BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: AB 58
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|Author: |Rodriguez |
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|Version: |May 28, 2015 Hearing |
| |Date: July 1, 2015 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Lynn Lorber |
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Subject: School safety plans
SUMMARY
This bill requires charter school petitions to include the
development of a school safety plan, and requires the portion of
school safety plans containing tactical responses to include
procedures related to guns on school campuses.
BACKGROUND
Existing law:
1)Authorizes a petition for the establishment of a charter
school to be submitted to the governing board of the school
district for review after specified conditions are met. The
governing board of the school district is prohibited from
denying a petition for the establishment of a charter school
unless it makes written factual findings setting forth
specific facts to support specific findings, including the
procedures that the school will follow to ensure the health
and safety of students and staff.
(Education Code § 47605)
2)Requires each school district or county office of education to
be responsible for the overall development of all
comprehensive school safety plans for its schools operating
kindergarten or any of grades 1 through 12. The schoolsite
council or a school safety planning committee is responsible
for developing the comprehensive school safety plan. (EC §
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32281)
3)Requires school safety plans to include:
a) An assessment of the current status of school crime
committed on school campuses and at school-related
functions.
b) Identification of appropriate strategies and programs
that will provide or maintain a high level of school safety
and address the school's procedures for complying with
existing laws related to school safety, including:
i) Child abuse reporting procedures.
ii) Disaster procedures, including an earthquake
emergency procedure system and a procedure to allow
public agencies (such as the American Red Cross) to use
school facilities for mass care and welfare shelters.
iii) Policies regarding students who commit specified
offenses that would lead to suspension or expulsion.
iv) Procedures to notify teachers of dangerous students.
v) A discrimination and harassment policy.
vi) The provisions of any schoolwide dress code.
vii) Procedures for safe ingress and egress of students,
parents, and school employees to and from school.
viii) A safe and orderly environment conducive to
learning.
ix) The rules and procedures on school discipline. (EC
§ 32282)
4)Authorizes the portions of a school safety plan that include
tactical responses to criminal incidents to be developed by
school district or county office administrators in
consultation with law enforcement officials and with a
representative of the employee bargaining unit, if he or she
chooses to participate. The school district or county office
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may elect not to disclose those portions of the comprehensive
school safety plan that include tactical responses to criminal
incidents. (EC § 32281)
5)Defines "tactical responses to criminal incidents" as steps
taken to safeguard students and staff, to secure the affected
school premises, and to apprehend the criminal perpetrator(s).
(EC § 32281)
6)Requires school safety plans to be evaluated at least once a
year, and requires an updated file of all safety related plans
and materials to be readily available for inspection by the
public. (EC § 32282)
7)Requires each school to adopt its school safety plan by March
1 and review and update its plan annually by March 1. Each
school is required to annually report, in July, on the status
of its school safety plan, including a description of key
elements of the school safety plan in the annual school
accountability report card.
(EC § 32286)
8)Requires the schoolsite council or school safety planning
committee to hold a public meeting before adopting the school
safety plan. Each school is required to forward its school
safety plan to the school district or county office for
approval, and school districts or county offices are required
to annually notify the California Department of Education, by
October 15, of any school that is not in compliance. (EC §
32288)
9)Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), if he
or she determines that there has been a willful failure to
make any report, to notify the school district or county
office and assess a fine of up to $2,000 against the district
or county office. (EC § 32287)
ANALYSIS
This bill requires charter school petitions to include the
development of a school safety plan, and requires the portion
of school safety plans containing tactical responses to
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include procedures related to guns on school campuses.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Expands the required components of a charter school petition
related to procedures to ensure the health and safety of
students and staff to include the development of a school
safety plan, which includes all nine topics required for
traditional schools that is reviewed and updated by March 1 of
every year.
2)Requires tactical responses to criminal incidents to include
procedures related to individuals with guns on school campuses
and at school-related functions. Drills to prepare for active
shooters or other armed assailants must be based on the
specific needs and context of each school and community.
