BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2621
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Date of Hearing: April 13, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Patrick O'Donnell, Chair
AB 2621
(Gomez) - As Amended March 18, 2016
SUBJECT: Employee Codes of Conduct
SUMMARY: Requires schools to distribute and post on their
websites their employee code of conduct, if they have one.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires local educational agencies (LEAs), or a person, firm,
association, partnership, or corporation offering or
conducting private school instruction on the elementary or
high school level, that maintains an employee code of conduct
with students shall provide a written copy of that document to
every pupil enrolled in a school of the local educational
agency or provider of private school instruction and the
parent or guardian of each of those pupils at the beginning of
each school year and shall post it on each school's Internet
Web site in a manner that is accessible to the public without
a password.
2)Defines "local educational agency" (LEA) to mean a school
district, county office of education, or charter school.
EXISTING LAW: Establishes a permissive Education Code, under
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which LEAs have blanket authorization to provide any program or
offer any service that is not otherwise prohibited by law.
FISCAL EFFECT: State mandated local program
COMMENTS: According to information provided by the author's
office, this bill arises from an incident at a private school in
which a teacher "had a series of incidents where he was slowly
going beyond an understood but undocumented code of conduct with
students" and that ultimately ended in a sexual relationship
between the teacher and students. Schools do not need statutory
authority to either distribute their codes of conduct or post
them on their websites, but the author's staff argues that
requiring them to do so may reduce the incidents of
inappropriate or criminal behavior.
Teachers may benefit, too. The author's office also provided
information indicating that codes of conduct can benefit
teachers and other school employees. For example, a code of
conduct that discourages one-on-one meetings between a teacher
and a student behind closed doors can help protect employees
against false claims of misconduct.
This bill does not require schools to have a code of conduct;
only to distribute and post them if they have them. It is not
known how many districts that have codes of conduct already
publicize them. Any such districts would be entitled to state
reimbursement under this bill, however, because once an activity
is mandated it is state reimbursable, even if the district was
already doing it.
This bill requires all students to receive a copy of the code of
conduct, even kindergarten and other elementary school students
who would have little ability to read or understand it. This
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would also result in some families getting multiple copies of
the same code of conduct. To avoid this and reduce mandated
costs, staff recommends that the bill be amended to require a
code of conduct, if one has been adopted, to be sent to families
on an annual basis, as well as posted on the school's or LEA's
website. Also, staff recommends that the bill be amended to
provide that LEA's may satisfy the annual notification
requirement by including the notification in the notification
they already are required to provide at the beginning of each
school year pursuant to Education Code 48980.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
None received
Opposition
None received
Analysis Prepared by:Rick Pratt / ED. / (916) 319-2087
AB 2621
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