SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BILLS
2005-06
MALDEF/POLICYLINK BILLS
AB 1219 (De La Torre) would ban the use of multi-track year-round educational calendars by 2015. It would also limit capacity-related busing (transporting students away from their neighborhood school because it is overcrowded) by 2009 as follows:
AB 1416 (Goldberg) would allow school districts that need to eliminate the use of Concept 6 to apply for any left over money from the Critically Overcrowded Schools set aside in Proposition 55. Last year, the Williams settlement outlawed the use of Concept 6 (a multi-track year-round educational calendar that reduced the school year by 17 days). The Critically Overcrowded Schools set-aside has between $300-500 million left over, this money should be used to help school districts comply with the Williams settlement.
AB 1451 (Montanez) would eliminate the link between the Year-Round Education Operational Grants and eligibility for state new construction funds. The State of California provides two perverse incentives for school districts to use multi-track year-round calendars. One, it provides extra operational funds but at a great cost – for every student that the school gets extra funding, the school district loses eligibility for new construction funds from the state. Therefore, a school district can never build the schools necessary to eliminate the use of multi-track. Two, a school district that does not use multi-track automatically loses 6% of its eligibility for new construction funds.
OTHERS OF INTEREST
AB 58 (Nunez) – would place a school construction bond on the 2006 ballot.
AB 491 (Goldberg) – would change the method for calculating new construction fund eligibility.
SB 362 (Torlakson) – would exclude leased portable classrooms and
certain replacement portable classrooms from existing school capacity.