HB4653 Summary

• Requires school districts to provide trauma-informed practices instruction to all teachers, administrators, and school support personnel starting with the 2024-2025 school year before the first day of student attendance.

• Defines trauma, trauma-responsive learning environments, and whole child approaches, requiring these definitions be included in mental health and suicide prevention training for school personnel.

• Expands in-service training requirements to include health conditions of students, social-emotional learning, cultural competency, mental illness identification, domestic and sexual violence response, homelessness awareness, educator ethics, child sexual abuse prevention, and violence prevention.

• Requires training on life-threatening bleeding response and trauma kit use, with initial completion deadline of 6 months for new employees and renewal every 2 years through 2026-2027, then every 5 years thereafter.

• Provides civil liability immunity for school district employees trained to use trauma kits unless their actions constitute willful or wanton misconduct.