The Legislature hereby finds and declares as follows:
(a)
Because school science laboratories pose a potentially serious threat to the health and safety of school pupils and school personnel due to the use and storage of hazardous materials in these laboratories, educational efforts are needed to increase the awareness of persons dealing with these materials in these settings so that possible losses of life, injuries, losses of property, and social disruption, which could result from the improper and unsafe use of hazardous materials, will be minimized.
(b)
Effective safety in school laboratories requires informed judgment, decisionmaking, and operating procedures by those responsible for laboratory and related instruction. It is desirable that each high school and junior high, middle, or elementary school offering laboratory work have a trained member of the professional staff who is designated as the building laboratory consultant and who is responsible for the review, updating, and carrying out of the school’s adopted procedures for laboratory safety.
(c)
Efforts by state and local agencies to implement training programs designed to provide qualified individuals with the necessary information, organizational skills, and materials to assist schools and teachers in the development of their laboratory safety policies and procedures are nonexistent or inadequate, and it is necessary that this situation be remedied. The state should assume leadership through the policy and guidance of the State Department of Education in the development, support, and implementation of a statewide training program.
(d)
The Legislature requests that the State Department of Education consider making this program a part of the department’s energy and environmental education program that is conducted pursuant to Chapter 4 (commencing with Section 8700) of Part 6.