As required by Title IX of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the State Board of Education (SBE) established a policy for identifying schools that may be “persistently dangerous.” If a school is so designated, students in the school must be allowed to transfer to a safe school under the provisions of the Unsafe School Choice Option required by Title IX.
The designation as persistently dangerous is made using the number of non-student firearms violations and the number of expulsions taken under the following Education Code (EC) sections:
48900.3 - Hate violence
48915(a)(1) - Causing serious physical injury to another person
48915(a)(4) - Robbery or extortion
48915(a)(5) - Assault or battery upon any school employee
48915(c)(1) - Possessing, selling, or furnishing a firearm
48915(c)(2) - Brandishing a knife
48915(c)(3) - Selling a controlled substance
48915(c)(4) - Sexual assault or sexual battery
48915(c)(5) - Possession of an explosive
When the yearly total of these incidents is greater than three, and when the total is also more than one incident per 100 enrolled students or a fraction thereof, a school will be designated as “at risk” of being persistently dangerous. Suspensions and expulsions for these EC sections are reported in the Califonia Longitudinal Achievement Data System (CALPADS).
The SBE will designate a school as persistently dangerous if it is at risk in three consecutive years. Expulsions ordered by the governing board must be reported, regardless of whether they have been suspended, modified, or stipulated during the period of July 1 through June 30 of any of these three years.