BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 302
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB
302 (Cristina Garcia)
As Amended June 1, 2015
Majority vote
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|Committee |Votes |Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+--------------------+----------------------|
|Education |6-1 |O'Donnell, Chávez, |Kim |
| | |McCarty, Santiago, | |
| | |Thurmond, Weber | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+--------------------+----------------------|
|Appropriations |12-4 |Gomez, Bonta, |Bigelow, Gallagher, |
| | |Calderon, Daly, |Jones, Wagner |
| | |Eggman, | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | |Eduardo Garcia, | |
| | |Gordon, Holden, | |
| | |Quirk, Rendon, | |
| | |Weber, Wood | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY: Requires that schools provide reasonable accommodations
to breastfeeding students on school campuses. Specifically, this
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bill:
1)Requires schools operated by school districts, county offices of
education, the California School for the Deaf and the California
School for the Blind, and charter schools to provide reasonable
accommodations to lactating students to express breastmilk,
breastfeed, or other address other needs related to
breastfeeding.
2)Defines reasonable accommodations as:
a) Access to a private and secure room, other than a
restroom, to express milk or breastfeed a child.
b) Permission to bring a breast pump and related supplies
onto a high school campus.
c) Access to a power source to run a breast pump.
d) Access to a place to store breastmilk safely.
1)Requires that a lactating student be provided a reasonable
amount of time to express milk or breastfeed.
2)Permits schools to use existing facilities to meet the
requirements for providing reasonable accommodations.
3)Prohibits students from being penalized academically for their
use of the accommodations, and requires that they be provided
the opportunity to make up any missed work.
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4)Makes these requirements subject to the Uniform Complaint
Procedures (UCP), requires the California Department of
Education (CDE) to respond to appeals within 30 days, and
requires that if merit is found in an appeal the local
educational agency must provide a remedy to the affected
student.
5)States that these requirements apply to schools where there is
at least one lactating student.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Requires (Labor Code Section 1030 et seq.) employers to provide
break time and a location which is not a bathroom stall in which
employees can express milk.
2)Federal law, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care
Act (42 United States Code Section 18001 et seq., 2010) requires
that employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act be given
break time and a place which is not a bathroom to express
breastmilk.
3)Prohibits (Government Code Section 12926) discriminatory
practices in employment or housing accommodations on the basis
of sex. For purposes of the act, the term sex also includes
breastfeeding or medical conditions related to breastfeeding.
4)Requires, in federal (34 Code of Federal Regulations Section
106.40(b)(1)) and state law (Education Code Section 200) that
pregnant students and those recovering from childbirth-related
conditions must be provided with the same accommodations and
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support services available to other students with temporary
medical conditions.
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee:
1)Unknown, likely minor, Proposition 98 (1988)/General Fund state
mandated costs for schools to provide reasonable accommodations
to breastfeeding students using existing facilities.
2)Unknown, likely minor, Proposition 98/General Fund state
mandated costs related to the expansion of the uniform complaint
process (UCP). The existing UCP mandate is currently included in
the K-12 Mandate Block Grant. If the Commission on State
Mandates determines the requirements of this bill impose a
higher level of service, this could place pressure on the
Legislature to increase funding under the K-12 Mandate Block
Grant.
COMMENTS:
Need for the bill. The author's office states, "Lactation is
indisputably related to pregnancy and childbirth, and students who
are nursing may need to express milk or breastfeed as frequently
as every two to three hours. The California School Boards
Association has a model policy for parenting students that
includes optional lactation language, but few schools adopt it.
Current law specifies how lactation accommodations are to be
provided to school staff, but there is nothing in the Education
Code that specifies how schools should meet parenting students'
rights to lactation accommodations.
"Pregnant and parenting students should not be forced to make
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decisions about where to attend school or whether to breastfeed
their child solely based on whether they can access appropriate
lactation accommodations at school. California law should be
clear that accommodations for lactating students include access to
a private, secure room to breastfeed or express milk."
State and federal law extend rights to employees but not to
students. Both state and federal law require most employers to
provide reasonable accommodations to lactating employees,
including break time and the provision of private space in which
to express milk. Though Title IX of the Education Amendments of
1972 requirements, given recent changes in state housing and
employment non-discrimination law which define "related
conditions" of pregnancy to include lactation, might be understood
to include lactation accommodations for students, these rights are
not explicitly extended to students in state law.
Schools already required to provide space for employees. The
requirements of this bill largely mirror those required under
state and federal law for employees. As a result, schools may not
have to designate a space for students beyond what they have
already established for employees. Recent amendments make clear
that an existing facility set aside for other mothers on a school
site may be used to meet the requirements of this bill.
Lack of accommodations may affect educational choices. In a 2015
report titled, "Breaking Down Barriers for California's Pregnant
and Parenting Students," the American Civil Liberties Union found:
Failure to provide adequate lactation accommodations
at one school site may result in a student's
decision to forego breastfeeding altogether or
enroll in a school site exclusively based on the
ability to pump or breastfeed during school hours.
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During focus group discussions, some pregnant and
parenting students shared that school administrators
discouraged them from expressing breast milk at
school. Two out of the nine pregnant and parenting
students interviewed said that their decision to
leave regular school was based entirely on their
inability to breastfeed or pump milk.
Analysis Prepared by:
Tanya Lieberman / ED. / (916) 319-2087 FN:
0000786