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Changes in Law 2022 – Student Services

Students

Over the last few years, student services issues have been addressed largely through the state budget rather than legislation. Through the past two state budgets, universal school meals have been established and implemented, and the “California’s Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health, which includes the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative and the expansion of community schools, has come together. This year was no different. Legislation related to student services, with the exception of Senate Bill 490, by Senator Anna Caballero (D-Merced) either complemented or modified policy changes made through the budget process or could be termed clean-up. Below is some additional detail on some of the most significant bills.

Providing School Meals will soon be harder and more expensive.

SB 490 (Caballero) will make the universal meal process more expensive and more difficult for local education agencies (LEAs). The bill requires LEAs that receive federal meal reimbursement funding to largely purchase only products that are domestically grown, packed, or process and to specify so in their solicitation for bids and contracts. There are three exceptions to the requirements:

  1. The bid or price of the nondomestic agricultural food product is more than 25 percent lower than the bid or price of the domestic agricultural food product.
  2. The quality of the domestic agricultural food product is inferior to the quality of the agricultural food product grown, packed, or produced nondomestically.
  3. The agricultural food product is not produced or manufactured domestically in sufficient and reasonably available quantities of a satisfactory quality to meet the needs of the public institution.

LEAs are concerned, with good reason, that SB 490 will further drive up the cost of domestic products (already higher due to supply chain issues) even though the bill does not take effect until January 2024 and if there is an existing contract in place with a food supplier on January 1, 2024, the statute will only apply upon the next successive contract.

Fortunately, the Governor attached a signing message to the bill which contains these key lines: “This bill may result in additional costs beyond the funding for universal access to subsidized school meals provided in the budget. Any requests for additional resources to implement SB 490 will need to be reviewed and included in the annual budget process.” This language recognizes the potential need for additional funds to cover the costs of the bill when implemented and opens the door for the inclusion of additional funds for our programs in the state budget.

COVID and natural disasters keep mental health concerns at the forefront.

In addition to the large investment in mental health resources, there were two key bills to increase awareness and response to life-threatening situations. Current law requires the governing board of an LEA that serve pupils in grades 7 to 12 to adopt, before the 2017-18 school year, procedures relating to suicide prevention,

intervention, and postvention in consultation with school and community stakeholders, school- employed mental health professionals, and suicide prevention experts and also that the governing board of an LEA that serves pupils in Kindergarten and grades 1 to 6 to adopt, before the 2020-21 school year, a policy on pupil suicide prevention in kindergarten in consultation with school and community stakeholders, school-employed mental health professionals, and suicide prevention experts. Assembly Bill 58 by Assembly Member Rudy Salas (D-Bakersfield) requires an LEA, on or before June 1, 2024, to review and update its policy on pupil suicide prevention, and encourages LEAs commencing with the 2024–25 school year, to provide suicide awareness and prevention training to teachers of pupils in all of the grades served by the local educational agency. Specifically, the bill:

According to Assembly Member Salas, “Youth suicide and self-harm have continued to rise alarmingly in California and across the country. In California, the rate of suicide among those aged 10 to 24 increased 38 percent between 2007 and 2018, according to the a report released by the CDC in 2020. Instances of youth committing acts of self-harm increased by 50 percent during the same period from 2009 to 2018. Suicide is the second leading causes of death among youth ages 10 to 24 and one out of every 15 high school students reports attempting suicide each year.

While the importance of improving youth suicide prevention and student mental health treatment has been brought to the forefront by COVID-19, it is an issue that also goes beyond the pandemic as youth suicides have increased alarmingly over the past few decades.”

On the other hand, Assembly Bill 2072 by Assembly Member Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino) focuses on response to a local disaster – whether a natural disaster or a school shooting. AB 2072 requires, by November 1, 2024, COEs, in consultation with CDE and other relevant state and local agencies, to coordinate agreements between school districts and charter schools within the county to develop a system for rapidly deploying qualified mental health professionals and other key school personnel employed by individual school districts and charter schools throughout the county to areas of the county that experienced a natural disaster or other traumatic event. This bill was introduced not only in response to the situations that schools, students, families and communities have experienced over the last few years – wildfires, COVID-19, and school shootings for example – but also based on a recommendation from the Legislative Analyst’s Office (a nonpartisan office that offers fiscal and policy analysis and guidance to the Legislature) that the Legislature support emergency planning activities at

the LEA level, specifically those that face the greatest risk or might have less capacity to prepare and respond to climate threats without state assistance.

The goal of AB 2072 is to facilitate conversations and planning on the local level so that when disaster strikes, school districts have a mutual aid plan in place that will help ensure that the appropriate mental health professionals are available to provide crisis support and mental health services to students and faculty.

COVID exposed the need for information sharing.

Federal law establishes the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, more commonly known as HIPAA, which provides privacy protections for patients’ protected health information and generally prohibits a covered entity from using or disclosing protected health information except as specified or as authorized by the patient. Current law also establishes the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) which protects the privacy of student education records. Senate Bill 1184 by Senator Dave Cortese (D-San Jose) authorizes a provider of health care or a health care service plan to disclose medical information to a school-linked services coordinator pursuant to a written authorization between the health provider and the patient or client that complies with HIPAA. This includes an individual that holds a services credential with certain specializations or certain licensed professionals who are` located on a school campus or under contract by a county behavioral health provider agency for the treatment and health care operations and referrals of students and their families. The bill comes out of a program in Santa Clara County, the School Linked Services Initiative, and seeks to “close the loop” on community- clinical referrals in school settings and provide improved care coordination for students accessing behavioral health services.

To strengthen student and parent control and privacy, the bill only authorizes this sharing after the client or patient signs a written authorization with their health provider.

COVID remains, COVID testing plans remain. Senate Bill 1479 by Senator Richard Pan (D- Sacramento):

The bill started out much more stringent but as it moved through the process, as we learned more about COVID, and as more individuals experienced it, SB 1479 became more doable and its focus was narrowed to requiring LEAs to mainly having a testing plan in place. A pediatrician who will be leaving the Legislature November 30, Senator Pan has been one of the strongest advocates for testing and for vaccination.


The Governor signed the following student services bills:

Child Nutrition

Homeless and Foster Youth

Mental Health

Pupil Health

Student Services

Capitol Advisors Group has produced a set of comprehensive client briefs detailing new education laws that were passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Newsom in 2022. Each brief is organized by subject area and includes an executive summary highlighting major changes we think you should know about. Bills signed by the Governor take effect on January 1, 2023, unless the bill specifically states otherwise.

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