Education

This bill designates the week of May 1 through May 7, 2026, as California Physical Education Week. It serves as a commemorative resolution intended to highlight the importance of physical education in schools. The measure does not alter existing laws or funding but simply establishes an official timeframe for recognition and awareness.

This bill designates May 13, 2026, as the official California Day of the Teacher to honor educators in the state. It establishes this specific date as a commemorative observance without creating new laws, funding, or penalties. The measure serves as a symbolic recognition of the teaching profession rather than a change in policy or procedure.

This measure would recognize the historical wrongdoing committed against California Native Americans and urge the federal government to work alongside tribal leaders to address historic injustices, uphold treaty obligations, and ensure equitable access to resources, healthcare, education, and environmental stewardship.

Existing law establishes, until January 1, 2034, a pilot project authorizing the governing board of the Los Angeles Unified School District to award multiple annual task-order procurement contracts, as prescribed, for purposes that include services, repairs, and construction funded by the school district's general fund, local school construction bonds, or federal or state funds. This bill would, in addition, until January 1, 2031, authorize a school district with an average daily attendance of 2,501 or less or a county superintendent of schools to award multiple task-order procurement contracts for repair and renovation of buildings and grounds through a single request for bids. The bill would require these contracts to be paid for with money from the county or school district's general fund, a local construction bond, or federal or state funds and to be awarded to the lowest responsible and responsive bidder. The bill would require, on or before January 1, 2030, a school district or county superintendent of schools that uses the task-order procurement contracting method to submit to the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature a report on its use of the task-order procurement contracting method, as specified. This bill would limit the scope of these contracts to those purposes authorized by its funding source. The bill would, except as specified, prohibit a bidder from being deemed qualified for these contracts unless the bidder provides an enforceable commitment that it and its subcontractors at every tier will use a skilled and trained workforce to perform all work on the project or contract that falls within an apprenticeable occupation in the building and construction trades. The bill would also require the contracting educational agency to ensure that it is in compliance with existing provisions that authorize personal service contracting for services currently or customarily performed by classified school employees before entering into a contract pursuant to these provisions. The bill would prohibit a school district or county superintendent of schools from utilizing a task-order procurement contract that is greater than $3,000,000 for an individual project unless it has entered into a project labor agreement, as specified, for all its public works.

(1) Existing law states the policy of the State of California is to afford all persons in public schools, regardless of their disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other specified characteristic, equal rights and opportunities in the educational institutions of the state. Existing law requires teacher instruction and instructional materials, including materials adopted by the State Board of Education and any governing body, to be factually accurate, align with the adopted curriculum and standards, and be consistent with accepted standards of professional responsibility, rather than advocacy, personal opinion, bias, or partisanship. This bill would revise and recast the above-described requirement on teacher instruction and instructional materials by, among other things, deleting the requirement that teacher instruction and instructional materials be consistent with accepted standards of professional responsibility. (2) Existing law authorizes a person to file a complaint of unlawful discrimination with a local educational agency using the uniform complaint process or directly with the Superintendent of Public Instruction, as provided. Existing law requires a person who files a complaint with an educational institution, as defined, to be advised by that institution that civil law remedies may also be available, as specified. Existing law authorizes a party to a written complaint of prohibited discrimination to appeal the action taken by the governing board of a school district to the State Department of Education. Existing law authorizes a party to a written complaint of prohibited discrimination to appeal to the department based on the governing board of a school district's failure to issue an investigation report within a certain timeline. Prior to direct intervention by the Superintendent regarding an appeal to the department based on a failure to issue an investigation report within a specified timeline, existing law requires the department to attempt to work with the local educational agency to issue a local educational agency report, within a specified timeline, to the Superintendent. This bill would instead, prior to direct intervention by the Superintendent, require the department to notify the local educational agency, in writing, to issue a local educational agency investigation report to the complainant and the department within 20 days of the notification. The bill also would instead require a person who files a complaint with a local educational agency to be advised by that local educational agency that civil law remedies may also be available, as specified. (3) If instructional materials are found to have resulted in unlawful discrimination, existing law requires those materials to be immediately and permanently omitted from the course materials and prohibits those materials from being used in any current course offerings or any subsequent course offerings. This bill would require the Superintendent to ensure that local educational agencies omit all portions of the instructional materials found to have resulted in unlawful discrimination.

