Tag: advocacy

SB 691 (K-2 Universal Screening for Risk of Dyslexia) Unanimously Passed Senate Education Committee

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There are no better advocates than parents, guardians, educators, and other professionals who have witnessed injustice to children and have hope for a better future.


SB 691 (K-2 Universal Screening for Risk of Dyslexia) passes unanimously in the Senate Education Committee!HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE HEARINGMarch 29, 2023:

It was an exciting day at the Capitol for California literacy advocates! Parents, educators, school board members, city and county representatives, and advocacy organizations traveled from all around the state to fill the Senate Education Committee room. The SB 691 hearing began with author Senator Portantino (D-Burbank) introducing the bill, highlighting that California is behind forty other states, where early universal screening is already required. He spoke to the need to do better for our English Learners and the role screening would play in supporting these students, and all students. He highlighted that this is a bipartisan bill with 33 co-authors to right a social injustice.

With an allotted two minutes each, witness testimony was given by DDCA Co-State Director Megan Potente and DDCA parent advocate Maria Daisy Ortiz, who flew in from Los Angeles with her daughter for the hearing. Megan urged the committee to follow science and vote aye on SB 691 to end the harm imposed by a wait-to-fail model. Identifying risk early is a critical step in solving the school-to-prison pipeline.

Daisy’s testimony centered on how her daughter’s difficulties were assumed to be due to her being an English Learner, not related to difficulties with reading. Screening would have detected her reading challenges much earlier, in K-2, during the most impactful time for intervention. Daisy also highlighted her advocacy work in supporting other families in her community.

Next up, public comment and the range of speakers on behalf of SB 691 were inspiring. Parents, teachers, school board members, pediatricians, and others spoke with urgency, some in languages other than English. A representative of the California Federation of Teachers (CFT), CA’s second largest teachers’ union stated they are considering support of SB 691 if amended. Representatives from groups including the California Association of School Psychologists (CASP), the California Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children (CASA), Disability Rights of California, and the Board of Supervisors for the City and County of San Francisco also spoke in support. [Note: The SB 691 bill analysis shared with the Committee members has a total of 52 supporting organizations listed and 3 organizations showing in opposition.]In opposition, representatives from the California Teachers’ Association (CTA) and California Association of Bilingual Educators (CABE) gave testimony, and Californians Together (CalTog) provided a “Me Too” in opposition to the bill. [Please see link to complete hearing below. Opposition testimony is from approximately 1:19:25 – 1:24:04.] The three organizations’ positions mirrored their letters of opposition filed last week, pushing back primarily on the logistics and cost of implementation and timing of the bill. These three organizations opposed last year’s bill, SB 237. Senator Portantino’s office is in ongoing discussions with these organizations.Committee discussion of SB 691 by Senate members followed including an emotional speech by Education Committee member and SB 691 principal co-author, Senator Scott Wilk.

The members then voted unanimously (7-0) to pass SB 691! Senator Portantino ended with the following: “You are never going to get first grade back. We’re going to save money. We’re going to help kids.”We hope you will watch the recording of the inspiring meeting for yourselves:
Senate Education Committee Hearing March 29, 2023

  • Complete SB 691 hearing starts at approximately 56:08 to 1:58:06
  • Live “Me Too” comments start at approximately 1:09:13
  • Call-in “Me Too” comments start at approximately 1:24:23

What’s next on SB 691’s journey? The bill has been set for hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee on April 10 at 10:00 a.m.One thing was clear at the Senate Education Committee hearing on March 29th: DDCA is a far-reaching grassroots powerhouse. There are no better advocates than parents, guardians, educators, and other professionals who have witnessed injustice to children and have hope for a better future. Please stay with us as we march forward to pass SB 691, a first step in ending wait-to-fail in California.Want to learn more about SB 691 and sign the online petition? Go to YESonSB691.com.Please encourage family, friends, and colleagues to sign up for DDCA emails to stay informed on dyslexia-related efforts in California.

Decoding Dyslexia CA Movement Reaches a New Milestone

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California Dyslexia Guidelines and structured literacy to be required learning for teacher candidates in California. 

On October 13, 2022, California took a significant step towards improving literacy for its students when the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) unanimously approved new literacy requirements for teacher candidates. 

What does this mean? 

For the first time in California history, teacher candidates will learn about dyslexia and its characteristics, how to screen for risk of dyslexia and how to teach using a structured literacy approach as defined in the California Dyslexia Guidelines. The new literacy standards emphasize a preventative approach in addressing literacy, including risk of dyslexia, through the use of screening, progress monitoring and early intervention. 

As of right now, teacher candidates are not being taught by their credentialing/preparation programs about the most common learning disability that affects between 15 and 20% of the population. That means sitting in a typical California classroom of 25 students there are between three and five children with, or at risk of, dyslexia who are being instructed by someone without the understanding and tools to actually teach these students how to read. 

As Megan Potente, Co-State Director of Decoding Dyslexia CA and former elementary school teacher said, “the teachers I worked with did not learn about evidence-based instruction or dyslexia in their teacher preparation programs. California’s new requirements represent a huge step forward.” 

Tami Wilson, Project Lead for the California Dyslexia Initiative and Director of Development & Training Curriculum & Instruction at the Sacramento County Office of Education noted that the new requirements will “…address the literacy needs of students with disabilities, including students at risk for and with dyslexia and explicitly call for and define structured literacy instruction and incorporation of the California Dyslexia Guidelines.” 

The new literacy requirements will impact elementary, middle and high school teaching credentials, as well as the special education credential and the newly-adopted PK-3 credential. All teacher credentialing programs must align their coursework and field experiences with the new literacy requirements no later than July 1, 2024. 

Decoding Dyslexia CA has been working for years to influence this milestone. In 2016, DDCA laid the foundation by sponsoring Assembly Bill 1369, which resulted in the California Dyslexia Guidelines. A few years later, DDCA worked closely with Senator Susan Rubio’s staff in drafting Senate Bill 488. SB 488, which tightened credentialing standards, was signed into law in October 2021. Subsequently, DDCA provided CTC staff with feedback throughout the ongoing development of the newly-approved literacy requirements. 

DDCA’s Co-State Director, Lori DePole, said “the efforts of all our advocacy paid off. This is a huge step forward for California in better preparing our new teachers. We now must ensure that CTC has the literacy experts needed to both oversee the technical assistance that teacher preparation programs will need to implement these new literacy requirements, as well as enforce that they are being followed and maintained.” 

Todd Collins, organizer of the California Reading Coalition and a Palo Alto school board member concurs that there is still hard work to do and said in the EdSource Special Report from October 27, “we can’t say this is done and move on to something else…” 

Diligently monitoring the implementation and ensuring the integrity of the new requirements will be of the utmost importance in the continued statewide DDCA advocacy efforts. 

For the moment, let’s celebrate this milestone that brings us one step closer to much-needed, long-awaited improved literacy for millions of California’s children in the years to come.