California Education Code Sections 44113(a) and 44114(c) are part of the Reporting by School Employees of Improper Governmental Activities Act. It prohibits “an employee” from using his or her official position to retaliate against “any person” to deter that person from making a disclosure protected by the Act. A “person” includes any individual. An employee means public school employee, and of course – a public school teacher, among others. This protection is afforded to public school teachers and other public school employees in addition to all the other otherwise applicable anti-retaliation laws that would apply to and protected any other employee.
The interesting part about this anti-retaliation law is that unlike with other kinds of retaliation laws (such as FEHA or ADA) where individual managers are not liable for retaliation, here, the individual management employees, and not just the school itself as an institution, may be personally liable for retaliation, and even may be liable for punitive damages if it’s proven that their retaliatory conduct was intentional. This includes school’s supervisors and administrators. (Hartnett v Crosier, 205 Cal.App.4th 485 (2012)).