CALL TO ACTION: AB77 - Education // Charter School Funding

READ AB77

CALL SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE

EMAIL THE SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE

WATCH THE HEARING

AGENDA

ACTIONS NEEDED:

  1. ONE-CLICK EMAIL - (Please see #2, before you send) Send an email to ALL of the Senate Budget Committee Members using the link above.

  2. BEFORE YOU SEND - Please edit the portions of the email to customize your name, city/state, and edit or add any additional information. CHANGE the subject line so that it is not automatically skipped over or seen as a mass email.

  3. CALL - Please call your representatives and each of the Senate Budget Committee Members to oppose AB77. Use talking points from below.

  4. Call Sheet: https://freedomkeepersunited.org/ca-senate-budget-committee

  5. Call in for Public Comment, hearing begins at 11am:
    1-844-291-6364

    Access Code: 665757


AB77 limits the choices of families who are trying to find alternative schooling routes for their children in light of COVID-19 and creates unprecedented barriers for well performing charter schools to succeed in serving their students.

This Call to Action was put together by Legislation Takes Action:
”AB 77 contains a “hold harmless” trailer that was added to the budget for this one school year. Legislators are trying to keep funding at district schools, even funding that should be following students to their new schools.

Due to the Covid-19 crisis, many students are enrolling in non-classroom based charter schools. This bill makes it so the charter school can not receive ADA funding for any new students they enroll. They can only receive funding for the number of students they had enrolled last year.

This trailer was put together in a leadership agreement between Governor Newsom, Anthony Rendon, the speaker of the Assembly, and Toni G. Atkins, the President pro tempore of the California State Senate who came together on it.

They added it into AB 77 because AB 77 was already in the right place in the legislative process to be able to make it all the way through both houses before the August 31st deadline. Atkins and Rendon committed to getting the votes from their houses to pass it.

We do not have much time to try to stop this blatant theft of our taxpayer money that is supposed to follow our students from school to school.

Deadline Dates for legislative session:

  • July 13 Legislature reconvenes from Summer Recess

  • Aug. 31 Last day for each house to pass bills

  • Sept. 30 Last day for Governor to sign or veto bills

-----------------------------------------------------------

We need to flood the Capitol and district offices with phone calls and messages.

Please start with your Senator and Assembly Member. Find your rep here: http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov


Talking points for making your calls:

Tell them you are calling to oppose AB 77

Tell them your name and your city of residence

  • Tell them you are a taxpayer and a parent of school-aged children and you will not stand for legislators allowing unions and district schools to steal money from California school children. State educational funds are supposed to follow the student from school to school.

  • Tell them that AB 77 discriminates against students who need to enroll in a non-classroom based charter school due to Covid-19. Public charter schools are legally required to admit a student who wishes to enroll, but would now be required to educate that student with zero funding from the state, meaning that the funding from their existing students will need to be redistributed to cover the new students. Charter schools are already operating on less funding than our district schools.

  • Article IX, Section 1 of the California Constitution recognizes that “[a] general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence [is] . . . essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people . . . .” Because of this principle, “California has assumed specific responsibility for a statewide public education system open on equal terms to all.” Butt v. California, 4 Cal. 4th 668, 680 (1992).

  • The equal protection clauses of the California Constitution, Article I, Section 7(a), and Article IV, Section 16(a), bar the State from maintaining the public school system in a manner that denies some students the basic educational necessities provided to other students.

  • AB 77 enables blatant discrimination against charter school students.

Freedom Keepers