BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: SB 592
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|Author: |Leyva |
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|Version: |April 8, 2015 Hearing |
| |Date: April 15, 2015 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Lynn Lorber |
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Subject: Pupil safety: adolescent relationship abuse
prevention
SUMMARY
This bill requires school districts to provide educational
programs that promote healthy relationships and prevent
adolescent relationship abuse to students in grades 6-12,
requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to provide
information for use by schools, and requires school safety plans
to include procedures and policies to prevent and respond to
adolescent relationship abuse.
BACKGROUND
Current law:
Instruction
1. Requires school districts to ensure that all students in
grades 7-12 receive HIV/AIDS prevention education, as
specified, from instructors trained in the appropriate
courses. Each student must receive this instruction at
least once in junior high or middle school and at least
once in high school.
(Education Code § 51934)
2. Authorizes school districts to provide comprehensive
sexual health education, as specified, consisting of
age-appropriate instruction, in any grade, using
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instructors trained in the appropriate courses. (EC §
51933)
3. Authorizes school districts to provide sexual abuse and
sex trafficking prevention education, including instruction
on the prevalence and nature of sexual abuse and sex
trafficking, strategies to reduce their risk, techniques to
set healthy boundaries, and how to safely report an
incident. (EC § 51950)
4. Provides that parents have the right to excuse their
child from all or part of comprehensive sexual health
education, HIV/AIDS prevention education, sexual abuse and
sex trafficking prevention education, and assessment
related to that education. Current law requires school
districts to notify the parent of each student about
instruction in sexual health and HIV/AIDS prevention and
research on student health behaviors and risks planned for
the coming year.
(EC § 51938)
Curriculum
5. Requires the Instructional Quality Commission, during
the next revision of the Health curricular framework, to
consider including content that includes healthy boundaries
for relationships, how to recognize potentially harmful and
abusive relationships, and refusal skills to overcome peer
pressure and to avoid high-risk activities. (EC § 33545)
School safety plans
6. 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.
Schoolsite councils are required to write and develop a
comprehensive school safety plan relevant to the needs and
resources of that particular school. Schoolsite councils
are authorized to delegate this responsibility to a school
safety planning committee. (EC § 32281)
7. Requires school safety plans to include identification
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of appropriate strategies and programs that will provide a
high level of school safety and address the school's
procedures for complying with existing laws related to
school safety, including the development of numerous plans
and procedures. (EC § 32282)
ANALYSIS
This bill requires school districts to provide educational
programs that promote healthy relationships and prevent
adolescent relationship abuse to students in grades 6-12,
requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to
provide information for use by schools, and requires school
safety plans to include procedures and policies to prevent and
respond to adolescent relationship abuse. Specifically, this
bill:
Instruction on healthy relationships
1. Requires school districts, beginning July 1, 2016, to
provide educational programs to promote healthy
relationships and prevent adolescent relationship abuse to
students in grades 6-12, through specific curriculum,
extracurricular activities, or school climate-improvement
activities. This bill authorizes school districts to work
in partnership with parents, caregivers, youth, and
domestic violence, sexual assault, or other appropriate
community-based organizations to provide educational
programs. This bill requires school districts to use
research-based materials that are appropriate for students
of all races, genders, sexual orientations, gender
identities, and ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and for
students with disabilities.
Information posted online
2. Requires the SPI to provide information on the website of
the California Department of Education which may be used by
school districts about policies, procedures, and curriculum
that are designed to promote healthy relationships
and prevent adolescent relationship abuse among students.
This bill requires the information to include, but not be
limited to, all of the following:
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A. The legal obligations of, and
guidelines for, schools to respond to and prevent
adolescent relationship abuse under existing federal
and state law.
B. Model school adolescent relationship
abuse prevention policies.
C. Model school healthy relationships
promotion and adolescent relationship abuse prevention
curriculum and educational programs.
3. Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), in
compiling the information, to set forth guidelines for
using curriculum that promotes healthy relationships and
prevent adolescent relationship abuse. This bill
authorizes the SPI to include materials developed by
agencies or organizations that the SPI deems appropriate.
School Safety Plans
4. Requires school safety plans to include procedures and
policies to prevent and respond to adolescent relationship
abuse in middle and high schools serving any of grades
6-12, in collaboration with organizations with expertise in
adolescent relationship abuse prevention and response.
5. Encourages the schoolsite council of a middle or high
school serving any of grades 6-12, or the school safety
planning committee, to consult with local, state, or
national organizations with expertise in adolescent
relationship abuse prevention and response in developing
the adolescent relationship abuse procedures and policies
of their school safety plan.
Miscellaneous
6. Provides that this bill is to become operative on July 1,
2016.
7. Defines "adolescent relationship abuse," which may also be
referred to as teen dating violence or teen dating abuse,
as physical sexual, verbal, emotional, or technological
conduct by a person to harm, threaten, intimidate, or
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control a dating partner, regardless of whether that
relationship is continuing or has concluded, or the number
of interactions between the individuals involved.
8. Defines "dating partner" as a person, regardless of sexual
orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, who is
involved in a relationship with another person, where the
relationship is primarily characterized by social contact
of a romantic or intimate nature, whether casual, serious,
short term, long term, or as otherwise defined by either
person.
9. Makes technical and conforming changes, such as changing
terminology from "dating violence prevention" to
"adolescent relationship abuse prevention" in the School
Safety and Violence Prevention Act, and from "teen
relationship violence" to "adolescent relationship abuse"
in the School/Law Enforcement Partnership provisions, adds
"adolescent relationship abuse" to School/Law Enforcement
Partnership provisions.
