District Board Trustees Are Required to Receive Sexual Harassment Prevention Training (K-12)
As a gentle reminder, our office would like to remind our clients that the two hours of sexual harassment prevention training every two years requirement for district supervisors applies to district board trustees.
LEGAL UPDATE
April 13, 2017
To: Superintendents, Member School Districts (K-12)
From: Carl D. Corbin, General Counsel
Subject: District Board Trustees Are Required to Receive Sexual Harassment Prevention Training
Memo No. 13-2017
As a gentle reminder, our office would like to remind our clients that the two hours of sexual harassment prevention training every two years requirement for district supervisors applies to district board trustees.[1]
Government Code section 12950.1 requires private employers with 50 or more employees or any California public sector employer (such as school districts), regardless of the number of employees, to ensure that all “supervisors” receive at least two hours of effective interactive training and education regarding sexual harassment prevention every two years.
“Supervisors” is defined under California Government Code section 12929(s) as:
“… any individual having the authority, in the interest of the employer, to hire, transfer, suspend, layoff, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or the responsibility to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend that action, if, in connection with the foregoing, the exercise of that authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment.”
District board trustees have the ultimate authority to hire and fire district employees and therefore they meet the definition of “supervisor.”
Additionally, Education Code section 260 provides:
The governing board of a school district shall have the primary responsibility for ensuring that school district programs and activities are free from discrimination based on age and the characteristics [including harassment based on sex] listed in Section 220 and for monitoring compliance with any and all rules and regulations promulgated pursuant to Section 11138 of the Government Code.
Based on the above, our office encourages our clients to ensure that their district board trustees receive at least two hours every two years of sexual harassment prevention training. This training may be either in a classroom setting and/or through an internet-based seminar.
Please contact our office with questions regarding this Legal Update or any other legal matter.
The information in this Legal Update is provided as a summary of law and is not intended as legal advice. Application of the law may vary depending on the particular facts and circumstances at issue. We, therefore, recommend that you consult legal counsel to advise you on how the law applies to your specific situation.
© 2017 School and College Legal Services of California
All rights reserved. However, SCLS grants permission to any current SCLS client to use, reproduce, and distribute this Legal Update in its entirety for the client’s own non-commercial purposes.
[1] However, since county superintendents of public instruction are the employers for county office of education employees, county board of education trustees are not legally required to receive this training.
