Senate Bill 328 failed in the CA State Assembly Floor vote on Thurs. Sept. 14.

Previously, the bill that would force all CA public and charter schools to adopt start times no earlier than 8:30 had passed through six votes, including the Senate Floor hearing in which four state senators gave their positions about school start times.

The Assembly heard a total of 14 members’ positions before ultimately voting against the bill, with 26 ayes, 30 noes, and 23 unrecorded. The bill required 41 “ayes” votes to pass.

Speaking before the Assembly, member Todd Gloria presented SB 328 on behalf of its author, Senator Anthony J. Portantino. Gloria spoke about a number of studies that showed the benefits of adopting a later start time, including one that predicted fiscal profits for CA.

“If California moves forward with later start times, school districts are projected to return four dollars for every dollar invested in the California economy,” Gloria said. “We’ll see a ten billion dollar benefit in the first ten years of this law.”

Assembly member Matthew Harper spoke in support of the studies, but against a statewide mandate as opposed to a locally controlled policy.

“Do I think that the case that’s made in terms of the health and the impacts of the student is very important and very compelling? Yes,” Harper said. “But each individual school board should make that determination, incorporating what are the local needs of their local communities.”

Assemblymember Shirley N. Weber countered that the nature of school board meetings would hinder start time adoptions on the district level.

“You can say ‘let the locals do it,’” Weber said. “I can tell you the locals won’t do it because they will be at this board meeting where everybody is screaming and hollering about their schedule and their time.”

When asked about his stance, RHS principal David Byrd went against the bill.

“I wouldn’t have supported it, not so much because of the start time that they were proposing but because I don’t want the state level to get into the business of dictating start times for schools,” Byrd said. “I would rather those decisions be made locally, by our school district.”

Against start time change, Assembly member Jordan Cunningham posed that the bill would not cater to parents who have to take their kids to school early.

“What are you going to tell the parent who has to be at the office at seven o’clock to open it or at the store at seven o’clock to open it but they can’t take their seventh, eighth, or ninth grader to school until 8:30,” Cunningham said. “I don’t have anything to say to that parent. I really don’t.”

Weber said she predicted the bill’s failure when speaking previously to Portantino.

“I said ‘listen here, this will be killed by ignorance,’” Weber said. “‘It will be killed by fear of those who don’t want to change, who are afraid of change, who reject the information.’”