Sonoma County superintendent of schools testifies in support of disaster preparedness bills

Steve Herrington, Sonoma County’s superintendent of schools, headed to Sacramento Wednesday to testify in support of two education bills that seek to better equip schools to deal with disasters.

Herrington, the county’s elected school chief since 2010, has led the county’s Office of Education in assisting the region’s 40 public school districts through multiple years of catastrophic wildfires, flooding, smoke days and power shut-offs.

He was asked by Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Santa Rosa, to speak before members of the California state Assembly’s Education Committee on what schools need to cope in the more volatile climate that upended school operations.

“It’s not the honor in which you wish to be recognized, but what you want to do is provide resources to your colleagues so they can have an easier time at it,” Herrington said.

The education committee in an afternoon hearing voted to advance both of the bills for which Herrington gave testimony.

Assembly Bill 2814, introduced by Wood, would provide $1 million in competitive grants for which school districts could apply to support their emergency plans. Assembly Bill 2072, introduced by Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, D-Woodland Hills, seeks to address mental health needs in emergencies.

“I’m beginning to feel like the poster child for natural disasters,” Herrington joked as he prepared to speak to the committee.

Wood said he hopes to provide support to districts with the greatest need of additional resources to plan for disasters.

“We started talking to some people and realizing there really isn’t a large pool of resources for our smaller districts in being able to do this kind of planning,” Wood said.

The California Department of Education would be tasked with disbursing the grant money. Schools would apply for the funds to support their efforts to coordinate response plans with city and county emergency departments, and assess what dangers they are vulnerable to, among other activities.

The state education department would then need to monitor the funded efforts, and submit a report to the Legislature by Nov. 1, 2026. That report would include a summary of the emergency planning activities of grantees and recommendations for the future.

"I am a big believer in prevention and preparedness,“ Wood said. ”I would rather see us being prepared and never have to use these tools than to be caught off guard and not be able to respond as quickly as we could have.“

The education panel voted unanimously to forward the bill to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which will examine the fiscal impact of the bill.

Herrington also spoke about AB 2072, which would require county offices of education to develop plans with local schools and any relevant local and state agencies for “rapidly deploying qualified mental health professionals and other key school personnel” during emergencies.

Herrington pointed to SCOE’s creation of its behavioral health team after the 2017 wildfires as an example of what that planning might look like.

The education office’s move came amid budget cuts to the Sonoma County Department of Health Services that had stripped away mental health staff, and at a time when the state and the federal government were providing much less funding than it now does for mental health at schools.

“There wasn’t always a full level of support for trauma and disaster,” Herrington said.

Since 2018, a “contingency team” of SCOE’s mental health staff have deployed to various emergencies. They’ve gone as far as Butte and Mendocino counties to help during wildfires, Herrington said.

“This is one county supporting another county because we believe in it, but we need to coordinate these services statewide,” Herrington said during his testimony.

The education committee also voted to advance Gabriel’s bill. It now goes to the Assembly Health Committee.

Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, also presented a bill before the education committee Wednesday, which aims to boost safety for students with epilepsy and other seizure disorders.

It would increase training requirements and enable parents to create seizure action plans that detail the kinds of treatments trained school staff can provide to their children in the event of a seizure.

The education committee voted unanimously to forward Levine’s bill on to the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

You can reach Staff Writer Kaylee Tornay at 707-521-5250 or kaylee.tornay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ka_tornay.