Elementary and secondary education: public school employees: contractors: natural persons.

Section 44007.5 (defining 'employee' or 'person' as a natural person for certain employment provisions) was removed entirely.

Article 12 (Section 66095) was removed entirely. This had extended similar anti-retaliation and ed-tech opt-out protections to postsecondary employees at the University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges.

The bill title changed from 'relating to public educational employment' to 'relating to elementary and secondary education,' reflecting the removal of all postsecondary and AI-related provisions.

Section 44932.5 was removed, which had prohibited K-12 educators from being dismissed, suspended, disciplined, reassigned, transferred, or retaliated against for refusing to use educational technology or based on AI/ADS output about them.

The requirement that local educational agencies must enable educators to quickly and easily turn off, pause, or refuse ed-tech (at no cost) before deploying it was removed.

All definitions for 'ADS output,' 'artificial intelligence,' 'automated decision system,' 'educational technology,' 'educator,' and 'employer' (in the postsecondary context) were removed.

Blank enrollment fields (date, time, signatures of Chief Clerk, Secretary of Senate, Private Secretary of Governor) were replaced with the standard 'STATE OF CALIFORNIA AUTHENTICATED ELECTRONIC LEGAL MATERIAL' header and the chapter number 45.

The Governor's approval date was recorded: Approved by Governor June 30, 2026, Filed with Secretary of State June 30, 2026.

Added Section 44932.5 protecting K-12 educators (certificated or classified employees of school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools) from dismissal, suspension, discipline, reassignment, transfer, or retaliation for refusing to use, deploy, or direct students to educational technology.

Added Section 44932.5(b) prohibiting discipline of any educator based on information transmitted, acquired, collected, or produced via artificial intelligence or automated decision system (ADS) output.

Added new Article 12 (Section 66095) extending the same anti-retaliation and AI/ADS protections to employees of public postsecondary institutions: University of California, California State University, Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, and community college districts.

Added a requirement that local educational agencies may not deploy educational technology in the workplace unless it enables educators to quickly and easily turn off, pause, or refuse to use it, and neither the agency nor the educator is charged anything of value for doing so.

Added definitions for 'ADS output,' 'artificial intelligence' (incorporating Section 33328.5), 'automated decision system' or 'ADS' (with exclusions for spam filters, firewalls, antivirus software, identity and access management tools, calculators, databases, datasets), 'educational technology,' 'educator,' 'local educational agency,' and 'employer.'

Fiscal committee designation changed from 'no' to 'yes,' indicating the amendment creates a state-mandated fiscal impact.

Added a compliance provision requiring CSU, California Community Colleges, the Board of Governors, and community college districts to comply with the new article, while the University of California is only 'requested' to comply (reflecting UC's constitutional independence).

New Section 98 added to the Education Code explicitly defining that both a public school employee (including certificated employees, classified employees, teachers, educators, short-term employees, principals, administrators, counselors, school nurses, school psychologists, and school social workers) and a contractor performing services in a public school mean a natural person.

The bill's scope now explicitly covers contractors providing services in public schools, not just employees. This means the anti-retaliation protections against AI/ADS-based discipline and the requirement that educational technology be easy to turn off would apply to contractors as well.

Assembly Member Hoover added as coauthor; fiscal committee vote changed from no to yes; bill title updated to reference Section 98 and elementary and secondary education.