BILL NUMBER: SB 1349 CHAPTERED
BILL TEXT
CHAPTER 258
FILED WITH SECRETARY OF STATE AUGUST 22, 2014
APPROVED BY GOVERNOR AUGUST 22, 2014
PASSED THE SENATE AUGUST 11, 2014
PASSED THE ASSEMBLY AUGUST 7, 2014
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY JULY 1, 2014
AMENDED IN SENATE MAY 28, 2014
AMENDED IN SENATE MAY 27, 2014
AMENDED IN SENATE APRIL 23, 2014
AMENDED IN SENATE APRIL 9, 2014
AMENDED IN SENATE MARCH 26, 2014
INTRODUCED BY Senator Jackson
(Principal coauthor: Assembly Member Bonilla)
(Coauthors: Senators Correa and Hancock)
FEBRUARY 21, 2014
An act to add Section 221.9 to the Education Code, relating to
school athletics.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 1349, Jackson. School athletics: information relating to
competitive athletics.
Existing law, known as the Sex Equity in Education Act, declares
that it is the policy of the state that elementary and secondary
school classes and courses, including nonacademic and elective
classes and courses, be conducted without regard to the sex of the
pupil enrolled in those classes and courses. The act also prohibits
public funds from being used in connection with any athletic program
conducted under the auspices of a school district governing board or
any student organization within the school district that does not
provide equal opportunity to both sexes for participation and for use
of facilities.
This bill would express legislative findings and declarations
relating to the participation of girls and women in competitive
athletics. The bill would require, commencing with the 2015-16 school
year and every year thereafter, each public elementary and secondary
school in the state, including each charter school, that offers
competitive athletics, as defined, to make specified data publicly
available at the end of the school year, as specified.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following:
(a) Female pupils receive substantial benefits from participating
in athletics, including physical benefits, psychological and
emotional health benefits, learning responsible social behavior, and
achieving greater academic success. The achievements of women in
athletics is demonstrated by their performances in the Olympic Games,
women's professional sports leagues, and other national and
international women's sporting events that receive public attention.
(b) In 1912, only 2 percent of Olympic athletes were women; in
2012, 44 percent of Olympians were women.
(c) Between 1972 and 2011, the number of girls competing in high
school sports jumped from under 295,000 to nearly 3,200,000. But the
level of opportunity for girls still has not reached the level of
opportunity for boys that existed when Title IX of the Education
Amendments of 1972 to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted.
(d) There are more women playing collegiate sports--about
200,000--than ever before. The number of female athletes at National
Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) schools has increased from
less than 30,000 to over 193,000 since 1972, but women still have
over 60,000 fewer participation opportunities than their male
counterparts.
(e) Despite the fact that millions of women and girls are
competing, they are unlikely to see athletic role models of their own
gender in the media. Researchers from the University of California
and Purdue University completed a 20-year study of sports coverage
that shows the short shrift that women's sports receives compared to
men's on network news and ESPN SportsCenter: in 2009, women's sports
got only 1.6 percent of the airtime, down from 6.3 percent in 2004.
(f) Unfortunately, Title IX has not managed to extend the social
and health benefits of sports to all girls equally. In 2008, a
national survey of pupils in grades 3 to 12, inclusive, by the Women'
s Sports Foundation found that 75 percent of Caucasian girls play
sports, compared to less than two-thirds of African American and
Hispanic girls, and about one-half of Asian girls. And, while boys
from immigrant families are well represented in youth sports, less
than one-half of the girls from those families are playing sports.
(g) The gender gap is also worse in urban schools and among kids
from low-income families. These disparities in youth sports persist
at the collegiate level. African American women are underrepresented
in all sports except for Division I basketball and track and field,
and Latinas make up just 4 percent of the female athletes in the
NCAA.
SEC. 2. Section 221.9 is added to the Education Code, to read:
221.9. (a) Commencing with the 2015-16 school year and every year
thereafter, each public elementary and secondary school in the
state, including each charter school, that offers competitive
athletics shall publicly make available at the end of the school year
all of the following information:
(1) The total enrollment of the school, classified by gender.
(2) The number of pupils enrolled at the school who participate in
competitive athletics, classified by gender.
(3) The number of boys' and girls' teams, classified by sport and
by competition level.
(b) The data required pursuant to subdivision (a) shall reflect
the total number of players on a team roster on the official first
day of competition.
(c) The school shall make the information specified in subdivision
(a) publicly available as follows:
(1) If the school maintains an Internet Web site, by posting the
information on the school's Internet Web site.
(2) If the school does not maintain an Internet Web site, by
submitting the information to its school district or, for a charter
school, to its charter operator. The school district or charter
operator shall post the information on its Internet Web site, and the
information shall be disaggregated by schoolsite.
(d) The materials used by a school to compile the information
specified in subdivision (a) shall be retained by the school for at
least three years after the information is posted on the Internet
pursuant to subdivision (c).
(e) As used in this section, "competitive athletics" means sports
where the activity has coaches, a governing organization, and
practices, and competes during a defined season, and has competition
as its primary goal.