School safety: peace officer interactions with pupils.

Existing law requires school districts and county offices of education to be responsible for the overall development of comprehensive school safety plans for its schools operating kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 12, inclusive. Existing law authorizes the governing board of a school district to establish a school police department under the supervision of a school chief of police and to employ peace officers. This bill would require the governing board of a school district to adopt and annually review a policy regarding the scope of peace officer interactions, including, but not limited to, those employed by a school police department or by a local law enforcement agency, with pupils and to consider how to reduce the presence of peace officers on campus. By imposing additional duties on school districts, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require a school district, before the beginning of the 2018–19 school year, as a condition of having a school police department to adopt specified policies, or as a condition of entering into or continuing an agreement with a local law enforcement agency to have one or more regularly assigned peace officers at any of its schools to enter into a memorandum of understanding containing specified policies, regarding the scope of peace officer interactions with pupils. The bill would require those policies to include specified elements, including, among others, that school staff only call a peace officer when there is a real and immediate physical threat to pupils, teachers, or public safety or when mandated by existing law, that a peace officer not arrest or discipline pupils for violations of school rules or for low-level misconduct, and that a peace officer not interview or arrest a pupil on a school campus during school hours absent a real and immediate physical threat to pupils, teachers, or public safety. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.