10. States legislative intent that the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (SPI) encourage the provision of educational
programs that promote healthy relationships and prevent
adolescent relationship abuse to students in grades 6-12,
and that schools have access to model policies, procedures,
and curriculum.
11. States legislative findings and declarations relative to
the effects of adolescent relationship abuse.
STAFF COMMENTS
1. Need for the bill. According to the author, "Adolescent
dating abuse is a pervasive problem with far-reaching,
negative impacts on California youth, families, schools,
and communities. A major study by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention found that nearly 1.5 million high
school students nationwide experience physical abuse from a
dating partner in a single year. Schools have a duty to
provide a safe learning environment for all students to be
able to lean and grow, and can help play a key role in
changing attitudes and behaviors, supporting adolescents in
forming healthy relationships, and providing effective
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interventions when abuse occurs."
2. Existing curriculum and resources. This bill requires
school districts to provide educational programs through
specific curriculum, extracurricular activities, or school
climate-improvement activities. This bill does not require
school districts to ensure that instruction uniformly meets
specific criteria, other than using research-based
materials that are appropriate, thereby allowing each
school district to determine how to best meet the
instructional needs of the district.
The Health standards and framework currently include limited
references to healthy dating relationships. Specifically,
instruction in grades 9-12 is to include discussion of the
characteristics of healthy relationships, dating, committed
relationships, and marriage; instruction in grades 7-8 is
to use a decision-making process to examine risky social
and dating situations, and apply a decision-making process
to avoid potentially dangerous situations, such as violence
in dating. SB 1165 (Mitchell, Ch. 713, 2014) requires the
Instructional Quality Commission to consider, during the
next revision of the Health framework, including sexual
abuse and sex trafficking prevention education. This bill
does not affect the standards or framework.
This bill requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to
post on the website of the California Department of
Education (CDE) model school adolescent relationship abuse
prevention policies, and model school healthy relationships
promotion and adolescent relationship abuse prevention
curriculum and educational programs.
The California Department of Education's (CDE) website
currently has a link to "resources concerning the
prevention of teen dating abuse and technical assistance to
help students make decisions about safe relationships," but
these resources simply provide definitions of key terms, a
link to the Health framework, links to outside entities and
school safety programs that do not appear to be directly
related to adolescent dating relationships.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ss/vp/teendatingvioprev.asp
3. Parental opt-out. Current law authorizes school districts
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to provide comprehensive sexual health education, and
requires school districts to ensure that all students
receive HIV/AIDS prevention education at least once in
junior high or middle school and at least once in high
school. Current law provides for parental opt-out of all
of parts of HIV/AIDS prevention, sexual health, sexual
abuse and sex trafficking prevention education. Existing
parental opt-out provisions are specific to instruction
that references reproductive organs. Current law does not
require options for parental opt-out for violence
prevention instruction. This bill does not provide for a
parental opt-out, nor does it address instruction regarding
reproductive organs.
4. Related and prior legislation
RELATED LEGISLATION
SB 695 (De Leon, 2015) requires school districts that require a
course in health education for high school graduation to
include instruction in sexual assault and violence in that
course. SB 695 requires the Instructional Quality
Commission, during the next revision of the Health
framework, to consider including a distinct category for
grades 9-12 on sexual harassment and violence. SB 695 is
scheduled to be heard by this Committee on April 15.
SB 665 (Block, 2015) requires colleges and universities, as a
condition of receiving financial aid funding, to contract
with a local rape crisis center that is independent from
the college or university, requires the Attorney General to
establish a statewide Title IX Oversight Office, and
requires each student to complete annual training on rape
and sexual assault awareness and prevention. SB 665 is
scheduled to be heard by this Committee on April 15.
AB 329 (Weber, 2015) requires school districts to provide
comprehensive sexual health education to students in grades
7-12. AB 329 is pending in the Assembly Education
Committee.
AB 517 (Gallagher, 2015) places the condition of active parental
consent on the current authority for school districts to
provide comprehensive sexual health or HIV/AIDS prevention
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education. AB 517 is scheduled to be heard by the Assembly
Education Committee on April 8.
PRIOR LEGISLATION
AB 1857 (Fong, 2012) authorized school districts to provide
education programs to promote healthy relationships and
prevent teen dating abuse to pupils in grades 7-12, and
required the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to
provide model curriculum. AB 1857 was held in the Assembly
Appropriations Committee.
AB 1880 (Lara, 2012) required middle and high school safety
plans to include policies and procedures to prevent and
respond to teen dating abuse in grades 6-12. AB 1880 was
held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
AB 1373 (Fong, 2011) authorized school districts or the county
office of education to provide education programs to
promote healthy relationships and prevent teen dating
violence to pupils in grades 7-12, and required the SPI to
provide information to schools about model programs. SB
1373 was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
SB 13 (Correa, 2011) and SB 1300 (Correa, 2010) would have
required schools that elect to provide teen dating violence
prevention education to ensure that the instruction meets
certain criteria, and requires the State Board of Education
to incorporate teen dating violence and sexual violence
curriculum into the health curriculum framework. This
instruction would have included components about,
inappropriate sexual behavior, sexual harassment, sexual
violence, and sexual assault. Both bills included parental
notification and opt-out provisions. Concerns were raised
about blending violence prevention education with sexual
health education, and the ability of parents to opt-out of
violence prevention education. SB 13 failed passage in
this Committee, and SB 1300 failed passage in the Assembly
Education Committee.
SUPPORT
California Adolescent Health Collaborative
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OPPOSITION
California Right to Life Committee
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