BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2621
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB
2621 (Gomez and Bloom)
As Amended August 18, 2016
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |75-0 |(May 16, 2016) |SENATE: | 39-0 |(August 23, |
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Original Committee Reference: ED.
SUMMARY: Requires a local educational agency (LEA) or an entity
providing private school instruction that maintains an employee
code of conduct to provide a written copy of that document to
the parent or guardian of each enrolled student at the beginning
of each school year and also post it on its Web site if it has
one.
The Senate amendments:
1)Specify that the provisions of the bill do not apply to a
private school composed of parents or legal guardians working
exclusively with their own children;
2)Specify that the information posted to a Web site be posted in
a publicly accessible manner;
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3)Make nonsubstantive changes regarding the effective date of
the bill; and
4)Add Senators Allen, Block, and Vidak as coauthors.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Provides that, under the existing Child Abuse and Neglect
Reporting Act, all school district teachers and employees are
considered to be "mandated reporters," including instructional
aides, teacher assistants, classified employees, and employees
of a school district police or security department. Requires
mandated reporters report to any law enforcement department
knowledge or observations they may have of a child they know
or reasonably suspect to have been the subject of child abuse
or neglect. The individual report must be made by telephone
immediately or as soon as practicable with a written or
electronic follow up within 36 hours.
2)Specifies that employers are strongly encouraged to provide
their employees who are mandated reporters with training in
the duties imposed, including training in child abuse and
neglect identification and training in child abuse and neglect
reporting. School districts that do not train their employees
in the duties of mandated reporters are required to report to
the California Department of Education (CDE) the reasons why
this training is not provided.
3)Requires any mandated reporter, with the exception of child
visitation monitors, prior to commencing his or her
employment, to sign a statement on a form (provided by the
employer) to the effect that he or she has knowledge of the
mandated reporting procedures and will comply with those
provisions. Further, current law provides that the statement
shall inform the employee that he or she is a mandated
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reporter and inform the employee of his or her reporting
obligations and confidentiality rights.
4)Requires each school district and county office of education
to be responsible for the overall development of all
comprehensive school safety plans for its schools. The
schoolsite council is required to write and develop a
comprehensive school safety plan relevant to the needs and
resources of that particular school.
5)Requires the State Office of Child Abuse Prevention to develop
and disseminate information to all school districts and
district school personnel regarding the detection of child
abuse. The information may be disseminated by the use of
literature, as deemed suitable by the CDE. Staff development
seminars and any other appropriate means of instructing school
personnel in the detection of child abuse and neglect and the
proper action that school personnel should take in suspected
cases of child abuse and neglect shall be developed by the
CDE.
6)Encourages local educational agencies to participate in
training on the prevention of abuse, including sexual abuse,
of children on school grounds, by personnel, or in
school-sponsored programs, and are also encouraged to provide
all school employees with that training at least once every
three years.
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown. This bill is keyed non-fiscal by the
Legislative Counsel.
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
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authority to either distribute their codes of conduct or post
them on their Web sites, but the author's staff argues that
requiring them to do so may reduce the incidents of
inappropriate or criminal behavior.
Analysis Prepared by:
Rick Pratt / ED. / (916) 319-2087 FN: 0004869