This year’s budget contained significant changes to current Independent Study (IS) law including making IS the sole alternative to in-person instruction in the 2021-22 school year. Originally designed as a program for students for whom traditional, in-person instruction did not work, the changes made to the program by AB 130 have made IS more about compliance and less about providing a mode of instruction designed to meet the needs of individual students. Changes include requiring daily live interaction or synchronous instruction and weekly synchronous instruction, depending on the grade, requiring a parent-teacher conference before signing an IS written agreement if requested by the parent, and requiring a local educational agency (LEA)  to develop tiered reengagement strategies for students struggling to meet the requirements of IS.

With relatively little fanfare, the Governor signed AB 438, by Assembly Member Eloise Gómez Reyes (D-Grand Terrace) with only a few days left before the signature deadline. The bill, co-sponsored by the California School Employees Association (CSEA), California Teachers Association (CTA), California Federation of Teachers (CFT), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), applies the same layoff notice requirements for certificated staff to permanent classified staff. This includes requiring a local educational agency (LEA) to provide notice to a classified employee by March 15 and allowing a classified employee to request a hearing to determine if there was cause for the decision not to renew their employment.

While the 2020 Budget Act included a steep decline in general fund (GF) revenue and a $10 billion reduction in the Prop. 98 guarantee, the 2021 Budget Act rebounded with the largest single year growth in GF revenue and the Prop. 98 guarantee ever recorded. Prop. 98 funding dropped to about $71 billion in the 2020 budget, but then soared up to nearly $94 billion in the 2021 budget. This additional state revenue, along with considerable federal funding, allowed the state to create and expand a number of programs and services. This increase in funding, however, did not fully mitigate all the challenges facing LEAs as the Delta-variant of COVID-19 continued to disrupt educational programs and other essential services for children.

The 2021-22 Budget and subsequent clean-up legislation rewrote Independent Study law, leaving school administrators and teachers scrambling to retool long-standing operations in an already stressful start of a school year.