Today, the Senate and Assembly Appropriations Committees met and voted to advance several major TK-12 education bills pending on their “suspense files,” including bills addressing mandatory paid pregnancy leave, charter school reform, and changes to the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). The suspense file is a procedural step used to park bills that have significant costs, allowing the committees to review and prioritize them before deciding whether to advance or hold them. We provide more information on the suspense file process at the bottom of this update.

Reflecting on the difficult fiscal conditions facing the state, both Chairs of the committees noted several bills that may have otherwise passed in healthy budgetary years were held today. They also continued the recent practice of making certain bills “two-year bills,” signaling a possible resurrection for those bills, but not until the beginning of next year’s session in January.

Arguably the most significant education bill to advance today was AB 65 (Aguiar-Curry, D-Woodland) which is the bill to mandate up to 14 weeks of fully paid pregnancy-related leave for all school and community college employees. Despite the bill’s massive cost implications for schools, it is sponsored by the powerful California Teachers Association and supported by a coalition of other labor unions. We anticipate its fate will be tied to whether the author can secure funding for its purposes in the budget. Given the state’s fiscal outlook, even with strong union support, that may be challenging.

AB 84 (Muratsuchi, D-Torrance) could also make major changes to authorization, oversight and auditing of charter schools, and moved forward today. However, the bill currently includes many significant modifications to current law and we think it is likely that the bill will be narrowed down to include only those provisions that are politically viable given the strong clout wielded by both sides in the charter school battles.

Below we provide a summary of some of the other major TK-12 education bills we are tracking by issue area. A full list of all actions on bills we are tracking, sorted by subject area can be found here.

Charter Schools

AB 84 (Muratsuchi) – School accountability: Office of the Education Inspector General: school financial and performance audits: charter school authorization, oversight, operations, and contracting: data systems.
Current law requires county superintendents of schools to provide for an audit of all funds under their jurisdiction and control, and requires the governing board of each local educational agency to either provide for an audit of the books and accounts of the local educational agency or make arrangements with county superintendents of schools to provide for that auditing. Current law requires nonclassroom-based charter schools to have their funding approved and adjusted by the State Board of Education (SBE). Current law allows all school districts to approve charter petitions. This bill would expressly apply the above-described auditing provisions to educational joint powers authorities and charter schools and any new auditing and accounting requirements will apply to all local educational agencies (LEAs). This bill would put limits on approving non-classroom based (NCB) charter petitions for small school districts based on the ADA of the school district. This bill would apply prescribed funding levels for NCB charters related to the amount of classroom-based instruction they provide. This bill would add new oversight requirements as well as increase the authorizer oversight fee over the next several years to actual costs not to exceed 3%. AB 84 passed out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee with no amendments and will move to the Assembly floor for a vote. As SB 414 makes similar changes to law, there will likely be negotiation between houses to move forward with one bill.

SB 414 (Ashby) – School accountability: school financial and performance audits: chartering authorities: tort liability: educational enrichment activities: flex-based instruction.
Current law requires county superintendents of schools to provide for an audit of all funds under their jurisdiction and control, and requires the governing board of each LEA to either provide for an audit of the books and accounts of the LEA or make arrangements with county superintendents of schools to provide for that auditing. This bill amends requirements for when and how audits must be conducted for LEAs. The bill would require an auditor of an LEA to, among other things, ensure that all sampling of documents or records necessary for the audit are independently selected by the auditor and would require an auditor of an LEA that offers independent study to verify the pupil-to-teacher ratio of the school or program and include that information in the audit, as provided.

It introduces mandatory training hours for certified public accountants and public accountants performing school audits (kicks in after 2026-27 fiscal year). This bill expands the oversight requirement of charter schools by requiring chartering authorities to review enrollment and attendance data, financial transactions (including credit and debit card records) and to notify relevant state and county bodies if there is reasonable suspicion of financial mismanagement or fraud. The bill proposes changing the term “nonclassroom-based instruction” to “flex-based instruction.” SB 414 made it through Appropriations Committee and will head to the Senate floor. Like AB 84, the author of this bill will most likely need to negotiate with Assembly Member Muratsuchi to send only one bill to the Governor.

Curriculum and Instruction

AB 401 (Muratsuchi) – California Career Technical Education Incentive Grant (CTEIG) Program: annual adjustment: renewal grants.
This bill would apply the same annual COLA applied to the LCFF to the CTEIG program, subject to an appropriation. Additionally, the bill would provide grant recipients with an additional three years of grant funding (meaning one grant award provides funding across four years total) so long as the recipients are meeting required program metrics and the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) evaluates and deems them successful. This bill also would set aside 90% of each year’s appropriation for the automatic renewal of grants and the remaining 10% for new grants, unless otherwise determined by the SPI and State Board of Education (SBE), and would allow a grant recipient to receive funding above the statutory formula if they have additional matching funds available. Despite CTE funding remaining a popular, bipartisan issue, the bill was held in the committee today likely due to cost concerns over applying COLA to CTEIG.