Schools must consider the most cost-effective method of
preparing students and staff for an active shooter situation
while balancing the physical and psychological risks
associated with these drills. Regardless of the nature of the
drills a school chooses, the school resource officer and
school-employed mental health professional must be integrally
involved in the planning and evaluation process to ensure
appropriate implementation.
3)Prohibits confidential information relating to tactical responses
to criminal incidents from being included at the public
meeting that is required to occur before a school district or
county office of education adopts a school safety plan.
4)Requires each superintendent of a school district and
superintendent of a county office of education, no later than
October 15, 2016, and annually thereafter, to provide written
notification to the SPI certifying that each school within the
district or county has complied with the requirements to
develop a school safety plan and to report on the status of
plans. Deletes the existing requirement that districts and
county offices annually notify the California Department of
Education (CDE) of any schools that have not complied with the
requirement to develop a school safety plan.
5)Requires each principal to keep and maintain a copy of the most
recent comprehensive school safety plan for that school and
ensure that an updated copy of the plan, either written or
electronic, is readily available to staff members, law
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enforcement, first responders, and the public. Requires each
superintendent of a school district or county office of
education to keep and maintain a copy of the most recent
school safety plan and a copy of every notification of
compliance.
6)Modifies the requirement that each school annually report on the
status of its school safety plan in the school accountability
report card, to specify that the report is to be accurate, be
for the upcoming school year, and include the date the school
safety plan was adopted and a description of the plan's
elements.
7)Deletes an existing requirement that school safety plans be
evaluated at least once a year, but leaves intact a separate
requirement that each school review and update its school
safety plan annually by March 1.
8)Defines "active shooter" as an individual who is actively engaged
in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and
populated area.
9)Strikes references to the "principal's designee" and establishes
a definition of "principal" to include the principal's
designee or administrator in charge of a school for charter
schools without a principal.
10)Expands Legislative intent regarding the use of handbooks by
schools to add the report by the National Association of
School Psychologists and the National Association of School
Resource Officers on "Best Practice Considerations for Schools
in Active Shooter and Other Armed Assailant Drills."
STAFF COMMENTS
1)Need for the bill. According to the author, "Lessons learned
from school emergencies highlight the importance of preparing
school officials and first responders to implement emergency
operations plans. By having plans and procedures in place to
keep students and staff safe, schools play a key role in
taking preventative and protective measures to stop
emergencies from occurring or reduce the impact of an
incident."
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2)Charter schools. Existing law exempts charter schools from most
provisions of the Education Code, including the requirement to
develop school safety plans. Instead, charter petitions must
include the procedures that the school will follow to ensure
the health and safety of students and staff, and the
procedures by which students can be suspended or expelled.
This bill requires a charter school petition to include the
development of a school safety plan, which must encompass the
nine topics required to be included in comprehensive school
safety plans.
Prior legislation required charter school petitions to include a
school safety plan including eight of the nine topics, and
consistently excluded rules and procedures on school
discipline (because discipline policies are already addressed
in charter school petitions). Staff recommends an amendment
to delete the requirement that school safety plans for charter
schools include rules and procedures on school discipline:
(F) The procedures that the school will follow to
ensure the health and safety of pupils and staff.
These procedures shall include both of the following
require :
(i) A requirement that That each employee of the school
furnish the school with a criminal record summary as
described in Section 44237.
(ii) The development of a school safety plan, which
shall include the topics listed in subparagraphs (A) to
(I) (H) , inclusive, of paragraph (2) of subdivision (a)
of Section 32282, that is reviewed and updated by March
1 of every year by the school.
3)Stronger accountability? Current law requires a school to submit
its school safety plan to the school district or county office
of education for approval and requires the school district or
county office to annually notify the California Department of
Education (CDE) of any schools that have not complied with the
requirement to develop a school safety plan. The
Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) is authorized to
impose a fine of up to $2,000 against a school district or
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county office for any willful failure to submit the report.
