Welcome to the Hesperia Teachers Association
Legislation
The following is some of the current legislation of which members should be aware. Click on the titles for more information.
AB 537, the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000, changed California's Education Code by adding actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity to the existing nondiscrimination policy. State law says that “‘gender’ means sex, and includes a person's gender identity and gender related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person's assigned sex at birth.” The nondiscrimination policy also prohibits harassment and discrimination on the basis of sex, ethnic group identification, race, ancestry, national origin, religion, color, or mental or physical disability.
“Seth’s Law” is a new law that strengthens existing state anti-bullying laws to help protect all California public school students. Seth’s Law requires public schools in California to update their anti-bullying policies and programs, and it focuses on protecting students who are bullied based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity/gender expression, as well as race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, disability, and religion.
The Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act amends the education code to require schools to integrate factual information about social movements, current events and history of people with disabilities and LGBT people into existing social studies lessons. It also prevents the State Board of Education from adopting instructional materials that discriminate.
For more information visit http://www.faireducationact.com/
The School Success and Opportunity Act was introduced in February 2013 by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and co-authored by Senators Mark Leno and Ricardo Lara, the School Success and Opportunity Act (AB 1266) makes clear the obligation of California schools to allow transgender students to participate in all school activities, programs, and facilities.