Existing law authorizes a public or private elementary or secondary school to determine whether to make emergency naloxone hydrochloride or another opioid antagonist and trained personnel available at its school, and to designate one or more volunteers to receive related training to address an opioid overdose.
This bill states the Legislature’s encouragement of county offices of education to establish a County Working Group on Fentanyl Education in Schools, for the purposes of outreach, building awareness, and collaborating with local health agencies regarding fentanyl overdoses. The Working Group is encouraged to include representatives from local educational agencies. The bill requires the Department of Education to curate and maintain on its internet website, among other things, informational materials containing awareness and safety advice, for school staff, pupils, and parents or guardians of pupils, on how to prevent an opioid overdose.
Under existing law, each school district and county office of education is 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, in cooperation with certain local entities. Existing law requires that the plan identify appropriate strategies and programs that will provide or maintain a high level of school safety and address the school’s procedures for complying with existing laws related to school safety. Existing law requires 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 the development and annual update of a school safety plan.
This bill additionally requires the comprehensive school safety plan to include the development of a protocol in the event a pupil is suffering or is reasonably believed to be suffering from an opioid overdose, for a school that serves pupils in any of grades 7 to 12. By creating new duties for local educational agencies, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
The safety plan must specify disaster procedures, routine and emergency, including adaptations for pupils with disabilities in accordance with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1400 et seq.), and Section 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. Sec. 794(a)), in addition to the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. Sec. 12101 et seq.)
This bill provides that a school employee, a pupil’s parent, guardian, or educational rights holder, or a pupil themselves may bring concerns about an individual pupil’s ability to access disaster safety procedures described in the comprehensive school safety plan to the school principal. If the school principal determines there is merit to a concern, the principal shall direct the school site council, school safety planning committee, or charter school, as applicable, to make appropriate modifications to the comprehensive school safety plan during the evaluation of the comprehensive school safety plan.
Existing law states the intent of the Legislature is for schools that alternatives to suspension or expulsion be imposed against a pupil who is truant, tardy, or otherwise absent from school activities. Existing law further states legislative intent that school districts may use the Multi-Tiered System of Supports, which includes restorative justice practices, to help pupils.
This bill states that the Legislature intends for schools to use alternatives to referring pupils to a law enforcement agency in response to an incident involving the pupil’s misuse of an opioid and for schools to use Multi-Tiered System of Supports which includes restorative justice practices, trauma-informed practices, social and emotional learning, and school-wide positive behavior interventions and support, to achieve those alternatives.
(SB 10 amends Sections 32282, 47605, and 47606.6 of, and adds Sections 49414.4 and 49428.16 to the Education Code.)