November 2023
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CO-ADMINISTRATOR’S MESSAGE FROM JOAN P. & GAIL
Hope you have a fun and safe Halloween. We were glad that so many people came to hear Dr. Gina Zietlow. She was a very interesting speaker and gave many facts about the ABC School District.
Our next speaker will speak about her life in Afghanistan and how she left the country. Remember we will be meeting at Cerritos College. Be sure to remember to bring your toiletries for Falcon’s Nest. Both small and large sizes are needed.
Our December Holiday Party will be Saturday, December 9th at the home of Charlie and Cathy Niederman. More information will follow. We hope all will come and celebrate a happy holiday season.
November birthdays: Faith Herschler, Diane Hudson and Jackie Shahzadi
December Birthdays: Eileen Braeman, Pat McClelland, Sondra Cohen, Karen Cox, and Gail Ross
Have a Happy, Healthy Thanksgiving.
Gail and Joan
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Meeting & Program, Harriet
Thursday, November 16
Time: Social – 6:30 p.m.
Meeting/Program – 7 p.m.
Place: Cerritos College Fine Arts Bldg., Room 134
Cerritos College, Norwalk
Our speaker will be Hameeda Banai who is a 27-year-old Afghani woman who came to the U.S. on a Humanitarian Parole visa and settled in Long Beach. She will talk about life in Afghanistan and her transition to the U.S. Please join us. The Fine Arts building is near the north west corner of parking lot 10, which is off the 166th Street side of the campus. There will be no parking fee and it is accessible to all.
Harriet and Thea
Please note: All our meetings comply with local rules and the accepted health guidance of Los Angeles and Orange counties for in-person meetings. Board and general meetings are in-person with due respect to members who do not wish to attend in-person. Those members may choose to easily attend and participate in meetings by connecting via phone to another member in attendance and have been doing so successfully.
Please welcome and support your new officers. Remember that their job is to lead and encourage other members. Please offer to help them when they ask.
We are looking forward to taking care of services for current membership. In order to increase membership for our branch, we request all members to bring one friend to our meetings. Please welcome our new member, Ferne, at the meeting. Thank you.
AAUW Fund, Tobi
Our Fundraiser at Lucille’s BBQ Raised $108
THANK YOU to those who addended
At Thanksgiving Time
Show your Thanks for AAUW & Our Branch
By Contributing $51 or More to the
AAUW Greatest Needs Fund
We can take satisfaction in the many ways that members of this branch in concert with others have supported and promoted equity for women and girls through the various AAUW Funds. But we cannot rest on our laurels. As long as there continue to be pay gaps for women at all levels for the workforce, girls denied an education, glass ceilings preventing professional women from advancing into board rooms, female athletes receiving inadequate equipment and facilities as well as other inequities, AAUW is prepared to continue to advocate to rectify these unequal conditions. (Courtesy of Linda Westman, AAUW Long Beach Co- Fund VP)
So, please designate your donation to the Greatest Needs Fund. This allows the AAUW National Office to focus on the Mission, Vision and Public Policy Priorities. It also allows them to be nimble to address and act on current issues, focusing on reproductive rights, Title IX, pay equity, voting rights, and more.
In honor of the 51st anniversary year of our branch, we are asking each member to contribute $51 or more this year. It can be all at once, or in installments. Make your checks out to La Palma Cerritos AAUW Fund. In the notation section: AAUW Greatest Needs Fund. You can also donate directly online at https://my.aauw.org/donation-product-detail. But, since the amount our local Academic Achievement Awards fund can award each year is limited to what the branch itself raises for the AAUW Fund, the more you contribute to the AAUW Fund through our branch, the more your donations to the Academic Achievement Awards can be used to award Cerritos College women students transferring to a four year college or university!
