Sen. Steve Knight on SCVTV’s “Newsmaker of the Week” show, Nov. 27, 2012.

[Sen. Knight] – Sen. Steve Knight, R-Antelope Valley, will introduce legislation again this year aimed at protecting our most vulnerable of populations, our California schoolchildren.

A recently released California State Auditor a report entitled “Los Angeles Unified School District: It Could Do More to Improve Its Handling of Child Abuse Allegations” outlines deficiencies in the current reporting system which should notify the Commission on Teacher Credentialing of allegations against teachers who are accused of abusing schoolchildren.  The audit found LAUSD officials often failed to appropriately notify the commission about allegations against teachers when required to do so.

In 2012, then Assemblyman Steve Knight introduced Assembly Bill 2028, a measure that included administrative changes that would have empowered local school districts to respond more effectively to teacher misconduct cases.  Although the bill garnered bipartisan support, the measure ultimately died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

“California cannot allow deficiencies in the law to stand in the way of allowing law enforcement and school officials to protect our kids,” said Senator Knight. “We must offer an efficient and effective way for local school districts to remove predators from classrooms; our students deserve to be protected.

Though the legislation was not successful in 2012, the Senator remains committed to this tremendously important issue, and will again introduce legislation for this year to protect our schoolchildren from predators within the walls of their own classrooms.

Knight represents the Antelope and Victor valleys and about half of the Santa Clarita Valley in the state Senate.