Sacramento Report April 2019
https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/government/sacramento-report-bill-to-address-school-sexual-misconduct-complaints-hits-a-wall/
Sacramento Report: Bill to Address School Sexual Misconduct Complaints Hits a Wall
A bill by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez to create independent oversight of sexual harassment and misconduct complaints against public school employees is on pause. Gonzalez’s office said this week it’s extending the bill to the fall to allow time for further discussions with stakeholders after disagreements about the measure surfaced.
AB 989 aimed to create an ombudsman position at each county office of education and school district to ensure such complaints are handled appropriately and seen through to a resolution.
It was inspired by Voice of San Diego reporting in which several women said their complaints to school officials about a La Jolla High School teacher who groped and harassed them went nowhere.
One of those women, Loxie Gant, worked with Gonzalez’s office to help draft the bill.
Before Gonzalez’s decision to hold the bill, the measure was drastically reworked: Instead of creating a new position in each district, it would have instead created a telephone hotline to which students could direct complaints.
Gant said she didn’t support those changes.
Gant told Voice of San Diego she wants to see a bill that gives an outside entity – not individual schools – oversight on sexual harassment complaints because of her own experiences reporting assault. Gonzalez’s office told Gant this week that it heard her concerns and agreed that the bill no longer had teeth in its new form.
A spokesperson from Gonzalez’s office told Voice of San Diego in an email that after receiving feedback from Gant and the Assembly’s education committee, Gonzalez recognized that reforming the process for how schools respond to these serious issues will require extra discussion.
“Rather than take amendments that would gut some of our bill, we are extending it into a two-year bill to gather stakeholders and see if we can create language that satisfies the committee and our need for an independent advocate to gather student complaints,” Gonzalez wrote in an email.
– Kayla Jimenez