Come Pride Month in 2024 California educational officials are set to debut an online LGBTQ+ cultural competency training course to be taken by public school teachers and other credentialed staff employed by the state's 977 school districts. Should they meet that timeline, it would mark six years after state lawmakers first called for such a professional seminar to be created.
The California Department of Education is working with the Los Angeles County Office of Education and the San Joaquin Office of Education on developing the training. Nicholas Filipas, a spokesperson for the state agency, recently told the Bay Area Reporter that it "will be available in June 2024."
Such a training course was first proposed in 2018. But former governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill calling for its creation, citing its cost.
The following year, with Governor Gavin Newsom now in office, former gay Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D), currently the mayor of San Diego, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who had carried the bill the year prior when he served in the Assembly, introduced the Safe and Supportive Schools Act of 2019. Also known as Assembly Bill 493, the legislation again sailed through the Legislature.
This time, Newsom signed it into law. But its then-estimated price tag of upward of $1.3 million went unfunded, and the legislation did not include a mandate that school professionals undergo the training.
In his 2021 budget proposal Newsom included $3 million to build out the online course. And state lawmakers will be taking up a new bill in their 2023 session to ensure it is utilized.
As the B.A.R. reported last week, freshman gay Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-West Hollywood) introduced AB 5, the Safe and Supportive Schools Act, shortly after being sworn into his Assembly District 51 seat on December 5. If passed next year, the bill will mandate that teachers and credentialed staff at the state's public schools take the online LGBTQ cultural competency training course when it goes live in two years.
As Zbur explained to the B.A.R. in a phone interview, he authored AB 5 to ensure that the previous bill "is not sitting on the shelf" somewhere in Sacramento. As the former executive director for the statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization Equality California, Zbur had pressed for passage of the bill co-sponsored by Gloria and Thurmond.
"We want to make sure every school teacher, even those at school districts not LGBTQ supportive, have the benefit of this training," said Zbur, a co-parent of a 17-year-old daughter and 13-year-old twins, who attend public schools. "The cost should be minimal because the program already is being developed and paid for under the prior budget allocation. It is just the administrative cost of implementing this program."
As it works on its own training regime, the state education department has been directing school administrators and educators interested in learning about the unique needs of their LGBTQ students, and how to address them, to use several free LGBTQ+ cultural competency training courses offered by other organizations.
It lists three such trainings on its "Supporting LGBTQ+ Students" webpage. One is the American Psychological Association's "The Respect Online Course."
According to the medical group, its course "aims to promote sexual health and responsibility and prevent HIV infection, other sexually transmitted infections, and pregnancy among LGBTQ students. The course teaches school professionals how to provide direct services and utilize school-based practices that promote sexual health and responsibility among LGBTQ students."
Another training recommended by the state education department is The Trevor Project's "Lifeguard Workshop." It has a particular focus on suicide prevention and mental health for LGBTQ youth.
The third listed training course provides guidance for teachers and administrators on how to implement California's Health Education Content Standards overseeing inclusive classrooms for LGBTQ youth. It uses content developed by the Orange County Department of Education that was adapted as an online course by the Los Angeles County Office of Education.
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