BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                    AB 2621


                                                                    Page  1





          ASSEMBLY THIRD READING


          AB  
          2621 (Gomez and Bloom)


          As Amended  May 12, 2016


          Majority vote


           ------------------------------------------------------------------- 
          |Committee       |Votes|Ayes                  |Noes                 |
          |                |     |                      |                     |
          |                |     |                      |                     |
          |                |     |                      |                     |
          |----------------+-----+----------------------+---------------------|
          |Education       |7-0  |O'Donnell, Olsen,     |                     |
          |                |     |Kim, McCarty,         |                     |
          |                |     |Santiago, Thurmond,   |                     |
          |                |     |Weber                 |                     |
          |                |     |                      |                     |
          |                |     |                      |                     |
           ------------------------------------------------------------------- 


          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 to provide a written copy of that document to  
            the parents or guardians of every pupil enrolled in a school  








                                                                    AB 2621


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            of the local educational agency or provider of private school  
            instruction at the beginning of each school year and to 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.


          3)Provides that LEAs may satisfy this requirement by including  
            the code of conduct in the notification they are already  
            required to send to parents and guardians at the beginning of  
            each school year.


          4)Clarifies that these provisions do not require an LEA or  
            school to create an Internet Web site if it does not have one.


          EXISTING LAW:  Establishes a permissive Education Code, under  
          which LEAs have blanket authorization to provide any program or  
          offer any service that is not otherwise prohibited by law.


          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.












                                                                    AB 2621


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          Analysis Prepared by:                                             
                          Richard Pratt / ED. / (916) 319-2087  FN:  
          0002917