Consultation with the Chancellor's Office

Whereas, The current system of attendance accounting is exceedingly complex and rooted in outdated concepts of seat time inherited from procedures established when the California community colleges were part of the K-14 system;

Whereas, The complexities and intricacies of the current attendance accounting system have the effect of suppressing creative course scheduling in response to the needs of California’s diverse student population, especially as colleges emerge from the COVID-19 global pandemic;

Whereas, The California community colleges are open-access institutions dedicated to serving all in their communities who desire access to higher education opportunities;

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges resolved to support the right of any student to choose to take pre-transfer level English or mathematic[s] courses for the purpose of academic preparation, meeting non-transfer degree/certificate requirements, reskilling, or life-long education [1];

Whereas, California community college district catalog rights are governed by contract law, as stated in Chancellor’s Office Legal Opinion 09-04, which states that “(c)atalog rights are based in contract law and students can enforce the catalog rights only against the original college. .

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Colleges advocated to establish a course section data element that, at a minimum, differentiates between sections requiring the purchase of a textbook or other instructional materials including those requiring purchase of an access code and all instances when a printed resource is required and not provided, those sections that are zero textbook cost (ZTC) due to the use of no-cost open educational resources, those that are ZTC but the resources have a cost that is not passed on to students, those that use no textbook, and those that are low-cost a

Whereas, Provisions of the Higher Education Opportunity Act require each institution of higher education receiving federal financial assistance to “disclose, on the institution’s Internet course schedule and in a manner of the institution’s choosing, the International Standard Book Number and retail price information of required and recommended college textbooks and supplemental materials for each course listed in the institution’s course schedule” [1] ;

Whereas, Counseling and instruction are equal partners in the education of community college students, more than at any other level of education [1];

Whereas, Instructional support faculty are not hired at an appropriate level and the student to non-instructional faculty ratio— based on the type of position— varies greatly and is generally not in line with the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges recommendations and California Code of Regulations, title 5 language [1];

Whereas, It is stated in California Education Code §70902(b)(7) that “the governing board of each district shall establish procedures to ensure faculty, staff, and students the opportunity to express their opinions at the campus level, and to ensure that these opinions are given every reasonable consideration, and the right of academic senates to assume primary responsibility for making recommendations in the areas of curriculum and academic standards” [1];

Whereas, The California legislature approved and the governor of California signed AB 1111 (Berman, 2021) [1] Common Course Numbering on October 6, 2021, in which the legislature declared, “C-ID provides a mechanism to identify comparable courses and is a critical step to developing a student-facing common course numbering system” and that requires the California Community College system to “adopt a common course numbering system for all general education requirement courses and transfer pathway courses” [2];