Relating to cooperation by public and private schools with federal immigration and customs enforcement officers

This bill relates to cooperation by public and private schools with federal immigration and customs enforcement officers. The bill provides that school districts, accredited nonpublic schools, charter schools, and innovation zone schools must cooperate with all lawful requests for assistance made by a federal immigration and customs enforcement officer and prohibits such schools from adopting or enforcing a policy or taking any other actions under which the school prohibits or discourages an employee or contractor from assisting or cooperating with a federal immigration and customs enforcement officer if the federal immigration and customs enforcement officer requests assistance or cooperation. Additionally, the bill requires administrators employed by schools to cooperate with all lawful requests for assistance made by a federal immigration and customs enforcement officer. An administrator is prohibited from distributing any communication that indicates the school, or an employee of the school, will not cooperate with such requests. _____ determines that an administrator violated these provisions, the administrator is subject to a hearing before the board of educational examiners and is to be placed on administrative leave for one week.11(10)(c). The bill provides that the director of DE is required to recommend removal of accreditation of the school district or accredited nonpublic school to the state board of education (state board) if DE determines that the school district or accredited nonpublic school violated the bill’s provisions. Current law establishes a review and enforcement process that is used when the director makes such a recommendation. The process includes the development of a report by the accreditation committee that includes a list of the school district’s or accredited nonpublic school’s deficiencies, site visits by the accreditation committee to determine whether the deficiencies have been corrected, and review by the state board. If the deficiencies have not been corrected, current law requires the state board to either deaccredit the school district and merge the territory of the school district with one or more contiguous school districts at the end of the school year or to place a district under receivership for the remainder of the school year. In the case of an accredited nonpublic school, current law provides that if the deficiencies have not been corrected, the state board may deaccredit the school, and the deaccreditation takes effect on the date established by the resolution of the state board. The bill modifies this provision to require the state board to deaccredit the accredited nonpublic school if the deficiencies consist of the accredited nonpublic school’s violations of the bill’s provisions. _____ Under current law, the state board may revoke a charter school’s or innovation zone school’s contract for not complying with applicable school laws. The bill requires the state board to revoke a charter school’s or innovation zone school’s contract if the state board determines that the charter school or innovation zone school violated the prohibitions established in the bill.