From AAUW-CA: Individual Retirement Account (IRA DONATIONS) –
For members thinking of making a year-end contribution from their IRA. Federal law
allows people aged 70 1⁄2 or older to make direct transfers up to $100,000 per year per person to charitable organizations from their IRA, without the withdrawal being treated as taxable income. To start, first contact your IRA custodian and follow their procedures to request a “Qualified Charitable Distribution.” The check sent must be accompanied by your name and address information in order for you to receive a written acknowledgement from National. Please provide the recipient information below to your custodian, along with our Tax ID #52-6037388. Before sending, please also notify us at planned-giving@aauw.org so we can keep an eye out for your gift and be sure to include the amount, your name, address, the designation of your gift (for example: Greatest Needs), and the financial institution sending your gift. Please direct your check, drawn on your IRA account and made payable to
AAUW, to:
AAUW
Attn: Planned Giving– IRA Distribution
1310 L St. NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20005
Public Policy, Sondra
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2023 California Legislative Session Round-Up: AAUW California’s Priority LegislationBy Amy Hom & Missy Maceyko, Co-Chairs, CA State Public Policy Committee
September 14, 2023 was a tense day in Sacramento: the last day for each House to pass bills that could be sent on to the governor. After at least nine months of writing, researching, amending, and lobbying, the legislative session drew to a close. So how did AAUW California’s priority legislation fare?
While, at the time of writing, AAUW California still has some priority legislation sitting on the governor’s desk (he has until October 14, 2023 to sign), we are happy to report that our priority bills did pretty well in this cycle!
Priority Legislation by the Numbers
Note that legislation listed as a “2-year bill” will be reconsidered in the 2024 legislative cycle.
A-Level Bills
Our three A-level bills this year were AB 1394, AB 549, and SB680. AAUW California was also a co-sponsor on AB1394. While none of our A-level bills have yet been signed into law, AB 1394 is currently sitting on the Governor’s desk awaiting a signature. AB 549 and SB 680 have both been transformed into 2-year bills.
AB 1394. Sent to Governor’s Desk. Authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, and co-sponsored by AAUW California, this bill seeks to help child sex abuse survivors remove their images from social media platforms.
AB 549. 2-Year Bill. Authored by Assemblymember Lori Wilson. This bill would require all state agencies to conduct an evaluation of their own departments to ensure that the state does not discriminate against women through the allocation of funding and the delivery of services.
SB 680. 2-Year Bill. Authored by Senator Nancy Skinner, this bill prohibits a social media platform from using a design, algorithm, or feature that the platform knows, or should have known, causes child users to experience addiction to the social media platform.
B-Level Bills
Our four B-level bills this year were AB 524, AB 1071, AB 1078, and SB 36. AAUW California added AB 1078 later in the session at the request of the School Board Project Subcommittee, as it deals with preserving historically accurate and representative curricula for public schools in California. We are excited to report that two of our B-level bills have been signed into law: AB 1071 and AB 1078. AB 524 is still sitting on the Governor’s desk and SB 36 has been transformed into a 2-year bill.
AB 524. On governor’s desk. Authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, this bill would prohibit discrimination against employees based on their status as a family caregiver.
AB 1071. Signed into Law! Authored by Assemblymember Joshua Hoover, this bill would authorize and encourage school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools to provide teen dating violence prevention (TDV) education to all pupils in grades 7-12, and make TDV resources available on its website.
AB 1078. Signed into Law! Authored by Assemblymember Dr. Corey Jackson, this bill expands the diversity of the social science curriculum, requiring instruction in social sciences to include a study of the role and contributions of people of all genders, Latino Americans, LGBTQ+ Americans, and other ethnic cultural, religious and socioeconomic status groups. If the school district has not provided sufficient textbooks or instructional materials, their local control funding formula allocation will be reduced.
SB 36. 2-Year Bill. Authored by Senator Nancy Skinner, this bill provides protections and support for any person fleeing prosecution, conviction, or sentence from another state for seeking abortion, contraception, reproductive care, or seeking gender-affirming care in California. It also provides protections for any person assisting the person seeking that care.
