books from a catalog provided by the department.
(3) Books shall be available in English, Spanish, braille, and at least one other pupil home language and shall be culturally relevant to California’s diverse student population.
(4) Participating families shall also receive materials to support literacy goals for home learning or to extend high-quality learning into the home.
(5) The pilot program may also provide materials for participating local educational agencies to hold family literacy events to support home and school connections in literacy.
(6) The department may contract with an entity or entities with expertise in state-administered home book delivery and in providing books in multiple languages that are culturally diverse, authentic, and relevant to California’s diverse population to implement the delivery services necessary to implement this pilot program. Any selected entity shall also have experience in incorporating research-based family engagement as a key component of early literacy.
(d) Local educational agencies may opt in their eligible schools for participation in the program. Those local educational agencies selected to participate in the program shall ensure they do all of the following:
(1) Provide notification and information to families regarding the ability to access and select books for home delivery.
(2) Provide information and materials for parents to enhance family engagement in reading.
(3) By ____ of each year, provide an annual report that includes information such as participation rates to the entity or entities selected pursuant to paragraph (1) of subdivision (b).
(e) For purposes of this chapter, a “local educational agency” means a school district, county office of education, or charter school.
54032.
 The implementation of this chapter is contingent upon an appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act or another statute for purposes of this chapter.