For the purposes of this article the following definitions apply:

(a) (1) “Affirmative action employment program” means planned activities designed to seek, hire, and promote persons who are underrepresented in the work force compared to their numbers in the population, including individuals with disabilities, women, and persons of minority racial and ethnic backgrounds. It is a conscious, deliberate step taken by a hiring authority to assure equal employment opportunity for all staff, both certificated and classified. These programs require the employer to make additional efforts to recruit, employ, and promote members of groups formerly excluded at the various levels of responsibility who are qualified or may become qualified through appropriate training or experience within a reasonable length of time. These programs should be designed to remedy the exclusion, whatever its cause.

(2) Affirmative action requires imaginative, energetic, and sustained action by each employer to devise recruiting, training, and career advancement opportunities that will result in an equitable representation of women and minorities in relation to all employees of the employer.

(b) “Goals and timetables” means projected new levels of employment of women and minority racial and ethnic groups to be attained on an annual schedule, given the expected turnover in the work force and the availability of persons who are qualified or may become qualified through appropriate training or experience within a reasonable length of time. Goals are not quotas or rigid proportions. They should relate both to the qualitative and quantitative needs of the employer.

(c) “Public education agency” means the Department of Education, each office of the county superintendent of schools, and the governing board of each school district in California.

(Amended by Stats. 2004, Ch. 788, Sec. 2. Effective January 1, 2005.)