NV Dept of Education Adds Anti-Grooming Bill to Legislative Docket

The Committee on Education, on behalf if the Nevada Department of Education, has submitted Senate Bill 59 for consideration in the next legislative session. The bill revises provisions NRS 391.330 governing the license of educational personnel. The provisions include the prohibition of “grooming” and acts of sexual impropriety.

The description reads:

AN ACT relating to education; prohibiting  licensed teachers and educational personnel from engaging in certain  activities that constitute sexual impropriety with the grooming of a pupil; authorizing the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education to place an administrative hold on the license of a person who commits certain acts that may constitute grounds for disciplinary action; providing requirements governing the placements of an administrative hold; exempting a person with an administrative hold on his or her license from provisions governing the lapse of a license while school is in session; authorizing the State Board to suspend of revoke the license of a person who engages in grooming or sexual impropriety: or who seeks or obtains new employment with the school district or charter school while the license of the licensee is subject to an administrative hold; eliminating provisions authorizing the Superintendent of Public Instruction to issue a provisional license to a person pending the receipt of certain criminal history reports; and providing other matter properly related thereto.

According to the bills language, grooming means: engaging in a pattern of flirtatious behavior; making an effort to gain unreasonable access to, or time alone with, a pupil for no reasonable educational purpose; engaging in behavior that can be reasonably construed as involving inappropriate personal or intimate relationships with, conduct toward or focus on a pupil; or engaging in individualized and special treatment that is not in compliance with generally accepted educational practices.

The bill also expands the acts of sexual impropriety and prohibits, “Displaying, sharing or transmitting materials which are pornographic or sexually explicit and which  lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.” The bill further provides that the “consent of the pupil is not a defense for such conduct.”

At a time when school boards are inundated with angry parents voicing their concerns over sexually explicit literature available to their children, will this bill support their efforts to move these books to the adult section of the library?

Numerous lawsuits have been filed against various school districts within Nevada for LGBTQIA study material. One such case out of Clark County made national headlines after the mother appeared before the school board and was silenced by the trustees as she read a pornographic script that was given to her 14 year-old daughter.

The Globe was unable to reach the Department of Education for comment, but will provide an update after the Thanksgiving holiday.