Basic Work Stations
Education Code (EC) Section 49320
Student enrollment in an industrial education facility or laboratory should not exceed the number of basic work stations designed and assigned for student use, as determined by the local governing board, to ensure each student has an appropriate space to safely perform course activities and safety instruction.
Eye Safety
California law requires schools to provide and require ANSI-compliant, industrial-quality eye protective devices for students, teachers, instructors, and visitors who participate in or observe laboratory, vocational, industrial arts, or other instructional activities involving hazardous substances or processes that may cause eye injury.
Pupils’ Rights to Refrain From the Harmful or Destructive Use of Animals
California law gives kindergarten through grade twelve public school students the right, with parent or guardian substantiation, to refrain from activities involving the dissection, harming, or destruction of animals or animal parts and, when an adequate alternative is possible, to complete a comparable alternative education project without penalty or discrimination. Teachers using animals or animal parts must inform students of these rights with specified exemptions for agricultural education activities involving domestic animal care, management, and evaluation.
School Safety Plans
California comprehensive school safety plans must be developed, reviewed, updated, and publicly available annually, and must address required procedures for campus safety, emergency and disaster response, accessibility for students with disabilities, safe ingress and egress, discipline, discrimination and harassment, tactical responses to criminal incidents, medical emergencies, parent and staff notifications, instructional continuity during emergencies, and other site-specific safety needs.
Hazardous Materials Education
The California Hazardous Materials Education Act of 1982 recognizes the health and safety risks associated with hazardous materials in school laboratories and calls for statewide guidance, training, and school-level laboratory safety procedures, including the designation of a trained staff member to help review, update, and implement laboratory safety practices.
Instruction in Personal and Public Health and Safety
The adopted course of study must include age-appropriate instruction in personal and public safety; accident prevention; emergency first aid; fire prevention; environmental protection and conservation; and health topics, including the effects of alcohol, drugs, narcotics, and tobacco on the human body.
Use of Animals in Public Instruction
California law prohibits the harmful or painful experimental use of live vertebrate animals in public elementary and high school science instruction or school-sponsored activities, requires live animals kept on school premises to be housed and cared for humanely and safely, and does not prohibit normal animal husbandry instruction in vocational programs.