BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2621
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB
2621 (Gomez and Bloom)
As Amended April 21, 2016
Majority vote
------------------------------------------------------------------
|Committee |Votes|Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------|
|Education |7-0 |O'Donnell, Olsen, | |
| | |Kim, McCarty, | |
| | |Santiago, Thurmond, | |
| | |Weber | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY:
1)Requires a local educational agency, 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 pupils to provide a written copy of that document to the
parent or guardian of each enrolled pupil at the beginning of
each school year and post it on each school's Internet Web
site, or, if a school within the local educational agency does
AB 2621
Page 2
not have its own Internet Web site, on the local educational
agency's Internet Web site, in a manner that is accessible to
the public without a password.
2)Provides that a local educational agency may satisfy the
requirement to provide a written copy to the parent or
guardian of each enrolled pupil by including the document in
the notice required by current law.
3)Defines a local educational agency to include a school
district, county office of education, or charter school.
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.
Analysis Prepared by:
Richard Pratt / ED. / (916) 319-2087 FN:
AB 2621
Page 3
0002823