Bill Text: CA ACR149 | 2013-2014 | Regular Session | Chaptered

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Bill Title: School Attendance Awareness Month.

Spectrum: Slight Partisan Bill (Democrat 55-19)

Status: (Passed) 2014-09-02 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Res. Chapter 142, Statutes of 2014. [ACR149 Detail]

Download: California-2013-ACR149-Chaptered.html

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BILL NUMBER: ACR 149	CHAPTERED
	BILL TEXT

	RESOLUTION CHAPTER  142
	FILED WITH SECRETARY OF STATE  SEPTEMBER 2, 2014
	ADOPTED IN SENATE  AUGUST 18, 2014
	ADOPTED IN ASSEMBLY  AUGUST 7, 2014
	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY  AUGUST 7, 2014
	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY  JUNE 19, 2014

INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Weber
   (Coauthors: Assembly Members Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano,
Atkins, Bigelow, Bloom, Bocanegra, Bonilla, Bonta, Bradford, Brown,
Buchanan, Ian Calderon, Campos, Chau, Chávez, Chesbro, Conway,
Cooley, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dickinson, Eggman, Fong, Frazier,
Garcia, Gatto, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gorell, Gray, Grove, Hagman,
Hall, Harkey, Holden, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Linder, Logue,
Lowenthal, Maienschein, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Muratsuchi,
Nazarian, Nestande, Olsen, Pan, Patterson, Perea, John A. Pérez, V.
Manuel Pérez, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez,
Salas, Skinner, Stone, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Wieckowski, Wilk,
Williams, and Yamada)

                        MAY 13, 2014

   Relative to School Attendance Awareness Month.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   ACR 149, Weber. School Attendance Awareness Month.
   This measure would designate the month of September 2014 as School
Attendance Awareness Month, and would encourage public officials,
educators, and communities in California to observe the month with
appropriate activities and programs.



   WHEREAS, The Legislature and the Governor enacted a local control
funding formula and clearly established school attendance as a matter
of great state interest by explicitly identifying pupil engagement,
as measured by school attendance and chronic absenteeism rates, as a
state priority; and
   WHEREAS, The Legislature first enacted Senate Bill 1357 of the
2009-10 Regular Session to establish the definition of a "chronic
absentee" as a pupil who misses 10 percent or more of school for any
reason, making no distinction between excused and unexcused absences;
and
   WHEREAS, For the first time, every county office of education,
school district, and charter school in California is required to
calculate chronic absenteeism rates and establish specific goals and
actions to improve pupil engagement; and
   WHEREAS, The impact of chronic absenteeism hits low-income pupils
and children of color particularly hard if they do not have the
resources to make up for lost time in the classroom. Low-income
pupils and children of color are more likely to face systemic
barriers in getting to school, including unreliable transportation,
lack of access to health care, unstable or unaffordable housing, and
even unfair discipline policies; and
   WHEREAS, Improving school climate, reducing instruction missed due
to discipline policies and out-of-school suspensions, and
implementing schoolwide positive behavior intervention and support
systems and restorative justice practices can have a significant
impact on improving attendance; and
   WHEREAS, School attendance improves, and chronic absenteeism is
significantly reduced, when schools, parents, and communities work
together to monitor and promote good attendance and address hurdles
that keep children from getting to school; and
   WHEREAS, Schools and school districts must do more to track,
calculate, and share data on how many and which pupils are
chronically absent so that schools and communities can work to
deliver the right interventions for the right pupils; and
   WHEREAS, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson,
Attorney General Kamala D. Harris, Secretary of California Health and
Human Services Diane Dooley, Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye,
and others have joined efforts to combat chronic absenteeism to
encourage state and local action to improve the overall health,
safety, and well-being of our children by promoting public awareness
and reforms that improve school attendance; now, therefore, be it
   Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate
thereof concurring, That the Legislature designates the month of
September 2014 as School Attendance Awareness Month in the State of
California, and encourages public officials, educators, and
communities in California to observe the month with appropriate
activities and programs; and be it further
   Resolved, That the Legislature hereby joins with other communities
across our nation to increase awareness of the importance of school
attendance by addressing school attendance barriers and the root
causes of chronic absence; and be it further
   Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of
this resolution to the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the
Attorney General, the Secretary of California Health and Human
Services, the Chief Justice of California, the author, and the
coauthors for appropriate distribution.