Pupil rights: bullying: school safety plans: suspension and expulsion.

Existing law provides that each school district and county office of education is responsible for the overall development of all comprehensive school safety plans for its schools operating kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 12, inclusive, that include strategies aimed at the prevention of, and education about, potential incidents involving crime and violence on the school campus, as specified. This bill would encourage, as comprehensive school safety plans are reviewed and updated, all plans, to the extent that resources are available, to include policies and procedures to ensure that appropriate strategies, resources, training, and other prevention or intervention efforts are in place to deal with the remediation and termination of bullying, as specified. Existing law prohibits the suspension of a pupil from school or the recommendation of a pupil for expulsion from school unless a school district superintendent or the principal of the school in which the pupil is enrolled determines that the pupil has committed any of several specified acts, among which is having engaged in an act of bullying. For purposes of this provision, bullying is defined to include an act of sexual harassment or hate violence, or threats or intimidation directed against school pupils or personnel, and to include bullying committed by electronic means, as defined. This bill would also define bullying to include, but not be limited to, acts motivated by specified actual or perceived characteristics of the victim.