BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 202
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 17, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Joan Buchanan, Chair
AB 202 (Donnelly) - As Amended: March 5, 2013
[Note: This bill is doubled referred to the Assembly Judiciary
Committee and will be heard as it relates to issues under its
jurisdiction.]
SUBJECT : School security: School Marshal Plan
SUMMARY : Establishes the School Marshal Plan and authorizes
school districts, county offices of education, and charter
schools to use general purpose funds to provide training for
school marshals. Defines "school marshal" as a school employee
who, in accordance with the Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1995,
and pursuant to locally adopted policies, is authorized to
possess a firearm at a schoolsite or designated school
activities. Exempts from disclosure the personally identifiable
information of a school marshal in an application for a license
to carry a firearm, or in a license to carry a firearm, issued
by the sheriff of a county or the chief of other head of a
municipal police department.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Authorizes the governing board of any school district to
establish a security department under the supervision of a
chief of security or a police department under the supervision
of a chief of police, as designated by, and under the
direction of, the superintendent of the school district.
(Education Code (EC) Section 38000)
2)Authorizes the governing board of a school district to
establish a school police reserve officer corps to supplement
a police department. (EC 38000)
3)Specifies that individuals employed by a police department,
when appointed and duly sworn, are peace officers and may
carry firearms if authorized by the governing board. (EC
38001)
4)Defines "school security officer" as any person primarily
employed or assigned to provide security services as a
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watchperson, security guard, or patrolperson on or about
premises owned or operated by a school district to protect
persons or property or to prevent the theft or unlawful taking
of district property of any kind or to report any unlawful
activity to the district and local law enforcement agencies.
(EC 38001.5)
5)Establishes the Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1995. Specifies
that any person who possesses a firearm in a place that the
person knows, or reasonably should know, is a school zone
shall be punished by imprisonment as specified, unless it is
with the written permission of the superintendent, his or her
designee, or equivalent school authority. (Penal Code Section
626.9)
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : This bill authorizes local educational agencies and
charter schools to use general funds to provide training for
school marshals. A school marshal is defined as someone who is
authorized by the superintendent, his or her designee, or an
equivalent school authority, and in accordance with locally
adopted policies, to possess a firearm at a schoolsite or at
school activities.
Purpose of the bill . The author states, "In light of recent
tragedies involving violent intruders in our classrooms, we have
a moral imperative to protect the children in our schools. We
must do so without abandoning our oath to protect the
Constitutional rights of all Californians. This bill will
empower local school districts to protect the lives entrusted to
their care during the school day, and will protect the School
Marshals from identification so they do not become targets.
This program would create an invisible line of defense between
our children and a predator intent on committing violent acts
against our students or teachers. Further, this bill will serve
as a deterrent to future possible intruders, as they will no
longer have assurance of a defenseless prey if they enter our
classrooms."
This bill is consistent with the recommendations of the National
Rifle Association (NRA). In December 2012, following the
shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut,
the NRA called for placing armed guards at every school campus.
Recently, an April 2, 2013 report by the NRA's National School
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Shield Task Force issued a report that includes a recommendation
to arm school employees after 40 to 60 hours of training. The
report also recommends changing state laws to allow school staff
to carry a firearm and for states to approve professional
training programs for armed school personnel using private
sector approved and certified trainers as well as traditional
state law enforcement trainers.
Is this bill necessary ? Local governing boards already have
discretion on the use of general funds. It is not necessary to
give authority to school districts for this purpose. A question
can be raised as to whether using funds for training school
staff in use of firearms is a good use of funds. There are
other safety measures, such as communication systems, fencing,
inside door locks, panic buttons and other security strategies
that may be more important.
Districts also already have discretion to allow such training .
Districts can authorize such trainings, with or without the use
of district funds, at their discretion. For example, Galt Joint
Union Elementary School District recently partnered with the
Galt Police Department to provide a gun awareness and safety
training to school personnel, but the district does not allow
school staff to carry a firearm at school.
Districts have authority to assign armed individuals on
schoolsites . Governing boards are authorized to establish a
police department headed by a chief of police. Individuals
employed and compensated as members of a police department of a
school district, when appointed and duly sworn, are considered
peace officers. These officers must go through the Commission
on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) trainings and
must be recertified on a regular basis. Districts without
police departments may participate in a School Resource Officer
(SRO) program through a local city or county law enforcement
agency. The SRO program assigns one or more police officers to
work with school districts to create and maintain a safe
environment and provide support and training to school and
district officials on crime prevention, gang intervention and
school safety. Some SROs may assign one officer to each middle
and/or high school or one officer to work with several middle
and/or high schools, while others may assign one officer to work
with the whole district. Some SROs are on campuses daily.
The Gun-Free School Zone Act was established to keep guns away
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from schools. The law imposes a penalty of up to five years of
imprisonment to anyone possessing or discharging a firearm in a
school zone, defined as within 1,000 feet of a public or private
school. However, the law also allows a district superintendent
to give an exception to the law.
Is arming school staff a good solution for school safety? The
California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees supports
the bill and cites the following from an April 6, 2013 New York
Times article, "Research on mass shootings over the last decade
has bolstered the idea that people at the scene of an attack
have a better chance of survival if they take an active stance
rather than waiting to be rescued by the police, who in many
cases cannot get there fast enough to prevent the loss of
life?..In 16 of the attacks studied by the researchers,
civilians were able to stop the perpetrator, subduing him in 13
cases and shooting him in 3 cases. In other attacks, civilians
have obstructed or delayed the gunman until the police arrived."
Parents, educators, law enforcement agencies and others,
however, have expressed objections to proposals to increase
police presence or to arm school staff. In an article in
eClassroom News, a college educator from Massachusetts and a
mother of two young children was quoted as saying, "Schools
shouldn't be about guns. It should be a safe place to learn,
free from weapons and the like. I understand wanting to protect
our children, but I don't know if that's the right solution.
