Highlights from the state’s early childhood policy advocacy community include:9
AB 495, the Family Preparedness Plan Act, strengthens legal protections for children at risk of family separation. The bill creates a probate joint guardianship between a parent and a joint guardian. AB 495 requires the Attorney General to publish model policies limiting assistance with immigration enforcement at all child day care facilities and state preschools. The Family Preparedness Plan Act provides families with clear, legally recognized options to ensure caregiving continuity during family separations.
SB 49, the Safe Haven Schools Act, strengthens protections for students and families by limiting immigration enforcement at school sites. It prohibits officers from entering nonpublic areas of a school without a valid judicial warrant, subpoena or court order and prevents school officials from disclosing student or family information to immigration authorities unless legally required to do so.
In the 2025-2026 state budget, providers who get subsidies for child care can continue to get reimbursed based on enrollment as opposed to attendance through June 30, 2026.
The budget also implements reduced ratios for Transitional Kindergarten from 12:1 to 10:1 and will ensure TK teachers complete educational requirements focused on early childhood development. TK teachers will also receive targeted funding to support their students in language development needs and a new screening tool by March 2026 to identify multilingual learners. $1.2 billion ongoing was added to pay for lower ratios.
AB 607 enables families enrolled in the CalWORKs (TANF) Home Visiting Program to remain enrolled in the program through model duration. The program had previously limited participation to 24 months or 2 years of age, whichever is longer for the child. Thousands of families will now have the opportunity to remain in the program for up to 3 to 5 years, the typical duration of evidence-based home visiting models funded by the program. This also reduces challenges providers on the ground were experiencing having to shift families to different sources of funding, potentially other providers, which wasted precious time and resources, and families having to rebuild connections or choosing to exit because they did not want to change providers.
SB 271 requires colleges and universities to connect student-parents to local childcare and family support resources.
AB 1043 is a first-in-the-nation law that requires companies like Apple and Google to ascertain users’ ages when they first set up their accounts on personal devices such as the iPhone or an Android product. For years tech platforms have intentionally disregarded the ages of young consumers to avoid state and federal laws designed to ensure safe online spaces for children and youth. The new law’s purpose is to create a non-intrusive mechanism that allows social media sites and other app developers in Apple and Google’s app stores to know the age range of users, so that they can provide minors with an age-appropriate experience. While most online age verification laws are controversial and often face legal challenges, California’s approach will instead rely on parents and guardians to input the correct age of the child when setting up a device. This is a major step toward building a healthier, more responsible digital environment for children and families.
AB 224 and SB 62 add hearing aids to Essential Health Benefits. These companion bills which expand California’s essential health benefits benchmark to include hearing aids for children, youth, and adults. Advocates with the Children’s Movement mobilized more than 1,000 signatories in support of this critical change, ensuring equitable access to hearing care for families. The updated benchmark is awaiting federal approval and will take effect in 2027, benefitting over 20,000 deaf or hard of hearing children and youth who don’t have coverage for the hearing aids and services they need.
Bills supporting environmental protections for children include AB 1096, which requires testing for lead in school drinking water; SB 655, which protects kids from extreme heat; and SB 646, which requires testing for heavy metals in prenatal vitamins.
