When must California schools update their policies to comply with AB 49?
Short answer
Local educational agencies in California, including school districts and charter schools, must update their policies to comply with Assembly Bill 49 by March 1, 2026. This deadline follows the release of updated model policies by the Attorney General, which is required by December 1, 2025. The law itself took effect immediately upon being chaptered in September 2025, but the specific policy alignment has this phased timeline.
What the bill or law says
Assembly Bill 49, now Chapter 122 of the 2025 Statutes, mandates a two-step process for policy updates. First, the California Attorney General is required to update existing model policies that limit assistance with immigration enforcement. These updated models must align with the new prohibitions on access and information sharing found in the bill. The deadline for the Attorney General to complete this task is December 1, 2025 [https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB49/id/3270460].
Second, local educational agencies (LEAs) must update their own internal policies to match these state models. The law sets a firm deadline of March 1, 2026, for LEAs to finalize these updates. Once completed, schools must make these policies available to the State Department of Education upon request [https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB49/id/3270460].
How it works in practice
While the legal restrictions on immigration enforcement access and data sharing are already in effect due to an urgency clause, the administrative compliance involves specific steps. School administrators should prepare for the release of the Attorney General’s model policies in late 2025. These models will provide the framework that schools must adopt.
Between December 2025 and March 2026, school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools will need to review their current rules and revise them to ensure they prohibit allowing immigration officers into nonpublic areas without a judicial warrant. They must also ensure their policies reflect the ban on disclosing student information without legal process or parental consent. Staff training on verifying judicial warrants and handling enforcement requests is part of this implementation phase [https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB49/id/3270460].
What the source does not answer
The bill text does not specify the exact format or length of the updated model policies that the Attorney General will produce. It also does not detail the specific curriculum or methods for staff training, leaving those operational decisions to individual local educational agencies. Furthermore, while the bill mentions that reimbursement may be available if the Commission on State Mandates determines there are state-mandated costs, it does not provide specific dollar amounts for these training and implementation expenses [https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB49/id/3270460].