C-Level Bills
We had thirty-one C-level bills this year. Eight of our C-level bills were signed into law. Ten are awaiting the governor’s signature, and thirteen are now 2-year bills.
For additional details about the bills that we supported at the C-level, or bills at any level, as well as access to the most current information, check out our bill tracker HERE.
And if you would like to sign up for action alerts for AAUW California’s Priority Legislation in 2024, you can sign up HERE. You can also share the link below with anyone else–inside or outside of AAUW–who you think may be interested in receiving these alerts.
By Amy Hom, Co-chair AAUW California Public Policy Committee 2
ARTICLE FOR YOUR JANUARY BRANCH NEWSLETTERS ARTICLE
Mark your calendars! AAUW California will hold our 2024 Lobby Days event on April 2 and 3, 2024. An interest survey including a registration form will arrive in your inbox mid-January. Please be sure to complete and return the form to be added to the communications list for the event. We encourage all AAUW California members to participate in this act of advocacy that is essential for achievement of our legislative priorities. In addition to our members, we plan to invite college students to join the event. Their participation will enable us to reach more legislative offices, and we hope that this introduction to our organization will inspire these advocacy-minded young people who share our values to join AAUW. Starting in January, our committee will evaluate new bills introduced in the state legislature which are aligned with our Public Policy Priorities: Economic Security for All Women, Equal Access to Quality Public Education for All Students, Social and Racial Justice for All Members of Society, and Increased Representation of Women in Leadership Roles. In early March, our committee will meet to discuss our evaluations and select 30-35 bills for our 2024 Legislative Agenda that best represent our priorities. We will also choose the top 3 bills to advocate for during Lobby Days. Lobby Days 2024 is scheduled to take place when the legislature returns to session after their Easter break, and will span two days to provide flexibility so that we can secure as many meetings as possible. We are planning a hybrid event with meetings scheduled virtually over Zoom as well as in-person at the Capitol. Members who live in and around Sacramento will have the option to participate in person. Legislative offices are equally willing to meet virtually or in person, and the virtual option makes it easier for AAUW members around the state to participate. Our AAUW California Legislative Advocate will schedule meetings with the legislative offices. The committee will assemble teams of AAUW members and college students, matching them with Assembly and Senate districts. Training materials on the bills and the event will be posted on the state website in mid-March, and a mandatory training webinar will be held on March 25, 2024. If you have participated in Lobby Days in the past, we would love to hear your feedback on what worked and what didn’t. Please send your comments to publicpolicy@aauw-ca.org. Lobby Days is a wonderful opportunity to meet with your legislators and advocate for legislation to promote gender equity and improve the lives of women and girls. We hope that you will join us in this important activity to advance our values.
Academic Achievement Awards, Joan P
Pictured at the La Palma-Cerritos AAUW Academic Recognition and Awards Program on May 17, 2023, are, left to right, are Cerritos College Board of Trustees President Dr. Shin Liu, Cerritos College Professor of Communications Dawn Trickett, Cerritos College Director of Diversity, Compliance, and Title IX Erin Miles, Academic Awards Chair Joan Pylman, Award winners Sofia Heejae Chun and Leidy Barrios, Awards Selection Committee Member Gail Ross, Cerritos College Foundation Executive Director Martha Pellayo, and Cerritos College Executive Assistant to the President/Superintendent Andrea Wittig.
Women Supporting Women. It is a beautiful thing.
Su Casa, Joan Pylman
Thank you for your support and generosity. La Palma Cerritos AAUW cares for women.
International Issues, Jackie Shahzadi
…through its global focus and reach, empowers all women and girls to create a secure and just world built on education, advocacy, friendship and mutual respect.
For contact information email: Jackie
WG-USA is an online organization based in the United States focusing on global issues *Support and Advocacy for Refugee and Migrant Women and Girls
*Safe Access to Education
*Human Trafficking Advocacy and Action
*Women, Peace and Security
Join WG-USA at www.wg-usa.org