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Governor Jerry Brown has signed a suicide prevention bill that seeks to amend the state’s Education Act and require schools to print suicide prevention hotlines on students’ identification cards.

SB 972, authored by Pasadena-area Senator Anthony Portantino, requires the printing of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, the Crisis Text Line, and a local suicide prevention hotline number, on the ID cards of students in public, charter, and private schools serving pupils in grades 7 to 12 and those in higher education.

The numbers associated with public education in California are truly immense. Nearly 10 million students, the vast majority of them children, attend kindergartens, elementary schools, high schools and colleges supported by upwards of $100 billion from taxpayers each year. The bottom line rationale is producing new generations of Californians who are creative, productive and civic-minded. SB 328, carried by Sen. Anthony Portantino, a Democrat from La Canada Flintridge, requires, with few exceptions, middle and high schools to begin classes no earlier than 8:30 a.m.