Homeless children and youths and unaccompanied youths: reporting.

(1) 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 a state plan 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. Existing law requires a local educational agency liaison for homeless children and youths 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 and unaccompanied youths enrolled at the school, create a housing questionnaire, as specified, for purposes of identifying homeless children and youths and unaccompanied youths, and annually provide the housing questionnaire to all parents or guardians of pupils and unaccompanied youths of the local educational agency. The bill would require a local educational agency to collect the completed housing questionnaires and report the data from those questionnaires to the State Department of Education in a format determined by the department. The bill would also require the local educational agency to annually report to the department the number of homeless children and youths and unaccompanied youths enrolled. The bill would require a local educational agency to ensure that its school personnel who provide services to youth experiencing homelessness receive training about the homeless education program at least annually. This bill would require a school district or county office of education to create an internet web page or post on its internet website a list of the local educational agency liaisons for homeless children and youths and unaccompanied youths in that school district or county, respectively, the contact information for those liaisons, and specific information regarding the educational rights and resources available to persons experiencing homelessness. 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 bill would require data collected by the State Department of Education or by a local educational agency under these provisions to only be used for purposes of implementing the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and related state agency programs. By imposing additional duties on local educational agencies, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. This bill would appropriate the sum of $1,500,000 from the General Fund to the State Department of Education, to be equally allocated to 3 county offices of education in different regions throughout the state for purposes 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 and unaccompanied youths. (2) Existing law requires the department to provide, among other things, informational and training materials to local educational agency liaisons regarding the educational rights of homeless children and youths and the responsibilities of the liaisons. This bill would require the department to develop, as specified, best practices and a model housing questionnaire that a local educational agency may use to identify and obtain accurate data on all homeless children and youths and unaccompanied youths enrolled in schools of the local educational agency. The bill would require the department to post the best practices and model housing questionnaire on its internet website. (3) 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.