This was another banner year in Sacramento for the ACLU of California, our coalition partners and our members! The governor signed 14 of the 19 proposed laws we played a major part in getting to his desk. Although he vetoed legislation that would have protected and advanced civil liberties in our state, the governor also signed into law several critical priority bills of the ACLU of California.

The governor signed historic education, immigration and racial justice legislation this year that the ACLU of California sponsored with powerful coalitions.

• AB 420 (Dickinson) will eliminate the most extreme uses of harsh discipline under the category of "willful defiance.”
• SB 1159 (Lara) will ensure eligible applicants receive professional licenses regardless of their immigration status.
• SB 1010 (Mitchell) will end the discrepancies between sentencing, probation, and asset forfeiture for two forms of the same drug– powder cocaine and crack cocaine – that have resulted in a pattern of racial disparities in sentencing and incarceration in California.

Governor Brown’s signature on SB 1159 and AB 420 represents a huge step forward for immigrants and for students in California. And his signature on SB 1010 reflects growing political support in California to do what’s right and finally end racially unjust drug war policies.

The enactment of these and other laws places our state at the front of the pack. We are leading meaningful advancements in civil liberties, just as other states turn in the opposition direction. Other key pieces of legislation sponsored or co-sponsored by the ACLU of California include:

• SB 1111 (Lara) will require basic due-process protections for students transferring to and from alternative schools known as community day schools.
• SB 1135 (Jackson) will put an end to the involuntary sterilization of women in California prisons, after a report found unlawful sterilizations were still occurring in California.
• AB 1522 (Gonzalez) made California only the second state in the nation to pass a mandatory paid sick leave law. We would have been more excited about this victory had the bill not been slashed in the last few days of session to exclude in-home support services workers. Paid sick leave is essential to ensure equal access to healthcare and we will continue to work with our partners to assure that all Californians are entitled to it.

As California led in 2014, we also fell far behind in some areas. The Governor vetoed AB 1327 (Gorell), which would have required police to get a warrant before using a drone to spy on someone. Another painful veto was SB 1365 (Padilla), which would have extend the California Voting Rights Act of 2011 to single-member district systems in order to guarantee that all Californians can exercise their fundamental right to vote.

All told, the ACLU of California took a position on 142 distinct bills this year. Fourteen of our priority bills were signed and numerous other bills made significant progress in the legislature before ultimately failing. With the help of our coalition partners and our members, we look to next year and the possibility to create more headlines which name California as the national leader advancing our civil liberties.

For a listing of all the legislation we followed this year, click here.

By Nicole Ochi and Jessica Price, @jessicagprice

“How many of you have children who are English learners?” we asked the room full of about 80 Spanish speaking parents. Silence. No movement, other than the typical coughing and shifting in chairs.

Finally, a hand went up. “English learner? What does that mean?” asked one father timidly in Spanish. As it turns out, many of the people in the audience of that Temecula Valley auditorium that day were parents of English learner students. They just didn’t know it.

Parents have the power to demand change. A year and a half ago, Kay Yang adopted Minkyung Choi, an 11-year-old girl from South Korea. Minkyung arrived in the United States without any prior knowledge of English. She struggled to keep up with her peers in school because she could not understand the teacher’s instruction. She struggled to make friends as fellow students ridiculed her because of her language barriers.

Last year, Minkyung enrolled in the 6th grade at Bella Vista Middle School in Temecula Valley Unified School District. That year, she had the opportunity to participate in an ELD class, a class providing English Language Development for English learners. As a result, Minkyung gained confidence and began to blossom. Unfortunately, the school district eliminated this ELD class after only one semester. Minkyung’s grades suffered because she could not keep up in the mainstream classes and she became more stressed and withdrawn.

Kay is a born activist. However, like many parents, she did not know where to turn for help. After an attorney from Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles informed her about her daughter’s rights and empowered her to file a complaint with the school district, she became a stalwart advocate for her daughter and all English Learner students in the district. Kay shared her daughter’s story at board meetings and shared her experiences with other parents.

Thanks to Kay's efforts and after a long investigation, the school district found that Minkyung had been denied services. The district reinstated the ELD program, and agreed to provide additional support, including after-school tutoring to compensate for her lost instructional time.

California law requires school districts to send parents of English learners a notice at the beginning of each school year that would indicate that their child is an English learner. The law also requires that English learner students receive special instruction to help them learn English. The new Local Control Funding Formula sends millions of additional dollars to school districts to help them provide these services. School districts had to develop a plan, a Local Control Accountability Plan, explaining how they would spend that money on the neediest children. Temecula Valley Unified School District approved its plan in July.

Still, many parents in Temecula Valley Unified did not know about this plan. They didn’t know about the money nor the services. To bridge this gap, the ACLU of Southern California released a new toolkit to help parents of English learner students.

Download our EL Advocate's toolkit in English or Spanish

 

The toolkit, In Plain English: A Toolkit for English Learner Advocates in Temecula Valley Unified School District, synthesizes the school district’s promises to the English learner community. It puts in one place all of the relevant information about the school district’s duties to English learner students and their families, from the Master Plan for English Learners to the Local Control Accountability Plan and to state and federal law. This toolkit aims to empower community members to ask critical questions about where the dollars go, whether the services are effective and if they don’t like the answers, to be able to do something about it. Just like Kay Yang did.
Download our toolkit, available in English and Spanish.

Nicole Ochi is senior staff attorney at Advancing Justice - LA and Jessica Price is staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. Follow ACLU SoCal on Twitter.