STATE REPRESENTATIVE
Juan Candelaria

Serving the 95th Assembly District

New Haven

YouTube   Facebook   Twitter

Legislative Office Building, Room 1804
Hartford, CT 06106-1591
Capitol: 800-842-8267
Juan.Candelaria@cga.ct.gov


Bilingual Education and English Language Learners (ELL)

After working tirelessly to allow students who need more bilingual education to receive it after the stipulated period, I am pleased that we passed a new law that makes a number of positive changes. We established a process that will allow students to receive an additional 30 months of bilingual education beyond the previous maximum for a total of six school years as long as the requested extension is approved by the State Department of Education (SDE). The new law also requires the SDE to establish an ELL pilot program for three school districts with the highest number and percentage of ELL students, to develop state mastery tests in the most common native languages of students eligible for bilingual education, and to report annually on the academic progress of students in the bilingual education programs.



Restoring Trust Between Law
Enforcement and Minority Communities

This year, we took a look at the critical issue of restoring trust between law enforcement and minority communities. Among some of the most key provision of the new “Excessive Use of Force” law: Police units will now face new requirements for promoting diversity and will receive training in the proper use of physical force.

They will also be required to document incidents where an officer’s discharge of a weapon or use of force likely caused a serious physical injury or death. State police will now be required to use body cameras and local police to do so if they receive state grants to fund the equipment and data storage. An independent prosecutor will be now assigned to investigate allegations that an officer’s physical force resulted in the death of a person.


Proof of Identity Changes for a "Drive Only" License

I led the debate and passage of a bill that makes changes to the 2013 law for undocumented drivers’ licenses. Now, as proof of identity to obtain “drive only” licenses, the Department of Motor Vehicles may accept the use of original birth certificates with a raised seal from applicants as a secondary form of identification. The previous law did not accept foreign birth certificates as a secondary document for establishing identity.