Credit: California Assembly Republican Caucus

Assembly Republican Leader Kristin Olsen discusses the education bills that she and other Republican legislators assembled with her during a Sacramento press conference in March.

Assembly Republicans appear bills Wednesday that would change state laws that establish teacher tenure and a layoff system based on seniority – 2 employment protections for teachers that a California Superior Courtroom judge threw out in his sweeping Vergara v. the State of California ruling last year. (Updated with correction beneath).

The legislation was among a suite of bills that the 28-member Republican caucus announced. Included is a neb to strengthen the law on teacher evaluations, which hasn't been changed in four decades, and one to eliminate a cap on school district budget reserves that has angered school didactics groups. Another bill requires school districts to provide more details on spending in their annual budget accountability plans, the Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs) that the State Lath of Didactics requires. Civil rights groups as well have called for more budget transparency.

As defendants in the lawsuit brought by the nonprofit Students Matter on behalf of nine students, the state and California'south 2 teachers unions have filed an appeal of Judge Rolf Treu's Vergara conclusion. Treu ruled that five employment laws violated the rights of poor and minority children, saddling them with the state's worst-performing teachers. An appeals court ruling probably won't happen until 2022 at the earliest. Democrats, who control the Legislature, at this point are watching the appeals procedure play out earlier deciding whether to change laws.

Republicans, however, said there is no reason for delay.

"We take seen throughout history that cases can take years to resolve in courts," Kristin Olsen, Assembly Republican leader, said in an interview. "Systemic problems take been failing kids for years. We need to take activeness now and hope Democrats will become partners."

Assembly Bill 1248, introduced past Assemblyman Rocky Chavez, R-Oceanside, would extend the probationary period from two years to three before awarding tenure, which grants legal protections to new teachers. In addition, a teacher would need positive evaluations in each of those years in order to be considered for tenure. A teacher accounted to be ineffective in two sequent annual evaluations would lose tenure condition and one time again be placed under probation.** Chavez'southward bill presumes there would be other changes to the current teacher evaluation law, which are specified in AB 1078.

AB 1078, by Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R-Modesto, would update the forty-year-old law on teacher evaluations, the Stull Act, parts of which, Olsen noted, "school districts have largely ignored." The Stull Act requires evaluations every other year for most tenured teachers and every 5 years for teachers with 10 or more than years of experience. It's currently a laissez passer-fail system, with teachers branded either effective or ineffective.

Olsen's bill requires annual evaluations for all teachers and introduces iv evaluation categories focused on improvement: highly constructive, constructive, minimally effective and ineffective. Information technology requires the State Lath of Education to update the guidelines for teacher evaluations under the Stull Act by July 1, 2022 and encourage districts to include student surveys and peer evaluations as part of the process.

The Stull Human activity requires that student functioning, including scores on land standardized tests, exist a component of a teacher's evaluation. However, teachers unions take opposed linking test scores to an evaluation, and, according to Olsen, virtually districts don't comply with the law. In 2012, in response to a lawsuit brought by the nonprofit advocacy group EdVoice, a Superior Courtroom estimate ordered Los Angeles Unified to include measures of pupil performance in evaluations, although the conclusion practical simply to that district.

AB 1078 also addresses the result of compliance with the Stull Act. It would prevent the state board from granting any waiver from the Education Code to a district that fails to use exam scores and other measures of student performance. Districts often seek waivers of various sorts from the lath.

Olsen said this yr's version is "more modest" than her previous bills on teacher evaluations, which never fabricated it out of the Associates Education Committee. Compared with previous bills, AB 1078 gives districts more discretion in determining elements of an evaluation, and it does non specify what percentage of an evaluation test scores and other pupil operation measures must comprise, she said.

AB 1044, past offset-term Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-Dublin, would repeal the "terminal-in-get-go-out" statute that requires all instructor layoffs to be based on seniority. Districts would negotiate new criteria with their teachers unions. Seniority could withal exist 1 factor, simply the bill would require that a "significant" component be based on a teacher's "evaluation rating." Districts could brand exceptions for special cases, such equally teachers in high-demand subjects or with special training; the current police force already permits this.

AB 1226, past Chavez and Assemblyman Eric Linder of Corona, would require school districts to depict their plans for teacher training, including setting specific goals and committing money for them, every bit office of their LCAPs that they update annually. State law has set eight priorities that districts must business relationship for in their LCAPs; professional person development would go the 9th. If they persuade Democrats to vote for the nib, Chavez and Linder notwithstanding face a possible veto from Gov. Jerry Brown, who has opposed any changes so far to the LCAP law.

AB 1099, also by Olsen, would likely also exist opposed by Brown if the bill reaches his desk. Information technology would require LCAPs to include a detailed accounting of all district expenses as well as spending at the school level, along with a breakdown of extra money allotted under the new spending formula to low-income students, children learning English and foster children. The country lath resisted doing what Olsen calls for when creating regulations for LCAPs last year, saying that information technology wanted to requite districts latitude in spending.

Olsen said her neb is consistent with Dark-brown'south position that spending under the new formula should be transparent for parents and the community. She agrees with the governor that school boards need flexibility to decide how the money will exist used.

The beak also requires districts to publish an explanation of how they evaluate teachers and principals and list the aggregate number of teachers receiving satisfactory and unsatisfactory evaluations, by schoolhouse.

As part of the state budget, legislators last twelvemonth passed a limit on how much money districts could put aside for potential fiscal emergencies. The cap limits districts' reserves to between 3 per centum for Los Angeles Unified and 10 percentage for tiny districts in the twelvemonth later on the state put any corporeality of coin into a newly established education rainy day fund. Although the Legislative Analyst's Office says that would occur infrequently, the California School Boards Association said the cap would jeopardize districts' fiscal stability and violated the principle of local command over spending decisions. AB 1048, authored by Baker and Assemblyman David Hadley, R-Manhattan Beach, would repeal the cap. Sen. Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield, has introduced a similar bill, Senate Beak 774.

**Correction: An earlier version land incorrectly that a teacher identified as ineffective in two sequent evaluations would be dismissed. That teacher would be placed under probation, without tenure protections.

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