It's a scary solution." New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
said, "You can't make this [school] an armed camp for kids."
Law enforcement fears the unintended consequences of having
armed staff on schoolsites. The San Diego Schools Police
Officers Association states, "As law enforcement officers,
having civilians armed with no knowledge of the level of
training they receive not only makes it a huge liability to that
school district but it also makes it dangerous to that teacher
when a crisis occurs. Responding officers may mistakenly assume
that school employee is the suspected attacker and must address
that employee as such until confirmed as an employee authorized
to be armed on site. Precious time would take away officers who
should be searching for the actual suspect. During the time the
officers are concentrated on the employee the officers must
place themselves in danger from also becoming victims to the
same attacker by exposing themselves as they take the employee
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into custody."
The California Police Chiefs Association also fears that
untrained persons are perpetually at risk for misplacing their
firearms and having them fall into the wrong hands.
In December 2012, the National Association of Secondary School
Principals and the National Association of Elementary School
Principals issued a joint statement denouncing proposals to
allow teachers and principals to carry firearms in school. The
organizations believe that such policies will not make schools
more secure and may do more harm than good. "It is not
reasonable to expect that a school official could intervene in a
deadly force incident, even with a modicum of training, quickly
and safely enough to save lives," said the statement. Instead,
the organizations advocate for building trusting relationships
with students and people in the community to improve
communication so that threats can be identified, and efforts to
address mental health needs of students and all community
members.
The California Teachers Association (CTA) opposes the bill and
states, "CTA members strongly believe there must be a
comprehensive approach to school safety based on input from
communities and educators that includes access to school
counselors, mental health services, investing in infrastructure
and critical programs and common sense gun safety measures like
universal background checks for gun purchases. We do not
believe training "any or all" school employee(s) to carry a
firearm while on a school site or during school activities is
suitable given other provisions in current law that provide
appropriate and necessary training and avenues for schools to
employ school personnel authorized to carry firearms."
In a January 2013 statewide voter survey on school safety
conducted by the California Endowment, the policy voters
objected to the most, with 67 percent opposed, was allowing
teachers trained in firearms to carry guns. Voters support more
prevention-oriented strategies, such as improving mental health
services and having trained guidance counselors in every school,
over response-oriented strategies, such as armed guards or
teachers or police on campus.
Related legislation . A number of school safety-type bills have
been introduced this year. AB 549 (Jones-Sawyer), pending in
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this Committee, requires the comprehensive school safety plan to
establish guidelines for the roles and responsibilities of
police officers on campus.
AB 514 (Bonta), pending in this Committee, requires the
Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to include on his
Internet Web site a list of statewide resources for youth that
have been affected by gangs, gun violence, and psychological
trauma.
AB 699 (Donnelly), also scheduled for the April 17th hearing,
gives a parent or guardian of a public elementary or secondary
school pupil the option to remove his or her child from an
unsafe school and enroll his or her child in another school
within the same school district or a school in another district
if no safe school exists in the district.
AB 1264 (Conway), pending in this Committee, requires school
districts and county offices of education to adopt a tactical
response plan in the school safety plan, publicly announce its
adoption or update of a tactical response plan, develop a
protocol for teachers to provide notification of pupils
identified as having a potential mental health issue, and
requires the annual audit of school district funds to include a
summary of the extent to which a local educational agency has
complied with the requirement to develop a comprehensive school
safety plan.
SB 49 (Lieu), pending in the Senate Education Committee, adds
procedures related to individuals with guns on school campuses
and at school-related functions as a requirement in the school
safety plan, requires charter schools to develop a school safety
plan, requires the annual audit of school district funds to
include a summary of the extent to which a local educational
agency (LEA) has complied with the requirement to develop a
comprehensive school safety plan, and requires the SPI to
withhold the next principal apportionment from a LEA if the SPI
receives an audit report that finds that the LEA has not
complied with the requirement that each school develop a school
safety plan, or the SPI finds that a superintendent of a school
district or county office of education has failed to provide
written notification to the SPI identifying the schools that had
not complied.
SB 316 (Block), pending in the Senate Education Committee,
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requires all modernization projects submitted to the Division of
State Architect, and the governing board of each school district
and each county superintendent of schools to, by January 1,
2015, equip the doors of every classroom and every room with an
occupancy of five or more persons with locks that allow the
doors to be locked from the inside.
SB 561 (Fuller), pending in the Senate Education Committee,
prohibits a student who has been expelled for specified actions
from enrolling in any other school or school district during the
period of expulsion unless he or she has undergone a mental
health evaluation conducted by a licensed clinical psychologist,
and the school at which he or she enrolls is a county community
school or a juvenile court school or a community day school.
SB 634 (Price), pending in the Senate Education Committee,
requires a comprehensive school safety plan to establish minimum
requirements and standards for schools to follow when conducting
school safety drills and reviewing school emergency and crisis
response plans, requires all school districts and county offices
of education to incorporate specified safety drills into their
school safety plan, and requires each school to conduct two
school evacuation drills and one law enforcement school lockdown
drill during each school year.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees
Opposition
Association of California School Administrators
California Association of Regional Occupational Centers and
Programs
California Chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun
Violence
California Police Chiefs Association
California Teachers Association
Labor/Community Strategy Center
Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence
Los Angeles Unified School District
Peace Officers Research Association of California
Public Counsel Law Center
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San Diego Schools Police Officers Association
San Francisco Unified School District
Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater Los Angeles
Youth Justice Coalition
Analysis Prepared by : Sophia Kwong Kim / ED. / (916) 319-2087