From The Desk Of
Peter Birdsall Executive Director
When the May Revision is released next month, the Governor has an opportunity to change not only the specifics of his budget proposals, but the policy initiatives included in the Budget Trailer Bill. Of great importance to county offices is the language concerning teacher assignment monitoring. To fulfill its obligations under ESSA, the CDE and the Commission on Teaching Credentialing (CTC) have entered into a data sharing agreement and will be automating the assignment monitoring system and requiring an annual audit of all certificated employees for all public schools, including charters.
In the draft Budget Trailer Bill released in February, the Governor’s Administration proposed to repeal the language requiring county superintendents to monitor and review district certificated employee assignment practices. Under the Trailer Bill, this responsibility would fall under the CTC’s purview and require districts to clear potential misassignments with the CTC directly.
Moving through the legislative process is AB 1219, which is sponsored by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. In contrast to the Budget Trailer Bill, AB 1219 would not repeal the county office role. In fact, recent amendments have put county offices of education in charge of monitoring all schools in their respective counties – including district-authorized charter schools. (Schools under single district counties and charters authorized by the SBE would be monitored by the CTC.) Since the bill would require the annual monitoring of all schools, the bill would also repeal the provisions in law that call for the annual teacher misassignment review of schools ranked in deciles 1-3, per the Williams settlement.
CCSESA staff is actively engaged in discussions with state agencies and legislative staff about the proposed new teacher assignment monitoring system. PASSCo and its Credentials Networking Subcommittee members have been an integral part of the process, both in providing background data to understand the implications of monitoring all schools annually, and in providing technical language that improves both TBL and AB 1219 language for COEs. Following release of the May Revision, this topic will be on the agenda of both the CCSESA Board of Directors on May 20 and the CCSESA Legislative Committee on May 21.
