Current law requires the governing board of a school district to include a student board member if a petition signed by a specified number of high school students is brought before the governing board. Current law does not provide for a process to add student board members to a county board of education or the governing body of a charter school. AB 824 addresses that disparity between school districts, and charter schools and county boards of education.
Accordingly, AB 824 provides if a pupil petition signed by at least 500 enrolled high school students or 10 percent of enrolled high school students, whichever is less, is submitted to a county board of education or charter school requesting a pupil seat on the governing board, the county board of education or charter school or entity managing the charter school must add a pupil seat to the board. Individual students elected to serve in the pupil seat, must be enrolled at a high school within the county board of education’s or charter school’s jurisdiction. Pupils must be chosen to serve one-year terms by the pupil’s high school students enrolled with the county board of education or attending the charter school, according to the policies and procedures adopted by the county board of education or charter school. These requirements mirror the same requirements applicable to school districts.
Similarly, AB 824 affords similar rights and limitations to the pupil board member. For example, the pupil member may only have preferential voting rights, which means the pupil has a right to make a public vote that must be recorded in the minutes. But the vote does not count for the purposes of passing any measure. As another example, the pupil has the right to attend meetings, except closed sessions, and to receive all materials provided to board members, except closed session materials. Pupil members do not count as members of a legislative body or a local agency for the purposes of the Brown Act.
(AB 824 amends Sections 1000 and 35012 of the Education Code, and adds Section 47604.2 to the Education Code.)