Every October, the Governor of California signs bills into law or vetoes them. This year, Governor Newsom considered over a thousand pieces of legislation and approved 891 new laws, many centered on education and impacting children. The bills are divided into Assembly Bills (AB) and State Senate Bills (SB); the filing number and the legislative author are listed after.

For example, AB 446 Quirk-Silva is an assembly bill written by Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva and was the 446 assembly bill filed for this legislative year. Some of these bills are authored by our local representatives, State Senators Tom Umberg and Josh Newman, and Assembly Member Sharon Quirk-Silva (Dist. 67).

Here are some new laws. To see the complete text, search by typing in the bill number, author, and year to read the full document.

Book Banning and School Board Transparency

• AB 1078 Jackson Immediately makes banning any approved instructional materials, textbooks, or curriculum that contain inclusive and diverse perspectives illegal. It makes school boards fiscally responsible for granting students access to all approved curricula. It expands the governing board’s responsibility to protect all students and employees from bullying, harassment, discrimination, and intimidation while participating in and conducting any school-approved activity or while conducting school business, including the act of governing that school district (including school board meetings).

• AB 275 Ward Student Board Members will now earn class credit or be compensated for their time serving as Student Board Members. This law allows greater access to students who may have to work after school hours to help support themselves or their families and, therefore, cannot consider serving as student representatives on school boards.

• SB 494 Newman Prevents a newly elected school board from terminating a superintendent or assistant superintendent without cause within the first 30 days of their first official school board meeting by emergency or special meeting. This bill is in response to current litigation surrounding the secretive termination of Orange Unified Superintendent Gunn Marie Hanson and Assistant Superintendent Cathleen Corella in late 2022 or early 2023.

Safety

• SB 10 Cortese Referred to as Melanie’s Law, this bill requires every public school safety plan to include an opioid overdose protocol.

• AB 455 Quirk-Silva/Papan Allows courts to prohibit the sale or possession of firearms to people undergoing mental health diversion programs, closing a loophole for perpetrators of domestic violence or other violence but undergoing pretrial mental health care to still be able to possess a firearm.

• AB 28 Gabriel Imposes an additional 11% tax on firearm and ammunition sales to fund school safety and violence prevention programs.

• SB 671 Portantino School Safety Plans must now include action protocols to thwart violent situations.

• SB 14 Grove Defines human trafficking of a minor for sexual commerce as a serious felony and is treated as a strike as part of the three strikes law.

• AB 1394 Wicks Requires social media companies to provide a process for social media users to report sexually abusive material about themselves found posted online and get it blocked and taken down in 30 days or defines the social media entity as part of the exploitation and liable for fiscal damages to the social media user.

• SB 60 Umberg Requires social media platforms to remove content that includes offers to transport, import, sell, furnish, administer, or give away specified controlled substances that violate state law.

Physical /Mental Health

• AB 665 Carrillo Allows minors utilizing Medi-Cal services similar rights to request mental health care and privacy as minors who do not rely on Medi-Cal.

• AB 531/ SB 326 Passed to put Proposition 1 on the ballot in March 2024 to invest $4.6 billion to support children’s mental health services in public schools.

• AB 223 Ward Provides minors additional confidentiality at school while in the process of changing pronoun or gender identification—limits information sharing to the minor, school administrators, and parents of the minor.

School Day

• AB 1653 Sanchez All public school districts must develop a sports participation hot weather safety plan.

• SB 760 Newman All public schools must provide one non-gendered bathroom for student use.

• SB 291 Newman All students have the right to have a 30-minute break during the school day.

• AB 1327 Weber Requires the California Education Department to create a standardized form where students participating in California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) high school games can report any racial discrimination, harassment, or hazing.

•AB 446 Quirk-Silva Authorizes placing cursive writing back into 1-6 grade public school curriculums.