Existing law, the Leroy F. Greene State School Building Lease-Purchase Law of 1976, effectuates the declaration of the Legislature that it is in the interest of the state and its people to reconstruct, remodel, or replace existing school buildings that are educationally inadequate or that do not meet present-day structural safety requirements, and to acquire new schoolsites and buildings for the purpose of making them available to local school districts for the pupils of the public school system. Existing law authorizes the State Allocation Board, by adoption of rules, to establish priorities for the construction and leasing of projects to schools districts whose pupils will benefit most. This bill would authorize the board to include, as priorities for projects, an efficient response to extreme heat and climate change. If the board adopts priorities related to an efficient response to extreme heat and climate change, the bill would require those priorities to apply only to project applications received after January 1, 2027.

This measure would declare Monday, April 13, 2026, to Friday, April 24, 2026, inclusive, as High School Voter Education Weeks and would encourage local educational agencies to dedicate at least one of those 2 weeks to educating pupils in grades 9 to 12, inclusive, on the electoral process, as provided. The measure would encourage local educational agencies to provide digital and physical resources necessary to provide this information and would encourage the governing boards or bodies of local educational agencies to contract with third-party nonprofit organizations, as provided, to accomplish this endeavor.

Existing law sets forth the missions and functions of California's public and independent segments of higher education, and details the ways in which their respective institutions are to be differentiated. Existing law specifies that the California State University (CSU) shall offer undergraduate and graduate instruction through the master's degree in the liberal arts and sciences and professional education. Existing law authorizes the CSU to award undergraduate and graduate degrees jointly with international institutions of higher education. Existing law vests the University of California (UC) with the sole authority in public higher education to award doctoral degrees in all fields of learning, except that the CSU may award doctoral degrees jointly (1) with the UC in selected fields, (2) with independent institutions of higher education if the proposed doctoral program is approved by the California Postsecondary Education Commission, and (3) with international institutions of higher education if, among other things, the doctoral degrees are for professional or applied doctoral degrees that do not duplicate UC doctoral degrees, and the CSU complies with a specified review and approval process, as provided. This bill would authorize the CSU to award doctoral degrees jointly with one or more independent institutions of higher education without approval by the California Postsecondary Education Commission. The bill would also authorize the CSU to award undergraduate and graduate degrees jointly with one or more independent institutions of higher education. The bill would authorize the CSU to jointly award doctoral degrees with accredited international institutions of higher education without (1) limiting it to professional or applied doctoral degrees that do not duplicate UC doctoral degrees, and (2) complying with the specified review and approval process.

Existing law generally provides for the compensation of victims and derivative victims of specified types of crimes by the California Victim Compensation Board from the Restitution Fund, which is continuously appropriated to the board. Existing law authorizes the board to grant for pecuniary loss, when the board determines that it will best aid the person seeking compensation, as specified. Existing law authorizes the board to reimburse, among other things, the amount of medical or medical-related expenses and outpatient psychiatric, psychological, or other mental health counseling-related expenses incurred by the victim or derivative victim, as specified. This bill would also authorize the board to reimburse the expense of tuition at an educational institution, not to exceed $10,000, to a full- or part-time student who is a victim of sexual assault or violence if the victim is unable to continue attendance or suffers an academic setback, as described. The bill would authorize the board to limit compensation to the term the crime occurred and the immediately following term, and would require the calculation of an award based on certain factors, as specified. By expanding the board's authorization for use of moneys in the Restitution Fund, a continuously appropriated fund, this bill would make an appropriation.

This bill designates April 14 of every year as Sylvia Mendez Day to honor the civil rights activist who challenged school segregation in California. The measure is a commemorative resolution that does not change laws, allocate funding, or alter government operations. By establishing this annual observance, the state recognizes Mendez's historical contributions to education and civil rights.