DMSELPA Policies and Procedures

Appendix A: California Department of Education (CDE) K.C. Settlement Agreement and Legal Advisory

Code, § 2727, subd. (e)), do indeed permit unlicensed school personnel to administer insulin.

With that clarification, we turn to the documents in question.

In its 2005 Program Advisory, the Department confirmed that unlicensed personnel may

administer medications generally but “recommend[ed] that . . . unlicensed staff member[s] . . .

not administer medications that must be administered by injection . . . .” ( Id ., at p. 7.) The 2005

Program Advisory ’ s recommendations are nonbinding, both because the document so states ( id .,

at p. 1) and as a matter of law. (See § 33308.5 [“Program guidelines issued by the [Department]

shall be designed to serve as a model or example, and shall not be prescriptive”]; tit. 5, § 611

[“The [Department], with the approval of the [Board], may issue and periodically update an

advisory providing non-binding guidance on the administration of medication . . . . The advisory

shall be a program guideline under . . . section 33308.5 . . . .”].) The 2005 document offers no

discussion or analysis of its recommendation concerning injections and cites no authority that

might support it. The document does cite section 49423 and sections 600, 601 and 604 of title 5

(2005 Program Advisory, at p. 6), which, as we have seen, were specifically intended to permit

unlicensed personnel to administer medications, and none of which forbids administration by

injection. The document also cites statutes describing the specific licensure required of

physicians, nurses and other health care providers employed as such in the schools (§§ 44871,

44873-44878), and also section 49422, which provides that only licensed health care providers

and certain other persons with relevant credentials “shall be . . . employed or permitte d to

supervise the health and physical development of pupils . . . .” (2005 Program Advisory, at p. 6.)

As already noted, however, section 49422 cannot mean that only licensed health care providers

BP 2006 – Provision of Healthcare Services

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Desert Mountain Special Education Local Plan Area (DMSELPA) (rev. 11/16)