AMENDED IN SENATE MAY 7, 2025

AMENDED IN SENATE APRIL 21, 2025

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION

95

CHAPTER 761

Statutes of 2025

[ Approved by Governor October 13, 2025. Filed with Secretary of State October 13, 2025. ]

Introduced by Senator Stern

(Coauthors: Senators Allen and Wiener)

February 19, 2025

An act to add Section 51221.2 to the Education Code, relating to pupil instruction.

Vote: majority   Appropriation: no   Fiscal committee: yes   Local program: no

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

Existing law requires the State Department of Education to incorporate age-appropriate materials relating to, among other things, genocide and the Holocaust into publications that provide examples of curriculum resources for teacher use, consistent with the subject frameworks on history and social science. Under existing law, the Legislature encourages the incorporation of survivor, rescuer, liberator, and witness oral testimony into the teaching of genocide and the Holocaust. Existing law, upon appropriation by the Legislature, establishes the California Teachers Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education to establish a statewide teacher professional development program on genocide, including the Holocaust, for school district, county office of education, and charter school teachers, and provides that the collaborative’s mission is to ensure that genocide, including Holocaust, education is taught consistent with, among other things, content standards, curriculum frameworks, and instructional materials adopted by the State Board of Education, in ways that are interdisciplinary and age-appropriate to pupils of different grade levels.

This bill would require the Superintendent of Public Instruction to establish the Holocaust and Genocide Education Grant Program to provide direct allocations to school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools for the purposes of providing Holocaust and genocide education and professional development on Holocaust and genocide education, as provided. The bill would establish the Holocaust and Genocide Education Grant Program Fund in the State Treasury, and would require moneys in the fund to be available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to the Superintendent for purposes of the grant program. The bill would require the department to issue a notice to school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools serving pupils in grades 7 to 12, inclusive, regarding genocide and Holocaust instruction, and would authorize the department to issue a survey to these local educational agencies on the status of Holocaust and genocide instruction at their schools, as provided.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

Section 51221.2 is added to the Education Code, immediately following Section 51221.1, to read:

51221.2.

(a) (1) The department shall issue a notice to all local educational agencies serving pupils in any of grades 7 to 12, inclusive, clarifying that social science instruction provided pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 51220 is designed to provide a foundation for the understanding of human rights issues with particular attention to the study of the inhumanity of genocide, slavery, and the Holocaust. In furtherance of this instruction, the notice shall advise these local educational agencies of all of the following:

(A) Holocaust and genocide education are part of the adopted History-Social Science Content Standards and Framework adopted by the state board.

(B) The History-Social Science Framework adopted by the state board provides information about instruction on the Holocaust and genocide.

(2) The department shall include, within the notice described in paragraph (1), information about the existing resources available to support local educational agencies and teachers in the instruction of Holocaust and genocide education.

(3) The department is authorized to issue a survey to local educational agencies, no more than two years after these local educational agencies are issued the notice described in paragraph (1), on the status of Holocaust and genocide instruction at their schools.

(b) (1) The Superintendent shall establish the Holocaust and Genocide Education Grant Program to provide direct allocations to local educational agencies for the purposes of providing Holocaust and genocide education and professional development on Holocaust and genocide education.

(2) Grants provided under the grant program shall be used to provide resources and opportunities related to Holocaust and genocide education, which may include, but are not limited to, any of the following:

(A) Providing instructional materials on topics about the Holocaust and genocide.

(B) Hosting an event or an organization at a schoolsite maintained by the local educational agency for purposes related to Holocaust or genocide education.

(C) Financing teacher attendance at professional development opportunities focused on Holocaust and genocide education.

(D) Hiring substitute teachers to support teacher attendance at professional development opportunities focused on Holocaust and genocide education.

(E) Financing faculty and staff time to plan and facilitate local educational agency or school-based programs related to Holocaust and genocide education.

(F) Financing transportation to events and educational opportunities related to Holocaust and genocide education.

(3) The Superintendent shall adopt detailed regulations for the grant program, which shall include, but not be limited to, programmatic details, application criteria and deadlines, and reporting requirements on how allocations were spent.

(c) The Holocaust and Genocide Education Grant Program Fund is hereby established in the State Treasury. Moneys in the fund shall be available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to the Superintendent for purposes of the grant program established pursuant to subdivision (b).

(d) For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:

(1) “Genocide” means, as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group:

(A) Killing members of the group.

(B) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.

(C) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about, in whole or in part, its physical destruction.

(D) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

(E) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

(2) “Holocaust,” as described by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of 6,000,000 European Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators; the Nazis also targeted other groups for persecution and murder, including Roma, people with disabilities, some Slavic peoples, especially Poles and Russians, Black people, communists, socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay men, and people the Nazis called “asocials” and “professional criminals.”

(3) “Local educational agency” means a school district, county office of education, or charter school.