Education Code section 51221.2
(a)
(1)The department shall issue a notice to all local educational agencies serving pupils in any of grades 7 to 12, inclusive, clarifying that social science instruction provided pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 51220 is designed to provide a foundation for the understanding of human rights issues with particular attention to the study of the inhumanity of genocide, slavery, and the Holocaust. In furtherance of this instruction, the notice shall advise these local educational agencies of all of the following:(A)
Holocaust and genocide education are part of the adopted History-Social Science Content Standards and Framework adopted by the state board.(B)
The History-Social Science Framework adopted by the state board provides information about instruction on the Holocaust and genocide.(2)
The department shall include, within the notice described in paragraph (1), information about the existing resources available to support local educational agencies and teachers in the instruction of Holocaust and genocide education.(3)
The department is authorized to issue a survey to local educational agencies, no more than two years after these local educational agencies are issued the notice described in paragraph (1), on the status of Holocaust and genocide instruction at their schools.(b)
(1)The Superintendent shall establish the Holocaust and Genocide Education Grant Program to provide direct allocations to local educational agencies for the purposes of providing Holocaust and genocide education and professional development on Holocaust and genocide education.(2)
Grants provided under the grant program shall be used to provide resources and opportunities related to Holocaust and genocide education, which may include, but are not limited to, any of the following:(A)
Providing instructional materials on topics about the Holocaust and genocide.(B)
Hosting an event or an organization at a schoolsite maintained by the local educational agency for purposes related to Holocaust or genocide education.(C)
Financing teacher attendance at professional development opportunities focused on Holocaust and genocide education.(D)
Hiring substitute teachers to support teacher attendance at professional development opportunities focused on Holocaust and genocide education.(E)
Financing faculty and staff time to plan and facilitate local educational agency or school-based programs related to Holocaust and genocide education.(F)
Financing transportation to events and educational opportunities related to Holocaust and genocide education.(3)
The Superintendent shall adopt detailed regulations for the grant program, which shall include, but not be limited to, programmatic details, application criteria and deadlines, and reporting requirements on how allocations were spent.(c)
The Holocaust and Genocide Education Grant Program Fund is hereby established in the State Treasury. Moneys in the fund shall be available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to the Superintendent for purposes of the grant program established pursuant to subdivision (b).(d)
For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:(1)
“Genocide” means, as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group:(A)
Killing members of the group.(B)
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.(C)
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about, in whole or in part, its physical destruction.(D)
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.(E)
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.(2)
“Holocaust,” as described by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of 6,000,000 European Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators; the Nazis also targeted other groups for persecution and murder, including Roma, people with disabilities, some Slavic peoples, especially Poles and Russians, Black people, communists, socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay men, and people the Nazis called “asocials” and “professional criminals.”(3)
“Local educational agency” means a school district, county office of education, or charter school.
Source:
Section 51221.2, https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=EDC§ionNum=51221.2. (updated Jan. 1, 2026; accessed Dec. 8, 2025).
