In October, Governor Newsom signed these new California education laws. (Resources: Fourth District PTA The Advocacy Communicator, November 2025, www.fourthdistrictpta.org, EdSource Legislation, September, and October, 2025, www.edsource.org, Cal Matters Digital Democracy, www.calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org.)

AB 461 Ahrens: Truancy.

The law repeals state criminal repercussions for student truancy and chronic absenteeism. It reallocates enforcement money into social service programs that address children’s basic mental and physical needs, which prevent them from attending school regularly.

AB 495 Rodriguez: Family Preparedness.

This law allows families to secure legal counsel to create secure guardianship plans caring for their children in case of family separation due to ICE roundups, military service, or incarceration. The law allows parents and guardians to designate from a wider field of temporary guardians and makes it easier to undo the guardianship transfer once parents are safely back home. It mandates that California licensed daycare facilities cannot ask for or record a family’s immigration status. Contact your child’s school counselor or administrator for additional information.

AB 1454 Rivas, Muratsuchi: Literacy.

This bill suggests a combined phonics and sight word reading curriculum using current education research for a uniform state literacy curriculum accessible to all students, including second language learners and literacy learning challenged students. The bill provides $480 million for dyslexia screening of all incoming kindergarteners.

SB 19 Rubio: Threats.

This law makes it a crime to threaten to commit a violent act at a school, daycare, university, workplace, house of worship, or medical facility on social media or by other means. Even if the person claims they did not intend to carry through the actions, it becomes a crime as soon as people fear for their safety in these settings because of an action by someone posting on social media or calling in a threat.

SB 48 Gonzalez: Pierson.

Religious Discrimination Prevention. AB 715 Zbur, Addis. Anti-Semitism Education. These laws work in tandem, reinforcing California’s anti-discrimination laws. These laws appoint a Religious Discrimination Coordinator (RDC) who focuses on identifying and proactively preventing any antisemitic occurrences in the educational settings or texts. The RDC team will provide teacher training to identify discriminatory situations and alternative processes to halt religious discrimination or actions effectively.

SB 1264 Gabriel: Nutrition.

A bipartisan bill appointing a committee to define “ultra-processed” foods by 2028. This includes food and beverages containing the following food dyes: Blue 1 and 2, Green 3, Red 40, and Yellow 5 and 6. The law defines nutritional school meals by emphasizing fresh foods and “from scratch” meal preparations, with no fried food options. Any food or beverage falling under this new definition will be banned from sale on campuses by 2032.