Bill 660 is just latest effort to raise parental awareness
SACRAMENTO — California State Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) has recently authored legislation that, if approved, will give parents the opportunity to speak to their children before police can regarding off-campus incidents.
State Bill No. 660 requires that before making an elementary school student available to police for interrogation on campus, principals must ask permission from the parent and allow the parent to be present for the questioning. In the case of a high school student, the student must be told that he may choose to have a parent or member off school staff present.
Representatives with Sen. Kuehl’s office said the bill is designed to strengthen student and parent rights. Currently, the law doesn’t require school officials to notify parents that their child is being interrogated by police. The only time parents must be notified is when the student is removed from campus.
Many parents believe they already have the right to be notified and to be present if their child is being questioned by law enforcement and are surprised when they find out that that’s not the case, according to Sen. Kuehl’s office. If a police officer comes to a child’s home, the parent has the ability to turn the officer away without speaking to the child. Under current law, however, a principal can pull a child from the classroom to meet with an officer at the officer’s request. The child is not free to leave, and no notification of the parents is required.
“It’s very scary for a student to be questioned by the police,” Sen. Kuehl said. “Certainly, in elementary school it seems totally reasonable that the school be required to contact a student’s parents to give them an opportunity to be with the student while he or she is being questioned.”
Information provided by the California PTA — representatives of which asked Sen. Kuehl to draft the bill — said that if the interrogation of a child is necessary, the bill would help ensure the child is questioned in a manner that is appropriate to his or her age. The PTA indicates that it’s important to reduce trauma in all phases of a child’s life, including trauma caused by actions pursued through the court system.
Representatives from Sen. Kuehl’s office said the state legislature has been trying to increase parental involvement in this area since 1989, when the first bill was proposed and was not passed. Nine years later, in 1998, Assembly Bill No. 2501 attempted to address the same issue. It was passed in the legislature, but was vetoed by Gov. Pete Wilson.
Representatives from Sen. Kuehl’s office said State Bill 660 is similar to California State Assembly Bill No. 1012 proposed by Assemblymember Darrell Steinberg during the 2003 and 2004 legislative sessions. The bill passed by a wide bipartisan margin in both houses, but was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who opposed the bill because law enforcement was against it. Sen. Kuehl said the issue will be returning to the legislature until it is adequately addressed.
Tam Ma, with Sen. Kuehl’s office, said State Bill No. 660 contains exceptions for circumstances that would not require parental notification — such as emergency situations that may be life threatening, or if parents are suspected to be child abusers — issues she said the previous bill did not address.
“Folks had concerns of the ability of law enforcement to have timely investigations,” Ma said. “If you have to wait and call parents, the thought was kids will change their story.
“With this proposal, the school has to make a reasonable attempt to contact parents within an hour after the incident, or questioning can begin.”
Representatives from Sen. Kuehl’s office said State Bill No. 660 is designed so school districts statewide will have a uniform policy. They said the bill is modeled after policies crafted by the Santa- Monica Malibu.
Laurel Schmidt, with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, confirmed State Bill No. 660 is based, in part, off of the school district’s policy regarding on-campus questioning which has been effective since September 2002. The policy indicates school administrators must notify parents of the police request for an interrogation and act on the student’s behalf throughout the questioning process, including informing the student of his or her right against self-incrimination.
The bill will be up for discussion during the state senate’s next education committee hearing on April 26.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 13, 2005. Read the original PDF.