Bill Text: CA AB2384 | 2021-2022 | Regular Session | Introduced

California Assembly Bill 2384 (Prior Session Legislation)

Introduced

Bill Title: School safety: anonymous reporting programs: threat assessment systems.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2022-03-03 - Referred to Com. on ED. [AB2384 Detail]

Download: California-2021-AB2384-Introduced.html

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill

No. 2384

Introduced by Assembly Member Valladares

February 17, 2022

An act to amend Section 38002 of, and to add Article 4.5 (commencing with Section 32277) to Chapter 2.5 of Part 19 of Division 1 of Title 1 of, the Education Code, relating to school safety.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AB 2384, as introduced, Valladares. School safety: anonymous reporting programs: threat assessment systems.

Existing law requires school districts to be responsible for the overall development of a comprehensive school safety plan for each of its schools operating kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 12, inclusive. Existing law requires the schoolsite council of a school to write and develop the comprehensive school safety plan relevant to the needs and resources of that particular school, in consultation with a representative from a law enforcement agency, a fire department, and other first responder entities. Existing law requires a petition to establish a charter school to include, among other things, a reasonably comprehensive description of the procedures that the charter school will follow to ensure the health and safety of pupils and staff, including requiring the development and annual update of a school safety plan that includes certain safety topics and procedures.

Existing law authorizes moneys transferred into the general fund of any school district pursuant to specified provisions to be made available for specified purposes relating to the training of persons employed and compensated as members of a police department of a school district.

This bill would authorize a school district or charter school that serves pupils in any of grades 7 to 12, inclusive, to adopt an anonymous reporting program offered by a nonprofit organization and a threat assessment system offered by a nonprofit organization that meet specified requirements. The bill would require an anonymous reporting program adopted by a school district or charter school to, among other things, support 24/7 anonymous reporting, promptly forward reported information to the appropriate school-based team, and implement an evidence-based pupil violence prevention training for pupils and school personnel, as specified. The bill would require a threat assessment system adopted by a school district or charter school to, among other things, identify the types of threatening behavior that may represent a physical threat to the school community, identify members within the school community to whom threatening behavior should be reported and the steps to be taken afterwards, and offer threat assessment trainings, as specified. The bill would authorize the above-described moneys to also be made available for the implementation and continued use of an anonymous reporting program and threat assessment system that meet the above requirements.

Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: NO

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

Article 4.5 (commencing with Section 32277) is added to Chapter 2.5 of Part 19 of Division 1 of Title 1 of the Education Code, to read:

Article 4.5. Anonymous Reporting Programs and Threat Assessment Systems

32277.

For purposes of this article, the following definitions apply:

(a) “Evidence-based,” with respect to a program or practice, means that the program or practice does either of the following:

(1) Demonstrates a statistically significant effect on relevant outcomes based on any of the following:

(A) Strong evidence from one or more well-designed and well-implemented experimental studies.

(B) Moderate evidence from one or more well-designed and well-implemented quasi-experimental studies.

(C) Promising evidence from one or more well-designed and well-implemented correlational studies with statistical controls for selection bias.

(2) Demonstrates a rationale based on high-quality research findings or positive evaluation that the program or practice is likely to improve relevant outcomes and includes ongoing efforts to examine the effects of the program or practice.

(b) “Public safety telecommunicators” means police or law enforcement dispatchers or other emergency communicators who relay emergency information to sworn law enforcement officers.

32277.1.

A school district or charter school that serves pupils in any of grades 7 to 12, inclusive, may adopt an anonymous reporting program administered by a nonprofit organization that meets the requirements of Section 32277.2 and a threat assessment system administered by a nonprofit organization that meets the requirements of Section 32277.3.

32277.2.

(a) An anonymous reporting program adopted by a school district or charter school pursuant to Section 32277.1 shall do all of the following:

(1) Support 24/7 anonymous reporting, through, at a minimum, a mobile phone application, a toll-free phone hotline, and a multilingual crisis center. A crisis center shall be staffed by individuals with evidence-based counseling and crisis intervention training.

(2) Promptly forward reported information to the appropriate school-based team, as described in paragraph (4).

(3) Support a coordinated response by schools, public safety telecommunicators, and sworn law enforcement officers to an identified crisis when a response by schools and sworn law enforcement officers is reasonably expected.

(4) Require and certify the training of school-based teams in each school, which shall be composed of at least three staff members, on how to receive notice of any report submitted to the program concerning the school, school personnel, or an enrolled pupil.

(5) Provide training to public safety telecommunicators in each local dispatch on how to receive notice of any report submitted to the program that requires a response from sworn law enforcement officers.

(6) Promote public awareness and education about the program and its reporting methods before launching the program.

(7) (A) Implement an evidence-based pupil violence prevention training that teaches pupils and school personnel how to identify observable warning signs and signals of an individual who may be at risk of harming themselves or others, the importance of taking threats seriously and seeking help, and how to report a person who is at risk using the program.

(B) Training for pupils shall include all of the following topics:

(i) How to identify the signs and signals of depression, suicide, and self-injury in pupils and their peers.

(ii) The importance of seeking help for pupils and their peers, and the process for seeking help.

(iii) How to identify observable warning signs and signals of an individual who may be at risk of harming themselves or others.

