Charter schools, like all other schools, colleges and universities receiving federal funds, are required to comply with Title IX, a federal civil rights law written in 1972 that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and bars sexual harassment in educational programs.
In 2020, the Secretary of Education amended the process for how schools must handle sexual harassment complaints, and in 2021, the US Department of Education issued guidance on topic. These new requirements are now part of the California Department of Education’s review for Federal Program Monitoring as well as for many charter authorizers’ oversight requirements.
Specifically, these recent changes to Title IX regulations require charter schools to have updated Title IX grievance procedures in place, require the establishment of a Title IX Team, require new website postings and mandate that the school’s Title IX Team receive training on grievance procedures among other requirements.
In response, CSDC added a "boilerplate" Title IX Grievance Policy (sign-in required) to its Sample Board Policies repository, a collection of customizable policies made exclusively available to CSDC Member schools.
CSDC is also gauging the need for Title IX training among schools planning to attend its annual California Charter Schools Leadership Update Conference (November 13-15, 2022 in Sacramento, CA).
Please consider taking this very brief, 1-minute survey to give our conference programming team a better sense of your school's training needs:
