Yes, but being told to leave is not enough by itself. Under Penal Code section 626.8, you must have had no lawful business on school property, your presence or acts must have interfered with or disrupted the school, and one more thing must be true: you stayed after a proper request to leave, came back within seven days, built a pattern of unauthorized entry, or willfully or knowingly created a disruption intended to threaten the immediate physical safety of a pupil in preschool through grade 8. At a public school, a separate registration law can also apply to visitors who are not students, parents or guardians of students, or school staff.

What Penal Code 626.8 requires

Penal Code section 626.8(a) applies to a person who comes into a school building or onto school grounds, or an adjacent street, sidewalk, or public way, “without lawful business thereon,” and whose presence or acts “interfere with the peaceful conduct of the activities of the school” or disrupt the school, its pupils, or school activities. “Lawful business” means a reason for being there that is not prohibited by a statute, an ordinance, or a regulation adopted under one. A “school” is any preschool, or any public or private school with kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 12. Those conditions alone are not a crime. The statute makes them a misdemeanor only if one of four triggers also applies.

The four triggers

  1. Staying after being asked to leave by a person the statute lists: the school’s chief administrative official or that official’s designated representative, a member of a school district security or police department, a city police officer, a sheriff or deputy sheriff, or a California Highway Patrol officer. A request from someone outside that list, such as an employee who is not the official’s designated representative, does not satisfy this trigger.
  2. Coming back within seven days of being asked to leave by one of those listed people. Under subdivision (d), a person who directs you to leave under the first trigger must tell you that coming back within seven days is a crime.
  3. A continued pattern of unauthorized entry, which subdivision (c)(2) defines as at least two earlier occasions in the same school year on which you came onto the property without lawful business, interfered with or disrupted the school, and were asked to leave by one of the listed people.
  4. Willfully or knowingly creating a disruption with the intent to threaten the immediate physical safety of a pupil in preschool, kindergarten, or grades 1 to 8 who is arriving at, attending, or leaving school. This trigger does not depend on an earlier request to leave, a return, or a pattern, so a single incident can qualify. The no-lawful-business and interference conditions still apply, and it does not cover high school pupils, even though the statute’s definition of a school runs through grade 12.

Penalties, and how they escalate

Under section 626.8(b), a first conviction is punishable by a fine of up to $500, up to six months in county jail, or both. The range rises only with prior convictions of specific kinds: offenses defined in the same chapter of the Penal Code (Chapter 1, “Schools,” sections 626 to 626.11) or section 415.5, which covers fighting, loud and unreasonable noise, and certain offensive words in the buildings or on the grounds of a school, community college, or university.

  • One such prior conviction: 10 days to six months in county jail, or that jail term plus a fine of up to $500, and no release on probation, parole, or any other basis until at least 10 days have been served.
  • Two or more such prior convictions: 90 days to six months in county jail, or that jail term plus a fine of up to $500, with at least 90 days served before any release.

At a public school: the outsider registration law

Penal Code sections 627 to 627.10 set access rules for public schools. They apply to an “outsider,” which section 627.1 defines to exclude, among others, students of the school (a suspended student counts as an outsider), parents or guardians of a student of the school, employees of the school district, and people on the grounds at the school’s request. During school hours, which run from one hour before classes begin until one hour after they end, an outsider must register with the principal or a designee (section 627.2). Under section 627.7, an outsider who entered or stayed without registering, after being denied registration, or after registration was revoked commits a misdemeanor by failing to leave promptly when the principal, a designee, or a school security officer asks, or by failing to stay off the grounds for 7 days afterward, and faces as much as six months in the county jail, a fine no higher than $500, or both. A school district’s governing board may exempt its schools, or parts of their grounds, from this chapter (section 627.9).

Penal Code section 626.4 is a different route: the chief administrative officer of a school or college campus, or an officer or employee designated to maintain order there, may notify a person that consent to remain has been withdrawn, for no more than 14 days, when there is reasonable cause to believe the person willfully disrupted the campus’s orderly operation, and willfully and knowingly entering or remaining during that period is its own misdemeanor (up to $500, up to six months in county jail, or both) unless you come only to apply for reinstatement or to attend a hearing on the withdrawal.

Speech and assembly

Section 626.8(e) states that the section “shall not be utilized to impinge upon the lawful exercise of constitutionally protected rights of speech or assembly.”

Getting help

Whether you had lawful business on campus, whether your presence actually interfered with the school, whether the person who asked you to leave was one the statute lists, and which trigger the prosecution relies on are fact-specific questions. General trespassing law is a different statute, covered on our trespassing page. The Law Offices of David S. Chesley can walk through what happened on campus, who told you to leave, and what you were told. Call (800) 755-5174 if you are facing this charge.