Opinion ID: 1123050
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: History of the Statutory Language

Text: Both the legislative history of the statute and the wider historical circumstances of its enactment may be considered in ascertaining the legislative intent. ( Dyna-Med, Inc. v. Fair Employment & Housing Com., supra, 43 Cal.3d at p. 1387.) The context and history of section 44919(b) show the language at issue was intended only to be a minor clarification, not a dramatic departure from settled legislative policy. When Education Code section 44919 was first enacted in 1976, effective April 30, 1977, it did not contain subdivision (b). (Stats. 1976, ch. 1010, § 2, pp. 3434-3435.) It provided (and still does in subdivision (a)) that school districts may employ persons for a temporary time period of either three or four months, depending on the type of assignment, but that if the duties continue for a longer time, the temporary employee shall be classified as a probationary employee. This provision meant that a school district could only hire an outside coach for a few months before that coach became a probationary employee. Assembly Bill No. 1690 of the 1977-1978 Regular Session (Assembly Bill No. 1690) was introduced to address this problem and to increase the flexibility of local districts to employ outside coaches. It added section 44919(b). In its original version (Apr. 14, 1977), that subdivision provided only: Governing boards shall classify as temporary employees persons, other than substitute employees, who are employed to serve in a limited assignment supervising the extracurricular activities of pupils. The new language, however, could have created a new problem, indeed the opposite problem of the one being solved. The language was ambiguous as to whether local districts could even hire permanent teachers as coaches. It could be read as providing that if a district employed a tenured teacher to serve in a limited assignment (e.g., as a coach), it would have to reclassify that teacher as a temporary employee. If the governing board shall classify persons employed as coaches as temporary, could teachers accept work as coaches without losing their permanent status? An amendment to the bill was necessary to clarify this point. Assembly Bill No. 1690 was therefore amended once, to change section 44919(b) to read as it now does. (Assem. Amend. to Assem. Bill No. 1690 (1977-1978 Reg. Sess.) June 1, 1977.) The amendment solved the problem by making clear that local districts could continue to hire teachers as well as outsiders as coaches. It thus gave local districts maximum flexibility. There is no hint the Legislature intended the amendment to do more or to limit this flexibility. The new language ensured that coaching positions would continue to be made available to teachers while providing that teachers could take coaching positions without risk that their permanent status would change to temporary. The bill as a whole was designed to aid, not hamper, school officials in their quest for good coaches, whether within or outside the teaching ranks. Given this history, we should not interpret the bill to deprive local districts of the very flexibility it was intended to give and that other statutes expressly provide. I am not persuaded the Legislature would have silently, or at best obscurely, decided so important and controversial a public policy matter and created a significant departure from the existing law. ( In re Christian S. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 768, 782 [30 Cal. Rptr.2d 33, 872 P.2d 574].)