California Assembly Bill 1230, titled Expulsion Rehabilitation Plan Reform, strengthens procedures and requirements to ensure that expelled students — some of California's most vulnerable — receive the support they need to successfully return to school.

The bill, authored by Assemblymember Mia Bonta, will support improved outcomes for expelled students by requiring services that are responsive to the students' needs and improving pathways for their return to school or alternative settings.

When students are removed from school for disciplinary reasons, they become more likely to fall behind, drop out, and enter the juvenile justice system — a pattern known as the "school-to-prison pipeline.” As a result, these students face lower earning potential, while society bears the costs of higher incarceration rates. The impact is signficant: More than 4,000 California students were expelled in the 2023-24 school year, according to the state's Department of Education, with Black and Native students expelled at rates four times their white peers, and Hispanic students at rates twice their white peers. Students with disabilities and experiencing homelessness also faced increased expulsion rates.

Current law authorizes a school district to expel a student after determining that the student committed a specified act. At the time of expulsion, the district's governing board must recommend a rehabilitation plan and establish procedures for readmission. Existing law, however, doesn't provide clear guidance on what these plans should include, resulting in many of them failing to address the behavior that led to the expulsion. 

Further, rehabilitation plans may require costly, inaccessible services, like mandatory counseling, and impose unrealistic academic and attendance standards. This can lead to indefinite expulsion terms, keeping students in limited educational programs, reducing their incentive to change behavior, and delaying or preventing their return to their home district. Students and families may also receive little support during critical transition periods when students are most at risk of dropping out.

AB 1230 addresses these issues by requiring that:

• Rehabilitation plans be developed by a team of educators, tailored to student needs;
• School districts help students access the resources they need to complete their plans and ensure barriers, like cost or transportation, don't prevent readmission;
• District and county superintendents provide services authorized in individualized education plans, establish a clear readmission process, and outline transition support for expelled students; and
• School districts use expulsion data to inform the triennial plans that they're required by the state to produce.

AB 1230 is co-sponsored by NCYL and the Alameda County Office of Education.