BILL TO REGULATE SCHOOL CHARTER VENDORS ADVANCES

Charter school advocates are fighting a bill designed to stop home-school charter parents from spending school tax dollars on certain enrichment activities such as Disneyland passes, horseback riding lessons and private education for their children.

The bill, AB 2990, was authored by Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, D-bell Gardens. The state Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday cleared the bill by a vote of 5-2.

The California Charter Schools Association, which had worked with Garcia on the bill and said the bill was “based on credible concerns that we share,” is now opposing it.

The association said it believes the bill contains “overly prescriptive oversight and review standards” and vague definitions of such terms as “enrichment.” The bill defines enrichment as activities related to recreation, technol

ogy, arts and entertainment used to support a school’s academic program.

Two committee members also expressed concern that the bill could have sweeping impacts on how all public schools — not just home-school charters — contract with vendors for services.

About 150 people spoke against the bill at Wednesday’s hearing, either by phone or in person. Most were home-schooling parents.

The bill was prompted by The San Diego Union-tribune’s reporting about online charter schools that cater to home-schooling parents by allotting parents thousands of dollars of state funding per year, as much as $3,200 or more per student. Then, often with a teacher’s approval, the parents choose how to spend that money on a wide variety of enrichment activities offered by outside vendors.

Charter schools are public schools run independently of school districts.

Some charter schools have allowed parents to spend money on vendors that sell ice skating lessons, dinner theater tickets, Disneyland annual passes, ski passes and tourism Citypasses for places like Chicago.

Some charter school vendors are owned by religious organizations and have said they operate with a religious worldview, the Union-tribune found.

Assemblyman Kevin Mccarty, D-sacramento, speaking at Wednesday’s hearing on behalf of Garcia’s bill, said the bill would not take away home-school options from families, but it’s meant to prevent tax dollars from paying for excessive or inappropriate things, like a trip to Chicago or Disneyland.

“That clearly is abuse of public tax dollars and making it bad for the homeschool families that are doing it right,” Mccarty said.

This practice, while not explicitly addressed by any state law, has led traditional public school advocates to question whether this enrichment spending constitutes gifts of public funds, which are illegal.

Garcia has said the practice also presents an inequity issue, considering that some traditional public schools often don’t have enough money for basic school supplies.

“Currently there’s no oversight. We’ve seen that through [the Union-tribune’s] reporting,” Garcia said in an interview. “We shouldn’t be paying for extravagant things like trips to Disneyland, things kids at traditional public schools don’t have access to.”

Students at traditional public schools sometimes go to Disneyland, but typically they hold fundraisers to do so.

The Union-tribune also reported on the A3 charter schools, a now-shuttered network of California virtual charter schools whose leaders were indicted on fraud allegations. Prosecutors said the schools paid thousands of tax dollars to privately run schools, including programs run by churches, to educate A3 students.

Many of these privately run programs are not registered with the state as private schools and often employ teachers with no credentials.

Garcia’s bill was one of only 13 bills heard by the Assembly Education Committee Wednesday, out of about 140 education bills filed this year. The pandemic has forced the committee to consider only a handful of bills for cost and capacity reasons.

Garcia said her bill, which was introduced in February, is important now during the pandemic because more families may be considering home-schooling options due to the widespread school closures.

“It’s more important than ever that we have proper accountability and oversight of our dollars,” Garcia said.

Garcia’s bill would do the following:

• Prohibit schools from allotting parents an amount of money each year for enrichment activities.

• Prohibit schools from providing financial incentives to teachers for enrolling more students.

• Require that all enrichment activities and programs be nonsectarian.

• Prohibit school enrichment funds from being spent on private school tuition.

• Require charter schools and districts to vet enrichment vendors.

• Require charter school authorizers to approve charter schools’ vendor-vetting policies and do spot audits of enrichment vendor services.

• Require that any vendor contracts above $100,000 in a fiscal year be approved by a school board at a public meeting.

• Require that all schoolfunded enrichment activities be approved by the student’s teacher as being educationally appropriate and relevant to a specific assignment.

Alice Kessler, speaking on behalf of the California Charter Schools Association at Wednesday’s hearing, said the association acknowledges there have been bad practices with charter school vendors.

But schools need “optimal flexibility,” especially now during the pandemic, and may depend on vendors to provide distance learning, blended learning or independent study, said Colin Miller, the association’s vice president for government affairs, in a letter to legislators.

“Focusing narrow attention on this issue at this time may distract from higher priorities,” Miller said.

Eric Premack, founding director of the Charter School Development Center, said the center acknowledges “there has been abuse in this area” and so supports some parts of the bill, such as having vendor-vetting procedures and limits on religious materials and programs.

But the center opposes the bill, he said, noting that traditional brick-and-mortar schools also use vendors extensively.

Many of the public commenters were only allowed to state their name, affiliation and whether they oppose or support the bill. At least a couple of people in opposition started to say that they had never gone to Disneyland using charter school dollars, but they were cut off by the committee chair.

Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, R-rocklin, vice-chair of the committee, voted against the bill. He said he thinks the bill is based on “a few allegedly inappropriate enrichment activities” and is being used to hamper educational enrichment offerings in schools across the state.

Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-san Diego, said she didn’t think the bill is ready because parts of it are unclear.

“Obviously there are some issues here, but this bill doesn’t clarify it strongly enough . ... Will it cause more problems because it’s so broad?” Weber said.

Weber later voted yes on the bill.

Committee Chair and Assemblyman Patrick O’donnell, D-long Beach, said he wants the bill to move forward.

“I don’t really see this as an anti-home school bill at all. I see this as a pro-home school bill, because if I was in home school, I want it to be appropriate,” he said. “I want accountability. I want oversight. And, from my perspective, that’s what this bill does.”

AB 2990 will advance to the Appropriations Committee.

kristen.taketa@sduniontribune.com