Condoms, gender-neutral toilets and the end of some suspensions? Here are three ways California lawmakers want to change schools

safe

refuge for all.

Here’s what you need to know about three education bills that lawmakers passed this week and are now heading to the administration. Gavin Newsom. He has until Oct. 14 to sign or veto bills for this year.

Free condoms for high school students

In an effort to reduce the rate of teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among teens, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 541, by Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-Panorama City), which would require California public high schools to offer free condoms to students which will start as soon as next year.

Although California has seen a notable decline in teen pregnancies in recent decades, the rate of sexually transmitted infections among teens continues to rise.

Dr.[NOT MEDICAL]

Mara Decker, associate professor at

the University of California

UC San Francisco focuses on adolescent sexual and adolescent health, said in

March

testimony before the Senate Education Committee. More than half of the state’s sexually transmitted infections are between the ages of 15 and 24.

Menjivar originally intended that her bill would also increase teens’ access to the human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine, but it was amended to focus only on condoms.

Opponents of the idea, such as Greg Burt of the California Family Council, a conservative Christian advocacy group, previously told the Times that sex education in California schools has been a failure.

Instead of increasing access to condoms, he said, students should be taught to limit their sexual activity.

If signed into law, the bill will also prohibit retailers from requiring proof of age or identification when minors purchase condoms or over-the-counter contraception.

Gender neutral bathrooms

Students as young as

First grade

First graders may have guaranteed access to gender-neutral restrooms as early as 2026. If the bill is signed by the governor, it would

be an extension

expanding a decade-old law that allows students to use a bathroom that matches their gender identity.

Currently, California does not explicitly require schools to provide gender-neutral restrooms for students, but Senate Bill 760, by Senator Jo

sch

Newman (D-Fullerton), would change that.

A survey of student experiences in U.S. schools found that 45% of LGBTQ+ and non-binary students avoided using gender-segregated bathrooms at school because they felt uncomfortable or unsafe.

Some California schools already offer gender-inclusive bathrooms, including one in the Los Angeles Unified School District that became the first to open an all-gender bathroom in 2016.

Opponents of the bill were initially cautious about whether gender-neutral restrooms in schools would be limited to single stalls or multiple stalls. The fear was that multiple people of either gender using a restroom could create an unsafe environment. But Nieuwman

said

The bill was written with the agreement that all-gender bathrooms would be single-use and provide private spaces for students.

The bill has the

S

Enact 32 through 7 this week, with new amendments that give schools until 2026, instead of the original 2025 deadline, to build these toilets.

At the end of some suspensions

Senate Bill 274, by Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), would end the widely criticized willful defiance suspension, which allows middle and high school teachers to temporarily remove students for violations such as disrupting class by tapping their feet, talking back to a student. Suspensions disproportionately affect Black, Latino and Indigenous students, according to a state report.

Suspensions pull a child out of school, and of course the kids who behave in a way that causes a suspension are often the kids we really need to keep in school, Skinner said before the Senate Education Committee in April. Skinner said children with high suspensions have the highest dropout rates. The premise of this bill is very simple. It is the need to be in school.

The bill passed the General Assembly last week with amendments that would phase out the ban for middle and high schools by 2029. This means that if the legislature wants to continue banning suspension of intentional resistance after that date, the legislature will have to pass a new law.

Under current law, willful defiance suspensions are permanently prohibited for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Some teachers expressed concern that their classrooms became more chaotic after the bans were imposed. But under an earlier amendment to the bill, Skinner added that teachers would still have the power to suspend students for violence, drug possession, bullying or theft.

Some school districts, such as Oakland, San Francisco, Pasadena and Los Angeles, have already ended willful defiance suspensions, setting an example for the rest of the state.