According to the CDE, there has been no report of
noncompliance by schools and no district or county office has
ever been fined for willfully failing to report a school that
has not developed a school safety plan. It is unclear whether
this is because there have been no violations and every school
in the state has developed its school safety plan, or whether
districts or county offices have not reported schools that
have not developed their school safety plans.
This bill strikes the requirement that each school district or
county office of education annually notify the CDE by October
15 of any schools that have not complied with the requirement
to develop a school safety plan, and instead requires, no
later than October 15, 2016, and annually thereafter, each
superintendent of a school district and superintendent of a
county office of education to provide written notification to
the SPI certifying that each school within the school district
and county has complied with the requirement to develop a
comprehensive school safety plan or has included the
information about the school safety plan on the school
accountability report card. This change is meant to provide
superintendents with a more proactive role in ensuring each
school has a school safety plan, rather than reporting
noncompliance to the State.
4)Fiscal impact. According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, this bill would impose potential annual Proposition
98/General Fund state reimbursable mandated costs in the low
hundreds of thousands for school districts and county offices
to update school safety plans, make plans available for
inspection and, starting in 2016, certify that each school has
adopted a plan.
5)Related and prior legislation.
RELATED LEGISLATION
SB 592 (Leyva, 2015) among other things, requires school safety
plans to include procedures and policies to prevent and
respond to adolescent relationship abuse. SB 592 was held in
the Senate Appropriations Committee.
PRIOR LEGISLATION
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SB 49 (Lieu, 2013) among other things, required school safety plans
to include procedures related to individuals with guns on
school campuses and at school-related functions, including,
training programs related to active shooters and active
terrorists. SB 49 was held in the Assembly Appropriations
Committee.
SB 634 (Price, 2013) required comprehensive school safety plans to
include procedures for conducting school safety drills,
required each school during each school year to conduct a
minimum number of school evacuation drills relating to fire
incidents, and required schools to conduct at least one law
enforcement school lockdown drill. SB 634 was held in the
Senate Appropriations Committee.
AB 1264 (Conway, 2014) expanded the definition of "tactical
response to criminal incidents" to include a plan to safeguard
against incidents that include a firearm, explosive, or other
deadly weapon, and required a school district or county office
of education to publicly announce its adoption or update of a
tactical response plan, but did not require disclosure of
those portions of the plan that may be kept private. AB 1264
was pending in this Committee, but was never heard.
SB 755 (Lieu, 2011) among other things, extended the requirement to
develop a school safety plan to charter schools and imposed a
fine of between $250 and $1,000 on any principal,
administrator at a school without a principal, and any
superintendent of a school district or county office of
education for failing to develop a school safety plan or
failing to make specified reporting requirements. SB 755 was
held by the Senate Appropriations Committee, gutted and
amended to relate to a different topic, and subsequently held
in the Senate Rules Committee.
AB 2501 (Lieu, 2010) was nearly identical to SB 755, and was never
heard by this Committee.
AB 2639 (Lieu, 2008) required each school district and county
office of education to annually submit to the California
Department of Education a report that includes a list of
schools within its jurisdiction that have and have not
developed a school safety plan. AB 2639 was held by the
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Senate Appropriations Committee.
AB 810 (Lieu, 2007) required the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (SPI) to notify the Commission on Teacher
Credentialing (CTC) of a principal or schoolsite
administrator's failure to comply with requirements related to
the development and adoption of the school safety plan, and
required the CTC to suspend the principal or administrator's
credential for one year if he or she does not correct the
noncompliance within 30 days of receiving the notice from the
SPI. AB 810 was held by the Assembly Appropriations
Committee.
SUPPORT
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
American Red Cross
California State PTA
LIUNA Local 777
OPPOSITION
None received.
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