A member of the public can submit public comments on a proposed regulation by: submitting written comments to the Regulations Coordinator; or by attending the public hearing and submitting written and/or oral comments. All comments must be made during a public comment period in order to be considered by the rulemaking agency, e.g., the California Department of Education (CDE) or the State Board of Education (SBE).
When the CDE, SBE, or the State Superintendent of Public Instruction amends, repeals, or adds language to a regulation, the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Notice) is filed with Office of Administrative Law (OAL). OAL then publishes the Notice in the California Regulatory Notice Register 
(Register).
Additionally, the CDE sends the Notice via email and the U.S. Postal Service to those individuals who have asked to be on the CDE’s Notice mailing list1 and to school districts, county offices of education and charter schools. The Notice is posted on the CDE's Proposed Rulemaking & Regulations web page.
The Notice specifies the dates when a public comment period begins and ends. The CDE also places the publication date in two places: 1) at the top of the Notice, underneath the title of the regulation and 2) directly to the right of the Notice listed on the CDE’s Proposed Rulemaking & Regulations web page.
A 45-day public comment period commences for a proposed rulemaking action on the day the Notice is published in the Register. The 45-day public comment period allows individuals the opportunity to submit written comments on a proposed regulation via fax, email, or the US Postal service to the CDE’s Regulations Coordinator; however, oral comments are accepted only at the public hearing. The date, time, and location of the public hearing is included in the Notice and at the hearing, written and/or oral comments may be submitted on the proposed regulation. If the public hearing is available via videoconference, the information for logging into the hearing is provided in the Notice.
If substantive amendments are made to the regulations at the end of the 45-day public comment period, then the regulations will be circulated for additional comments for a period of 15 days. The amended regulations will only be sent to those individuals who submitted written comments during the 45-day public comment period or who appeared and spoke at the public hearing or who requested notification of these specific changes. Every time the regulations are circulated for additional comments, the CDE will issue a Notice specifying when the public comment period begins and ends and how comments can be submitted.
During an open public comment period, written comments can be submitted to the Regulations Coordinator by sending an email to regcomments@cde.ca.gov, by fax to 916-322-2549 or by regular mail to the Regulations Coordinator, 1430 N Street, Room 5319, Sacramento, California, 95814. The regulation on which the comment is being made must be specified.
All public comments are subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act.
Additional information on submitting written and/or oral comments on regulations may be found at Frequently Asked Questions.