---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 14 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO POLICY REGARDING APPROPRIATE RELATIONSHIPS WITH STUDENTS."
description: "This Act requires each school district and charter school to adopt a policy regarding appropriate relationships between school employees, contractors, coaches, and volunteers and students. The policy must include a provision establishing appropriate and inappropriate interactions; a prohibition against adult sexual misconduct; a prohibition against any sexual relationship between a school employee, contractor, coach, or volunteer and a student; an emphasis on the mandatory reporting obligations under § 903 of Title 16; a procedure for notifying the Department of Education and law enforcement of suspected adult sexual misconduct; guidelines for the preferred and prohibited methods of electronic communication; notice that substantiated incidents of adult sexual misconduct will be reported in future reference checks; and a provision requiring the development of hiring practices to screen for adult sexual misconduct. This Act will be implemented for the 2023-2024 school year."
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "151"
identifier: "SB 291"
citation: "Delaware SB 291 (151)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Darius J. Brown", "Kimberly Williams", "Laura V. Sturgeon", "Nicole Poore"]
version_count: 1
action_count: 7
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2022-05-09"
last_action: "2022-08-19"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/027bad8b-bacf-4ff7-b04d-4edb6c85d155"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=109467"
source_hash: "977b05bda8b3166dcd5c87d0b5b5dd1354740f49a92ad807a8e392cec0cbd991"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-de"]
---

# Delaware SB 291 (151) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 14 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO POLICY REGARDING APPROPRIATE RELATIONSHIPS WITH STUDENTS.

This Act requires each school district and charter school to adopt a policy regarding appropriate relationships between school employees, contractors, coaches, and volunteers and students. The policy must include a provision establishing appropriate and inappropriate interactions; a prohibition against adult sexual misconduct; a prohibition against any sexual relationship between a school employee, contractor, coach, or volunteer and a student; an emphasis on the mandatory reporting obligations under § 903 of Title 16; a procedure for notifying the Department of Education and law enforcement of suspected adult sexual misconduct; guidelines for the preferred and prohibited methods of electronic communication; notice that substantiated incidents of adult sexual misconduct will be reported in future reference checks; and a provision requiring the development of hiring practices to screen for adult sexual misconduct. This Act will be implemented for the 2023-2024 school year.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=109467&legislationTypeId=1&docTypeId=2&legislationName=SB291)

## Votes

- 3/5 — **41–0** (pass) · lower
- SM — **21–0** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- Darius J. Brown — primary (person)
- Kimberly Williams — primary (person)
- Laura V. Sturgeon — primary (person)
- Nicole Poore — primary (person)
- Brian Pettyjohn — cosponsor (person)
- Bruce C. Ennis — cosponsor (person)
- Bryan Townsend — cosponsor (person)
- Bryan W. Shupe — cosponsor (person)
- Bryant L. Richardson — cosponsor (person)
- Colin Bonini — cosponsor (person)
- Dave G. Lawson — cosponsor (person)
- David L. Wilson — cosponsor (person)
- David P. Sokola — cosponsor (person)
- Ernesto B. Lopez — cosponsor (person)
- Gerald W. Hocker — cosponsor (person)
- John "Jack" Walsh — cosponsor (person)
- Kyle Evans Gay — cosponsor (person)
- Marie Pinkney — cosponsor (person)
- Melissa Minor-Brown — cosponsor (person)
- Michael F. Smith — cosponsor (person)
- Ruth Briggs King — cosponsor (person)
- S. Elizabeth Lockman — cosponsor (person)
- Sarah McBride — cosponsor (person)
- Spiros Mantzavinos — cosponsor (person)
- Stephanie L. Hansen — cosponsor (person)
- Trey Paradee — cosponsor (person)
- Valerie Longhurst — cosponsor (person)
- William Bush — cosponsor (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2022-05-09** Introduced and Assigned to Education Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2022-05-18** Reported Out of Committee (Education) in Senate with 4 Favorable, 2 On Its Merits `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2022-05-19** Passed By Senate. Votes: 21 YES `passage`
- **2022-06-02** Assigned to Education Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2022-06-15** Reported Out of Committee (Education) in House with 3 Favorable, 8 On Its Merits `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2022-06-28** Passed By House. Votes: 41 YES `passage`
- **2022-08-19** Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/027bad8b-bacf-4ff7-b04d-4edb6c85d155`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).