Sponsors
The bill aims to improve student safety by requiring conduct codes, training, and a federal incidence study—strengthening prevention and accountability—but does so at measurable cost and administrative burden to schools and governments, with a delayed implementation window and privacy and staff-impact risks.
Students (and the adults who work with them): Local education agencies would be required to adopt clear conduct codes and prevention policies and provide training to reduce sexual abuse and inappropriate staff-student relationships, improving school safety.
Students and families: A federal study to be completed within a year will document how often K–12 students experience sexual abuse and issue prevention recommendations that can guide school and parent actions.
Students and school communities: Clarifying that Title IX covers sexual abuse may strengthen federal enforcement and accountability at federally funded schools.
Local and state education agencies and taxpayers: Schools and districts will face increased costs and staff time to develop codes, run trainings, respond to reporting, and cooperate with studies, imposing a notable fiscal and administrative burden.
Teachers, school staff, and districts: New compliance requirements and potential increased Title IX enforcement create administrative burdens and may conflict with existing local policies, complicating implementation.
Students and educators: A two-year delay before statewide codes and trainings take effect means protections and mandated training will not be immediate, leaving gaps in the near term.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Introduced August 29, 2025 by Ted Lieu · Last progress August 29, 2025
Requires each State that receives federal K–12 education funds to adopt a statewide policy requiring school districts to create codes of conduct that define acceptable and unacceptable sexual- and relationship-related behavior and to train school personnel on those codes, child‑abuse reporting rules, Title IX obligations, and sexual abuse awareness and prevention. The bill also makes those prevention and training activities allowable uses of existing Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) grant streams and directs the Department of Education to study the incidence of sexual abuse in elementary and secondary schools and report recommendations to Congress. Policy requirements become effective two years after enactment; the Department must submit the study and recommendations within one year of enactment.