AB 715 (Zbur) – Educational equity: discrimination.
This bill would prohibit an LEA governing board or body from allowing the use of any instructional materials or curriculum if its use would subject a pupil to unlawful discrimination, and permits related complaints to be filed directly with the SPI. The bill also expands the definition of nationality to include a person’s actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, or residency in a country with a dominant religion or distinct religious identity, and clarifies that discrimination on the basis of religion includes, but is not limited to, antisemitism or Islamophobia.

You may recall our recent update here on the current movements around ethnic studies curriculum. As we predicted, as being a compromise between multiple caucuses in the Legislature, the bill moved forward today. The conversation around funding the ethnic studies requirement in this year’s final budget, however, continues to remain murky.

AB 1454 (Rivas) – Pupil literacy: administrative services credential program standards and professional development: instructional materials.
Another bill that is the result of a last-minute deal between multiple parties in the Legislature, AB 1454 would require the CDE to develop and publish resources and allocate funding for literacy teaching programs, require an LEA to provide literacy teaching training to staff, require the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) to update administrative credential standards for literacy instruction, and require the SBE to conduct a follow-up adoption for English language arts (ELA) and English language development (ELD). The requirements of the bill are contingent upon funding.

As a reminder, up until the end of April, conversations in this space had been centered on two other bills dealing with the “science of reading”: AB 1121 by Assembly Member Blanca Rubio (D-Covina), which would have required LEAs to participate in SBE-approved PD on teaching literacy and reading, and AB 1194 by Assembly Member Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), which would have required the SBE to adopt instructional materials for K-8 in English language arts and English language development by June 30, 2027. As attention shifted to AB 1454, neither of those bills moved to the Appropriations Committee, clearing the way for AB 1454 to pass today as the primary vehicle in the space.

Governance and Operations

AB 1230 (Bonta) – Pupil discipline: expulsions: procedures.
This bill would require a plan of rehabilitation for an expelled pupil to include periodic review and an assessment for readmission at least 45 days before the end of the expulsion term, be developed in consultation with specified school personnel, be tailored to the individual pupil’s needs, and address the pupil’s behavior that led to the expulsion. AB 1230 would also require the governing board of a school district to (1) assist the pupil in locating opportunities accessible to the pupil that are necessary to complete the requirements of a plan for rehabilitation, and (2) as part of the process for a required review, indicate whether or not the pupil had access to the necessary resources to complete their rehabilitation plan. The bill passed today without amendments.

SB 644 (Blakespear) – Political Reform Act of 1974: contribution limits.
This bill would apply existing contribution limits for state elective offices to candidates for judicial, school district, and community college district office, and would authorize the Judicial Council, school districts, and community college districts to impose more restrictive contribution limits on candidates. The bill’s provisions would have become operative on January 1, 2027, but it was held in committee today.

Human Resources

AB 65 (Aguiar-Curry) – School and community college employees: paid disability and parental leave.
A reintroduction of AB 2901 (Aguiar-Curry, 2024), AB 65, which is sponsored by the California Teachers Association, would require all school employees to be offered up to 14 weeks of fully paid pregnancy-related leave in addition to the leave already required by law. Assembly Member Aguiar-Curry, the bill’s author, is the chair of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus and the bill has been identified as priority legislation for the Caucus.

Despite continued concerns from statewide education associations regarding the bill’s cost implications for schools (not to mention its impacts on the classroom and student learning), AB 65 passed off the suspense file without any amendments. The bill’s author has reportedly requested an $100 million appropriation in this year’s state budget to cover the costs of the bill. However, concerns from the education community remain as it is believed that that amount would not be sufficient to fully cover the costs of the newly required leave (the Appropriations Committee’s analysis of the bill estimated AB 65 to potentially cost “hundreds of millions of dollars” in ongoing Prop 98).

AB 959 (Hadwick) – Teacher credentialing: administrative services credential: internship program.
This bill would allow COEs and districts to offer one-year internship programs approved by Commission on Teacher Credentialing for candidates seeking to obtain a preliminary administrative credential. It passed today.

AB 1233 (Hoover) – Noncertificated employees: applicants: previous employment: California School Information Services.
AB 1233 would have required, by July 1, 2027, the California School Information Services (CSIS) to develop a statewide data system for the collection of classified position employment data, including substantiated reports of egregious misconduct. Under the bill, LEAs would have then been required to (1) report to CSIS when a classified employee is hired, changes position, leaves employment, or is being investigated for egregious misconduct, and (2) prior to hiring an applicant for a classified position, review the data system to determine whether an investigation resulted in a substantiated report of egregious misconduct against the applicant. Despite support from school management entities, the bill received late opposition from labor and was ultimately held in the Appropriations Committee.

SB 494 (Cortese) – Classified school and community college employees: disciplinary hearings: appeals: contracted administrative law judges.
SB 494 would authorize a permanent classified employee of a school district, excluding a peace officer, to appeal disciplinary action to a contracted administrative law judge, paid by the school district and jointly selected by the district and the employee or their employee organization unless the employee organization and the school district have agreed to an alternative method of appealing disciplinary action. Senator Cortese ran a similar measure last year, SB 433, which made it all the way to the Governor’s desk before being vetoed. School management groups were opposed to SB 433 and remain opposed to this latest effort, arguing that the bill limits local control and would further delay the timely resolution of disciplinary actions. Despite these concerns, SB 494 passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee without any changes.

Immigration

AB 1348 (Bains) – Average daily attendance: emergencies: immigration enforcement activity.
This bill would add “immigration enforcement activity” to the list of specified emergency situations for which a school district, COE, or charter school may seek a J-13A waiver for a material decrease in attendance. LEAs that file a J-13A for immigration enforcement activities must offer an independent study program to students for the school year in which they submit the affidavit and adopting written policies for providing instruction to students through independent study. AB 1348 requires the Controller, for the 2026-27 Audit Guide, to incorporate compliance with the above independent study requirements. The authorization to apply for a J-13A for immigration enforcement activities would sunset as of June 30, 2029. A simple but important change, the bill moved forward today.

SB 48 (Gonzalez) – Immigration enforcement: schoolsites: prohibitions on access and sharing information.
SB 48 would establish the steps an LEA must take when an immigration authority requests access to a school site or student, depending on whether or not they present a valid judicial warrant or court order. The bill would also prohibit an LEA from disclosing or providing the education records of or any information about a pupil, pupil’s family and household, school employee, or teacher to an immigration authority without a valid judicial warrant or court order directing the LEA to do so. The bill passed today.

SB 98 (Pérez) – Elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education: immigration enforcement: notification.
SB 98 would require the governing board of an LEA to notify all teachers, staff, other school community members that work on the schoolsite, parents, and guardians when the presence of immigration enforcement is confirmed at school. This bill is an urgency measure, meaning it would go into effect upon the Governor’s signature. Similar to SB 48 above, the bill moved forward.

School Finance

AB 477 (Muratsuchi) – Local control funding formula: base grants: funding targets.
This bill would establish new LCFF base grant targets (and related funding for Necessary Small Schools, COEs, transitional kindergarten, etc.) for each of the K-12 “grade spans” of kindergarten through grade three, grades four through six, grades seven and eight, and grades nine through 12, for fiscal year (FY) 2036-37. The bill would also state legislative intent to fully fund these rates in the preceding years, and that the funds be utilized to increase school site staff salaries at school districts, county offices of education (COEs), and charter schools. Despite significant cost pressures in the bill – the analysis noted it would require ongoing Prop 98 funds to the tune of $38 billion to fully implement these new targets – the bill moved forward today.

AB 1204 (Alvarez) – Local control funding formula: school districts and charter schools: pupils experiencing homelessness: supplemental and concentration grants: regional adjustment factors: grade-span adequacy adjustments.
This bill would provide for a minimum LCFF COLA of no less than 4% and add homeless students to the list of students qualifying as unduplicated for purposes of LCFF. The bill would further require the CDE to establish and publish on its internet website regional cost adjustment factors in order to address regional cost differences in housing and labor. Similar to AB 477 above, this bill was tagged with costs to the state in the tens of billions of dollars. However, unlike AB 477, AB 1204 was held and made a two-year bill.

School Safety

SB 848 (Pérez) – Pupil safety: school employee misconduct: child abuse prevention.
Looking to implement the prevention recommendations from FCMAT’s AB 218 report, SB 848 would establish additional requirements for LEAs aimed at improving student safety. These new requirements include requiring LEAs, including charter schools and private schools, to adopt written policies, by July 1, 2026, on appropriate interactions and professional boundaries between school employees, volunteers, contractors, and students, broadening the definition of mandated reporters to explicitly include school volunteers, governing board members, LEA contractors, and private school employees, and requiring the CTC to establish a statewide data system, by July 1, 2027, to track substantiated investigations of employee misconduct for use in employment screening. The bill passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee with amendments to make the data system contingent on an appropriation and to clarify the role of the CTC.

