Homeless children and youths: reporting.

Existing federal law, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, provides grants to states to carry out activities relating to the education of homeless children and youths, as defined, including, among others, providing services and activities to improve the identification of homeless children and youths and to enable them to enroll in, attend, and succeed in school. The act requires the state plans submitted for the receipt of the grant to include assurances that local educational agencies will designate an appropriate staff person to act as a local educational agency liaison for homeless children and youths and a description of how the state will ensure that local educational agencies and their liaisons will comply with specified requirements of the act, including the identification of homeless children and youths. Under existing state law, public schools, including charter schools, and county offices of education are required to immediately enroll a homeless child or youth seeking enrollment, except as specified, and a local educational agency liaison for homeless children and youths is required to ensure that public notice of the educational rights of homeless children and youths is disseminated in schools within the liaison's local educational agency that provide services pursuant to the act. This bill would require a local educational agency to ensure that each school within the local educational agency identifies all homeless children and youths enrolled at the school, and would also require the local educational agency to annually report to the State Department of Education the number of homeless children and youths enrolled. The bill would require that an intake form used to identify a child as homeless include a statement that a child will not be removed from the child's family solely because the child's family is experiencing homelessness. By imposing additional duties on local educational agencies, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill, upon appropriation by the Legislature for this purpose, would establish in the department 1.5 state coordinator positions, in addition to the state coordinator positions maintained in the department as of July 1, 2019, with duties including, at a minimum, those listed for the Coordinator for Education of Homeless Children and Youths pursuant to the federal act. The bill would require the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to allocate $500,000 each to 3 county offices of education in different regions throughout the state for the purpose of establishing technical assistance centers to foster relationships with community partners and other local educational agencies in each region, as provided. The bill would require the department to determine which county offices of education to allocate those funds to through a competitive process, as provided, and to take into account geographic diversity and concentrations of homeless children and youths. The bill would require a school district or county office of education to post on its internet website a list of the local educational agency liaisons for homeless children and youths in that school district or county, respectively, and the contact information for those liaisons. The bill would require a school to post on its internet website the contact information for the liaison, if available. The bill would also require, if a school has an employee or person under contract whose duties include assisting the liaison in completing the liaison's duties under the federal act, the school to post on its internet website the contact information for that employee or person under contract. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.