(iv) The importance of taking threats seriously and seeking help.

(v) The steps pupils can take to report dangerous, violent, threatening, harmful, or potentially harmful activity.

(vi) What social isolation is and how to identify social isolation in others.

(vii) The importance of taking social isolation seriously and seeking help for peers.

(viii) How to utilize strategies to be more socially inclusive in the classroom and community and to establish connections with peers.

(i) How to identify the signs and symptoms of depression, suicide, and self-injury in pupils.

(ii) When and how to refer pupils and their families to appropriate mental health services for assessment both within the school and the larger community.

(b) If a report filed about a pupil under the anonymous reporting program is determined to be a false report, information about the pupil shall be immediately removed from the pupil’s record, including records held by the school district or charter school, the school, and law enforcement agencies.

(c) After the adoption of the anonymous reporting program, a school district or charter school shall annually publish a report that includes all of the following information:

(1) The total number of tips received for the previous school year.

(2) The total number of tips received since the program began, with all of the following information disaggregated:

(A) The type of tips.

(B) The method by which the tip was received.

(3) The total number of responses to incoming tips, disaggregated by school and for each school, the disciplinary actions, nondisciplinary actions, interventions, and the gender and race of the pupil subject to the disciplinary action, nondisciplinary action, or intervention.

32277.3.

(a) A threat assessment system adopted by a school district or charter school pursuant to Section 32277.1 shall do all of the following:

(1) Clearly distinguish threats against others from expressions of self-harm and behaviors indicating risk of self-harm.

(2) Ensure that when the conduct being assessed is an expression of self-harm, a behavior indicating risk of self-harm, or a school disciplinary matter, the appropriate response is determined by school personnel only.

(3) Identify the types of threatening behavior that may represent a physical threat to the school community.

(4) Identify the benefits of establishing multidisciplinary threat assessment teams and define who can be assigned to the teams.

(5) Identify members within the school community to whom threatening behavior should be reported and the steps to be taken afterwards.

(6) Establish guidelines ensuring that when a credible expression of self-harm is identified, the response conforms with any applicable mental wellness policies or mental wellness protocols.

(7) Establish guidelines ensuring that when a credible threat to the school community is identified, the response conforms with applicable policies and that no resulting action is applied disproportionately to pupils in any protected class identified in any policy of the department, school district or charter school, or school, or in state or federal law.

(8) Establish procedures and protocols that meet standards under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1232g) for coordinating with public safety telecommunicators and sworn law enforcement officials at the local or state levels whenever a credible threat to the school community is identified.

(9) Expressly prohibit information that identifies the pupil being assessed, or that could be reasonably expected to identify the pupil, from being shared with any individual, service-provider, agency, or agency employee not expressly assigned to the school’s threat assessment team. This prohibition shall not apply when the threat assessment team makes a formal referral, in writing, to any individual, service provider, agency, or agency employee.

(10) Identify minimum standards for the content and focus of threat assessment trainings described in paragraph (11).

(11) Offer threat assessment trainings to the school district or charter school that shall, at a minimum, be peer-reviewed programs that teach how to identify, assess, and respond to threatening behavior that may represent a physical threat to the school community and how to identify, assess, and respond to behavior that may be indicative of acts of self-harm. Trainings shall, at a minimum, include all of the following topics:

(A) Identification of threats, signs, and behaviors that could result in harm toward others.

(B) Evaluation of the seriousness of an identified threat that could result in harm toward others and of the danger it poses to others and intervention approaches to reduce risk of violence toward others.

(D) Evaluation of the seriousness of an identified threat of self-harm and intervention approaches to reduce risk of self-harm.

(E) Follow-up to assess intervention results.

(b) (1) A school district or charter school that adopts a threat assessment system shall identify a school-based threat assessment team within each school.

(2) Whenever possible, school-based threat assessment teams shall be multidisciplinary. Multidisciplinary school-based threat assessment teams may include administrators, staff, mental health professionals, and other professionals.

(3) Members of school-based threat assessment teams shall complete the threat assessment trainings described in paragraph (11) of subdivision (a) once every three years.

32277.4.

It is the intent of the Legislature that school districts and charter schools adopt anonymous reporting programs and threat assessment systems pursuant to this article using existing resources. School districts and charter schools are encouraged to seek any additional funds through state or federal programs for these purposes.

SEC. 2.

Section 38002 of the Education Code is amended to read:

38002.

Moneys transferred into the general fund of any school district pursuant to Section 1463.12 of the Penal Code may be made available for the following purposes:

(a) The training of persons employed and compensated as members of a police department of a school district, pursuant to the requirements or approval of the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.

(b) The training of persons employed and compensated as members of a police department of a school district in other public safety skills, including, but not limited to, all of the following:

(1) First aid.

(2) Rescue.

(3) Cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

(4) Emergency medical technician training.

(5) Juvenile procedures.

(6) Specialized safety equipment.

(c) The implementation or continued use of an anonymous reporting program and threat assessment system that meet the requirements of Article 4.5 (commencing with Section 32277) of Chapter 2.5 of Part 19 of Division 1 of Title 1, including, but not limited to, both of the following:
(1) The training of school staff, faculty, and pupils.
(2) Compensation for participating school staff, teachers, administrators, counselors, mental health professionals, and other professionals.