On Oct. 8, California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed Assembly Bill 165, which would have made it illegal for school districts to charge students mandatory fees for any educational activities. If passed, the bill would have been difficult to adhere to. Although it had honorable intentions, AB 165 would have placed unrealistic demands on schools, which would limit educational opportunities for students.
The bill stemmed from an American Civil Liberties Union investigation that found several school districts in violation of the California Educational Code, which requires equal opportunities in education be available to all students. The 1984 California Supreme Court case of Hartzell vs. Connell made it illegal for schools to base participation on fees or fee waivers.
AB 165 would have furthured this end by not only making it illegal for schools to charge fees for extracurricular activities, but also for schools to place “explicit or implicit” pressure on students or parents to make a donation. Although on the surface this goal appears admirable, in practice it would have been impractical and difficult to enforce.
At Mira Costa, there are a variety of sports and extracurricular programs such as La Vista, Model United Nations and nearly every on-campus sport that rely on student donations for operating costs.
The district would have had to prove that students faced absolutely no pressure to make donations to extracurriculars they were involved in.
For example, the district could theoretically be liable if a student that made a donation received more playing time or a better position in an organization than a student that didn’t, even if those decisions were based entirely on merit.
Furthermore, Costa’s summer school programs would not have been able to exist as they do now. Summer school programs effectively require students to pay for the classes they take.
If AB 165 had passed, summer school would only have been legal if the Manhattan Beach Athletic Foundation, which runs the summer school, raised enough funds to provide classes free of charge.
The bill also would have required districts to regularly prove that they were not violating the law, even if no parent or student had filed an official complaint in relation to the law.
This idea is entirely impractical. School districts already struggling with state budget cuts do not have the resources to comply with this bureacratic and pointless requirement.
The one merit of the bill, however, is its application to textbooks. Districts would have to provide textbooks to students in AP classes, who normally have to purchase their books, that could not afford to purchase them. This is a relatively simple application of the law that would only require the purchase of more textbooks.
Unfortunately, many implications of the proposed bill are not this simple.
The spirit of the law, to provide equal opportunity, is applaudable, but the state legislature should consider a more realistic plan to accomplish this end.
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