Statewide Special Education Parent Advocacy Collaborative.

Entirely new Chapter 9 (Sections 56870-56877) added to Part 30 of Division 4 of Title 2 of the Education Code, establishing the Statewide Special Education Parent Advocacy Collaborative as a standalone statutory framework separate from the existing Welfare and Institutions Code amendment.

The bill title and digest expanded from amending only Section 4540 of the Welfare and Institutions Code to also adding a new chapter to the Education Code and making an appropriation. The original Section 4540 amendment is retained but renumbered as Section 1 at the end of the bill.

Legislative findings section added citing federal IDEA guarantees, recent reductions in federal monitoring capacity (staffing cuts at OCR and OSER), California's large population of pupils with disabilities and its history of needing federal intervention, gaps in existing parent support structures for statewide advocacy, and the need for a coordinated statewide structure.

Appropriates $800,000 per year from the General Fund for fiscal years 2027-28, 2028-29, and 2029-30 (totaling $2.4 million) to the State Council on Developmental Disabilities for the collaborative grant.

Grantee must build a network of at least 200 leader stakeholders, establish a cohort of approximately 40 to 50 parent and pupil leaders from diverse geographic regions, conduct at least three convenings annually, and develop a statewide training program covering legislative engagement, communications, coalition building, IDEA compliance monitoring, and data use.

New definitions section (Section 56870) defines advocacy (excluding individual due process representation), collaborative, council, grantee, parent (including education rights holders), pupil with a disability (up to age 21 including those transitioning to adulthood), and statewide advocacy organization.

Grantee must establish measurable outcomes aligned with the California School Dashboard and State Performance Plan; submit annual reports to the council; and the council must submit a comprehensive report to the Legislature and Governor by December 31, 2030, including participant numbers, geographic distribution, outcomes achieved, and recommendations.

Activities must be guided by the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence's theory of action, emphasizing continuous improvement, capacity building, and data-driven decisionmaking.

The direct appropriation of $800,000 per fiscal year for 2027-28, 2028-29, and 2029-30 from the General Fund was removed. The bill no longer guarantees funding.

A new provision states that implementation of the chapter is contingent upon an appropriation in the annual Budget Act or another statute, shifting funding from a guaranteed line item to a future budget decision.

Grant evaluation criteria language changed from 'the council shall consider all of the following' to 'the council shall evaluate whether an applicant has all of the following,' making the criteria more of a threshold requirement than a factor to weigh.

Blank dollar amounts in the administrative fee provision ('____ ($____) up to 5 percent') were removed, leaving only 'up to 5 percent' without a specific cap figure.

Assembly Member Jeff Gonzalez added as principal coauthor; Assembly Members Arambula and Schiavo added as coauthors.

The document was reformatted from a traditional legislative print layout (with line numbers, page headers, and column formatting) to a web-based presentation format with navigation elements, metadata, and version tracking. No policy language changed.

Added a new definition in Section 4540(h)(2): 'statewide advocacy organization' means an organization with demonstrated success representing the interests of families and persons with disabilities as defined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1400 et seq.) through local or statewide forums.

The grant provision in Section 4540(h) was restructured from a single paragraph into two subsections: (h)(1) retains the original grant language, and (h)(2) adds the eligibility definition, effectively narrowing which organizations qualify for the special education advocacy grant.