Among those under consideration is a package of CSBA-sponsored legislative measures that respond to input and concerns raised by school district and county office of education board members. Two bills aim to provide additional education workforce housing tools to help develop teacher and classified staff housing. Other bills seek to to address the zero-emission school bus purchasing mandate, an effort to expand the time a substitute teacher may serve in a classroom, follow-up legislation to implement CSBA co-sponsored Senate Bill 1315 from last year to help reduce administrative workloads associated with the substantial number of reports required of local educational agencies, and modernization of the 40-year-old school and county board member stipend amounts.

• Assembly Bill 1021 by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) — Enhancing access to education workforce housing
  • This bill is a follow-up to AB 2295 (Bloom, 2022), which CSBA co-sponsored to help streamline the process LEAs can follow to plan, fund and develop education workforce housing. Co-sponsored with UCLA’s CityLAB and TRiO Plus, AB 1021 would make targeted policy reforms to support LEAs that are struggling to provide housing for school employees by further enhancing and expanding upon the provisions provided in AB 2295. These include ensuring that small and rural LEAs can pursue the benefits of AB 2295 as well as exempting education workforce housing projects from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
  • Among the effects of California’s prolonged and intensifying housing shortage is its significant impact on the state’s education workforce. A substantial portion of the state’s 600,000 public school employees find themselves unable to afford housing in the communities where they work. This measure will help to accelerate accessibility to a proven tool to help recruit and retain staff.
• AB 1381 (Muratsuchi) — Education workforce housing predevelopment funding
  • This measure would establish and fund a revolving loan account in the Office of the California State Treasurer to provide no-interest loans to school districts and COEs to assist with preparing feasibility studies and conduct predevelopment work for education workforce housing projects.
  • This money would unlock thousands of homes for school staff, helping address the achievement gap through teacher retention and expand a housing model that could continue in perpetuity.

• AB 1111 by Assemblymember Esmerelda Soria (D-Fresno) — Addressing zero-emission school bus purchasing mandate
• This measure seeks to address AB 579 (2023), which requires all school buses purchased in 2035 and beyond to be zero-emission by providing additional considerations that would extend the purchasing mandate for LEAs.

• AB 1224 by Assemblymember Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim) — Expanding access to substitute teachers
  • This bill would expand the amount of time an authorized substitute teacher could serve in a single general, special or career technical education classroom from 30 days to 60 days.
  • Co-sponsored by the Association of California School Administrators, the California County Superintendents and the California Association of School Business Officials (CASBO), AB 1224 will help to provide more consistency for students while LEAs find highly qualified permanent teachers. The current limit on substitute teaching has resulted in disruptive turnover in substitute teachers, negatively impacting student learning.

• SB 374 by Sen. Bob Archuleta (D–Pico Rivera) — Reducing school district and COE administrative burdens
  • This bill would implement recommendations developed pursuant to SB 1315 (2024), co-sponsored by CSBA and CASBO, which required the California Department of Education to assess the total number of state and federal reports required of LEAs and recommend which reports should be truncated, eliminated and preserved.

• AB 1390 by Assemblymember Jose Solache (D-Lynwood) — Modernizing school and county board member stipends
  • This bill would modernize the 40-year-old compensation thresholds in law for district and county school board members. It would bring existing stipend rates into alignment with the impacts of inflation and provide that school district and county boards of education retain the authority to determine the amount of the stipend within the cap.