AB 1227

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) Existing law, the California Healthy Youth Act, requires school districts to ensure that all pupils in grades 7 to 12, inclusive, receive comprehensive sexual health education and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention education, as specified. Under the act, this instruction includes, among other things, information about sexual harassment, sexual assault, adolescent relationship abuse, intimate partner violence, and sex trafficking. This bill would require that instruction to additionally include information about sexual abuse and to include information about human trafficking instead of sex trafficking. To the extent that this requirement would impose additional duties on school districts, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) Existing law authorizes a school district to provide sexual abuse and sex trafficking prevention education, as described, and authorizes the periodic conducting of in-service training of school district personnel relating to sexual abuse and sex trafficking. This bill would recast those provisions to instead authorize a school district to provide abuse, including sexual abuse, and human trafficking prevention education, and to require the availability and periodic conducting of continuation, rather than in-service, training of school district personnel relating to abuse, including sexual abuse, and human trafficking. (3) Existing law establishes the Commercially Sexually Exploited Children Program, which is administered by the State Department of Social Services, in order to adequately serve children who have been sexually exploited. The program requires the department, in consultation with the County Welfare Directors Association of California, to develop an allocation methodology to distribute funding for the program. The program authorizes the use of these funds by counties electing to participate in the program for certain prevention and intervention activities and services to children who are victims, or at risk of becoming victims, of commercial sexual exploitation, for the provision of training to county children's services workers to identify, intervene, and provide case management services to children who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation, and for the training of county workers and foster caregivers for the prevention and identification of potential victims, as specified. This bill would amend various provisions of the program to include components relating to education and training, as specified. Existing law requires a county that elects to receive funds from the program to develop an interagency protocol to be utilized in serving sexually exploited children. Existing law requires the protocol to be developed by a team that includes representatives from specified agencies. This bill would require that team to include representatives from the county office of education and the sheriff's department, as specified. Under existing law, the program also requires the department to ensure that the Child Welfare Services/Case Management System is capable of collecting data concerning children who are commercially sexually exploited, as specified. Existing law requires the department to implement these provisions by June 1, 2015. This bill would extend the requirement that the provision be implemented to June 1, 2018. (4) This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 51934 of the Education Code proposed by AB 643 to be operative only if this bill and AB 643 are enacted and this bill is enacted last. (5) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that with regard to certain mandates no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. With regard to any other mandates, this bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs so mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.