Special Education

AB 560 (Addis) – Special education: resource specialists: special classes.
This bill would require the SPI, on or before July 1, 2027, to establish a maximum recommended adult-to-pupil staffing ratio for special day classes for pupils 3–22 years old and post it on CDE’s website. In developing the recommended ratio, the SPI would be required to consult with specified groups, including school administrators, credentialed education specialists, and parents of special with exceptional needs, as well as consider certain factors, like types of school settings, existing LEA practices, and the conditions in small and rural LEAs.

The bill has been significantly narrowed as it has moved through the committee process. An earlier version of the bill would have set in statute specific caseload caps depending on the special education service being provided, as well as specific pupil-to-teacher ratios depending on pupil age and severity of disability. While the current version of the bill does not mandate specific caseload limits or ratios, concerns remain that the recommended staffing ratio for special day classes that bill requires the SPI to develop could still be treated as a requirement in the field. There will be time for more conversations on the bill as it passed today.

Student Services

AB 1264 (Gabriel) – Pupil nutrition: particularly harmful ultraprocessed food: prohibition.
On January 3rd, Governor Newsom issued an executive order (EO), citing the “emerging scientific evidence” linking ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) with increased health risks and directing state agencies to recommend potential actions to limit the harms associated with UPFs, including in school meals. Building on this EO, AB 1264 by Assembly Member Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino) would establish a timeline by which the state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) must establish a definition for “particularly harmful UPFs” and schools must begin phasing out the use of particularly harmful UPFs in meals.

Assembly Member Gabriel, who is the current chair of the Assembly Budget Committee, has become a champion of minimally processed foods in recent years. He authored AB 2316 last year, which prohibits the use of specified dyes and other substances in school meals beginning December 31, 2027, and before that he ran AB 418, the California Food Safety Act, which prohibited the sale of any food with certain substances beginning January 1, 2027. Both bills were signed by Governor Newsom and cited in his January EO. Given this context, the bill unsurprisingly passed out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Technology

AB 810 (Irwin) – Local government: internet websites and email addresses.
Some of you may recall AB 1637 (Irwin, 2023) which, when introduced, would have required all school districts to switch their website domain names to “.ca.gov”, or “.gov”, and further would have required a similar switch for all employee email addresses. Due to successful lobbying from the education community, when ultimately signed into law, AB 1637 only applied to cities, counties, or cities and counties. AB 810 is a follow-up to that bill, and initially sought to re-include schools in these provisions. However, again amidst a strong opposition campaign from the education community, amendments were accepted by the author to exclude “K-12 public school districts” from the provisions of the bill. While the language appears to be an attempt to remove schools from the bill, there remains concern the provisions of the bill may still apply to county offices of education and joint powers authorities. There has been continued advocacy to secure the technical amendments needed to clarify no school agencies will be included in the bill’s provisions.

In a win for education management groups today, the bill was held and made a two-year bill. It will not be eligible to be considered until January next year.

Transportation

AB 1111 (Soria) – Pupil transportation: schoolbuses: zero-emission vehicles: extensions: scrapping.
This bill would expand eligibility for a potential ten-year total extension of the state’s 2035 zero-emission schoolbus target to include a small school district, defined as 2,501 ADA or fewer. It also would add a lack of charging infrastructure or required maintenance availability as qualifying constraints for all LEAs to seek the initial five-year extension that exists in current law. The bill moved forward today.

What is the “Suspense File”?

The Legislature’s Appropriations Committees use the “suspense file” as a procedural tool to manage the hundreds of bills that would impose significant costs on the state. Bills estimated to exceed a certain fiscal threshold (typically $50,000) are temporarily held on suspense and reviewed collectively at a later hearing. This process provides committee leadership, particularly the chair, substantial discretion and negotiating leverage over the fate of legislation. Historically, the Appropriations Committee chairs have wielded political influence second only to the Assembly Speaker or Senate pro Tem. They often exercise considerable unilateral power, strategically prioritizing or sidelining bills based on legitimate fiscal or policy considerations, political alliances, or even political retribution.

What’s Next?

Bills that failed to move out of the Appropriations Committees are effectively dead for the year, and bills that advanced today proceed to the Assembly or Senate floor for debate and consideration by the full bodies of the houses. Most bills approved by the Appropriations Committees, especially in their house of origin, also successfully pass their subsequent floor votes. This is largely because bills released from suspense usually have support from legislative leadership, have undergone prior political negotiation, or represent an alternative proposal to a competing measure in the opposite house (like the two charter school bills). Bills held on suspense typically do not progress further in the current legislative session but, as we are in the first year of the 2025-26 session, may be reintroduced next year as a new bill. The deadline for bills to be voted off the floor of their house of origin is June 6. At that point, bills will swap houses and start the policy committee process all over again.