Juvenile court school pupils: joint transition planning policy: courses of study.

Header changed from amendment dates to passage dates: the Assembly passed the bill on August 26, 2026 and the Senate on August 25, 2026. A line was added for the Governor's receipt date.

Line numbering (line 1, line 2, etc.) was removed throughout the bill text, which is standard formatting for enrolled bills ready for the Governor's signature.

Page headers and footers were reformatted from the amendment layout to the enrolled bill layout. The legislative counsel's digest was reflowed with different line breaks but contains the same substantive content.

New Section 3.5 adds a full rewrite of Education Code Section 51225.2 requiring local educational agencies to issue and accept full or partial credit for coursework completed by pupils in foster care, homeless youth, former juvenile court school pupils, children of military families, migratory children, and newcomer pupils across public schools, charter schools, juvenile court schools, nonpublic nonsectarian schools, and foreign schools.

The new section requires transferring agencies to issue official transcripts within 2 business days that include credits and grades broken out by school, a complete seat time record (period attendance and days of enrollment), and all full or partial credits earned. New receiving agencies must contact prior agencies within 2 business days if they suspect missing credits.

The new section protects covered students' ability to retake or take courses to meet California State University or University of California admission eligibility requirements.

The new section prohibits local educational agencies from requiring covered students to retake a course they have already satisfactorily completed in any public school, juvenile court school, charter school, foreign school, or nonpublic nonsectarian school. For partial completion, retaking is only permitted if the agency finds the student cannot finish in time to graduate.

The new section includes a complaint and appeal process under the Uniform Complaint Procedures, with a 60-day deadline for written decisions on appeals to the state department, and requires annual public notification of the section's requirements.

A new coordination provision (Section 4) states that the amendments to Section 51225.2 will only become operative if both AB 1659 and SB 685 are enacted by January 1, 2027, each amends that section, and AB 1659 is enacted after SB 685.

Cleaned up confusing and duplicated language in the juvenile court school transition provisions, including removing a stray period in 'transition liaison personnel. or charter school point person' and eliminating redundant phrases like 'of the that school district or charter school.'

Changed 'district point person for transition liaison responsibilities' to simply 'point person for transition liaison responsibilities,' removing the word 'district' to make the role applicable to both school districts and charter schools equally.

The requirement to assign a transition liaison point person now explicitly applies to charter schools in which a juvenile court school pupil will be enrolling, not just the school district in the pupil's community. This broadens the entities responsible for providing a designated contact for transition support.

The Assembly version required transferring local educational agencies to issue an official transcript within 20 school days from the date of a pupil's transfer. The Senate version removes this specific deadline, instead relying on the existing 2-business-day requirement already in Section 49069.5.

The Assembly version included a provision capping partial credits so they could not exceed the number of credits a pupil would have received for completing the whole course in one location. The Senate version removes this cap entirely, giving local educational agencies more flexibility in how they award partial credit.

The transition liaison role in Section 48647(e) is now explicitly designated as the 'district point person for transition liaison responsibilities,' clarifying that this individual serves as the primary contact for the district.

The collaboration requirement in Section 48647(e) was expanded so that the staff member works alongside 'other existing school district personnel as needed to serve the individual pupil' when collaborating with county office of education transition oversight personnel, rather than acting alone.

Section 51225.2(b)(2) now includes a cross-reference stating that the transferring local educational agency shall issue transcripts 'pursuant to subdivisions (d) and (e) of Section 49069.5,' explicitly linking the 20-school-day transcript deadline to the foster care transfer procedures.

Section 48647(h) was updated to refer to the 'transition liaison staff member point person for transition liaison responsibilities' instead of just 'transition liaison staff member,' aligning terminology with the new point person designation.