Patchwork of Laws
Laws that pertain to school-perpetrated abuse fall into several buckets, and the list can get quite long. It’s important to note that some school-based policies aim to prevent abuse globally, whether that abuse occurs within or outside of a school community. These prevention and awareness policies use the schools as the hub of information by educating adults, students, or both. I commend the survivors who have gone before me and passed these laws, including Jenna’s Law and Erin’s Law, in many states.
Faith’s Law addresses school employee sexual misconduct with several components, most of which cover administrative policy, with one criminal update:
- Establishes an employee code of conduct that defines proper boundaries and prohibits sexual misconduct
- Screens new school applicants for any employment history of sexual misconduct
- Defines grooming to include in-person behaviors (as opposed to online only) and makes it subject to mandated reporting
- Creates a resource guide
- Requires parental notification for alleged victims of sexual misconduct
- Clarifies reporting requirements regarding sexual misconduct
Finding all the relevant laws in your state is challenging because there are so many overlapping policies. For example, since school-based abuse potentially involves law enforcement, child welfare, and local and state school administration, the reporting and investigating may be quite complex. Mandated reporting laws (including failure to report) and statutes of limitations are also relevant. States may differ greatly in how they define misconduct or what is considered criminal.
If you think further action is needed, it’s important to first know the existing laws in your state. The laws may be comprehensive already, or they may be sparse on this topic. Sometimes there are great laws that are not being implemented, or sparse laws that are being supplemented by voluntary best practices among individual schools or districts.
If you want to know more about the laws in your state, please check out the following resources:
- Enough Abuse’s interactive maps
- Prevent Child Abuse America’s interactive map
- The Call to Action Report
For examples of how other states define sexual misconduct or related terms, see the list below:
- Kentucky “sexually related behaviors with a student”
- Indiana “misconduct relating to the health, safety, or well-being of a student"
- Illinois “sexual misconduct” (please note, this is the portion of statute that addresses the local control for setting certain boundaries but also the state level prohibition of sexual misconduct; Illinois modified this definition from Pennsylvania, which is one of several states that had already passed the S.E.S.A.M.E. Act — more info on the S.E.S.A.M.E.’s legislation webpage)
- Texas “solicitation of sexual contact” or "solicitation of a romantic relationship"
For additional context about sexual grooming and boundary-violating behaviors, see the following resources: