Whereas, President Obama has recognized both the importance of community colleges in higher education and the need to reduce financial barriers to higher education by proposing free tuition for students who attend community college;
Whereas, SB373 (Pan, February 24, 2015) seeks to lock districts into their 2015-2016 Full Time Student Equivalent (FTES) for part-time faculty and the FTES overload taught by full-time faculty unless the college exceeds the 75% full-time to part-time ratio;
Whereas, Districts going through enrollment growth or decline could find themselves unable to offer classes or provide students with critical support services because these limitations greatly restrict their flexibility to expand or contract; and
Whereas, High textbook prices are an increasingly significant barrier to student success, as many students cannot afford and thus do not purchase necessary course materials without which their performance in the corresponding courses is impeded;
Whereas, Open Educational Resources, when reviewed and selected by discipline faculty for their own courses, can in many cases offer appropriate low-cost alternatives to published textbooks for students;
Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges has passed numerous resolutions supporting progress toward the goal of 75% of courses taught by full-time faculty (13.01 F14, 19.03 F06), hiring full-time noncredit faculty (7.01 F14), and funding for part-time faculty office hours (19.01 F01, 6.02 S97, 12.04 F92);
Whereas, The Chancellor’s Office is sponsoring AB 288 (Holden, as of March 23, 2015)[1], legislation that seeks to address some commonly recognized barriers to the local implementation of dual enrollment and to expand opportunities for dual enrollment through the creation of agreements between college and school districts that are approved at public meetings of the college and school district boards in order to establish seamless pathways from high school to community college for struggling and at-risk high school students;
Whereas, Legislators have recognized the importance of improving student transitions from high school to community college, commonly referred to as career pathways, since 2005, which has led to local, regional, and state investments serving middle schools, high schools, and colleges (SB 70, 2005, Scott; SB1070, 2012, Steinberg; AB 86, 2013, Blumenfield; and the California Pathways Trust Fund, 2013-2018);
Whereas, California law establishes the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) as the coordinating and planning agency for statewide postsecondary education, but CPEC was defunded by the governor in 2011 and its statutory functions did not include oversight of higher education;
Whereas, Expenses for California community college students have risen dramatically in the past few years and the Middle Class Scholarship Act (AB 1501, Perez, as of February 9, 2012) would bring much needed relief for families with annual incomes of less than $150,000 that are struggling to meet the burdens associated with the rising costs of higher education and who often do not qualify for financial aid;
Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges opposes “recommendations that establish different academic policies for students based on their differing abilities to pay” (Resolution 7.03 F11) and also strongly opposes “any attempt to abridge the mission of California community colleges, reduce their affordability, or remove their control from the communities they serve” (Resolution 7.02 F11);
Whereas, AB 1741 (Fong, as of March 30, 2012), the Student Success Infrastructure Act of 2012, would set up a fund, subject to the Budget Act, to enhance the following infrastructure in the community colleges:
