Bill Text: CA SB1277 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Introduced

California Senate Bill 1277

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

Bill Title: Pupil instruction: genocide education: the Holocaust.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 6-0)

Status: (Engrossed) 2024-06-03 - Referred to Com. on ED. [SB1277 Detail]

Download: California-2023-SB1277-Introduced.html

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Bill

No. 1277

Introduced by Senator Stern

February 15, 2024

An act to add Section 51221.1 to the Education Code, relating to pupil instruction.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SB 1277, as introduced, Stern. Pupil instruction: genocide education: the Holocaust.

Existing law requires the State Department of Education to incorporate age-appropriate materials relating to, among other things, genocide and the Holocaust into publications that provide examples of curriculum resources for teacher use, consistent with the subject frameworks on history and social science. Under existing law, the Legislature encourages the incorporation of survivor, rescuer, liberator, and witness oral testimony into the teaching of genocide and the Holocaust.

This bill would establish the California Teachers Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education, to be responsible for establishing a statewide teacher professional development program on genocide, including the Holocaust, for school district, county office of education, and charter school teachers. The bill would require the collaborative, under the State Department of Education’s direction, to consist of leading genocide and Holocaust education organizations and institutions, genocide survivors, and community leaders. The bill would provide that the collaborative’s mission is to ensure that genocide, including Holocaust, education is taught to fidelity in schools as part of the required social studies curriculum, with the content of this education being aligned with state standards and included in ways that are interdisciplinary and age-appropriate to pupils of different grade levels. The bill would prescribe the duties of the collaborative, including, among others, providing, as determined by the department, annual verbal or written reports to the department and the Legislature on the collaborative’s achievement of its mission.

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

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

SECTION 1.

The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) Holocaust and genocide education can help develop a more empathetic, morally courageous, and socially responsible next generation. This mission is central to California’s status as a welcoming, diverse, and dynamic state.

(b) Holocaust and genocide education is urgently needed to meet the ever-evolving challenges California faces in sustaining a civic life and a public discourse that values and protects all of its citizens.

(c) Since 1985, California has required Holocaust and genocide education to be taught in public schools, as required pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 51220 of the Education Code.

(d) Section 51220 of the Education Code prescribes that the adopted course of study for grades 7 to 12, inclusive, include age-appropriate instruction on human rights issues, with particular attention to the study of the inhumanity of genocide and the Holocaust.

(e) Currently, there is no systematic teacher training on Holocaust and genocide education.

(f) Establishment of the California Teachers Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education would enable the state to train teachers in every school district, county office of education, and charter school, on an ongoing basis, on how to properly provide Holocaust and genocide education using best practices, thereby setting a national standard for Holocaust and genocide education that other states can follow.

SEC. 2.

Section 51221.1 is added to the Education Code, to read:

51221.1.

(a) As used in this section, the following definitions apply:

(1) “Collaborative” means the California Teachers Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education.

(2) “Genocide” means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group:

(A) Killing members of the group.

(B) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.

(C) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about, in whole or in part, its physical destruction.

(D) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

(E) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

(3) “Holocaust” means the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately 6,000,000 Jews and 5,000,000 other individuals by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

(b) The California Teachers Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education is hereby established. The collaborative shall be responsible for establishing a statewide teacher professional development program on genocide, including the Holocaust, for school district, county office of education, and charter school teachers.

(c) The collaborative, under the department’s direction, shall consist of leading genocide and Holocaust education organizations and institutions, genocide survivors, and community leaders.

(d) The collaborative’s mission is to ensure that genocide, including Holocaust, education is taught to fidelity in California schools as part of the required social studies curriculum, with the content of this education being aligned with state standards and included in ways that are interdisciplinary and age-appropriate to pupils of different grade levels.

(e) In addition to focusing on education regarding the Holocaust and the genocides of the Armenian, Bosnian, Cambodian, Indigenous American, and Uyghur peoples, the collaborative shall focus on education to identify and confront anti-Semitism and hate in modern society.

(f) The duties of the collaborative shall include, but are not limited to, all of the following:

(1) Distributing grants to the collaborative’s genocide and Holocaust education organizations and institutions to provide teacher training programs, and developing innovative curricula and digital tools, consistent with the purposes of this section.

(2) Creating a robust library of lesson plans on genocide, including Holocaust, education that align with common core academic standards, distributing these lesson plans to school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools statewide, and supporting school district, county office of education, and charter school teachers in using the lesson plans through workshops, conferences, and digital tools.

(3) Organizing statewide and regional workshops, and providing participating teacher-leaders with transportation and accommodation to reduce the financial barrier of attending these workshops.

(4) Launching and maintaining an internet website that serves as a central hub for sharing the latest educational resources, including curricula and other materials, and best practices on genocide education to reach more teachers, and increasing the use of high-quality resources, in school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools.

(5) Evaluating the implementation and administration of this section annually to assess the degree to which teachers’ efficacy on teaching about genocide, including the Holocaust, has improved, and the mission of the collaborative, as described in subdivision (d), has been met.

(6) Providing, as determined by the department, annual verbal or written reports to the department and the Legislature, pursuant to Section 9795 of the Government Code, on the collaborative’s achievement of its mission, as described in subdivision (d).