BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 2246 (O'Donnell) - Pupil suicide prevention policies
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| |
| |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Version: June 9, 2016 |Policy Vote: ED. 9 - 0 |
| | |
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes |
| | |
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Hearing Date: August 1, 2016 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
| | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill requires local educational agencies (LEAs)
that serve students in grades 7 to 12 to adopt policies on the
prevention of student suicides and also require the California
Department of Education (CDE) to develop and maintain a model
suicide prevention policy.
Fiscal
Impact:
This bill imposes a likely significant reimbursable state
mandate on LEAs to create suicide prevention plans, as
specified. Costs will vary by LEA but could be in the mid to
high hundreds of thousands statewide, one-time, to develop the
plan. See staff comments. (Proposition 98)
The CDE estimates one-time costs of $55,000 to develop and
maintain a model policy to serve as a guide for LEAs.
(General Fund)
AB 2246 (O'Donnell) Page 1 of
?
Background: Existing law requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction
to send a notice to each middle school, junior high school, and
high school that encourages each school to provide suicide
prevention training to each school counselor at least one time
while employed as a counselor, provides information on the
availability of the suicide prevention training curriculum
developed by the CDE, informs schools about the suicide
prevention training provided by the CDE and describes how a
school might retain those services. (Education Code Section
49604)
The CDE has posted on its website a listing of resources to
assist school districts with the concerns about youth suicide
prevention, intervention, and postvention, including a youth
suicide prevention school-based guide.
Proposed Law:
This bill requires the governing board of an LEA operating
grades 7 through 12 to adopt, before the 2017-18 academic school
year at a regularly scheduled meeting, a policy on student
suicide prevention. The CDE is also required to develop and
maintain a model policy to serve as a guide for LEAs in
developing policies for student suicide prevention.
The policy must be developed in consultation with various
entities and must, at a minimum address procedures relating to
suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. The policy
must address the needs of high-risk groups, including youth
bereaved by suicide, youth with disabilities, mental illness, or
substance use disorders; youth experiencing homelessness or in
out-of-home settings; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or
questioning youth. It must also address any training to be
provided to teachers of students in grades 7 through 12 on
suicide awareness and prevention.
Staff
Comments: This bill defines LEA as county offices of education,
school districts, state special schools, and charter schools.
Under this definition, there are approximately 1,100 LEAs
affected by this bill. Though charter schools are mandated by
this bill to develop a policy, the Commission on State Mandates
AB 2246 (O'Donnell) Page 2 of
?
has determined charter schools to be ineligible to claim
reimbursements for state mandates. Therefore under this bill,
the state would be liable to reimburse about 480 LEAs for costs
related to the development of the suicide prevention policy.
If it took 20 to 40 hours of staff time to develop the policy in
consultation with school and community stakeholders,
school-employed mental health professionals, and suicide
prevention experts as specified by this bill, one-costs would
range between about $480,000 and $960,000. Though some LEAs may
already have a suicide prevention policy in place, they may be
required to amend their policy to bring it into conformity with
the requirements of this bill. In these circumstances, costs to
those LEAs would likely be less than LEAs without a policy in
place. To the extent LEAs use existing available resources,
such as those posted on the CDE's website, less staff time would
be needed, and less costs would be incurred in developing a
policy. Actual costs would depend upon how LEAs go about
developing the policy.
Staff notes that with the funding enacted in the 2016-17 Budget
Act to pay down owed mandate claims the estimated outstanding
debt is estimated to be $1.6 billion by the end of the current
budget year.
-- END --