Lake Elsinore boy’s death leads to new extreme weather law in CA aimed at protecting students
By Leticia Juarez
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LAKE ELSINORE, California (KABC) — Yahushua Robinson was the youngest in his family, born after his parents had lost his older brother.
“He brought us together, made us laugh, he was an avid dancer. He just loved to love people,” said his mother, Janee Robinson.
Last August, Robinson and her family hit with another tragedy. On the day the 12-year-old boy died, the temperature that morning in Lake Elsinore was approaching 100 degrees.
The Canyon Lake Middle School student had been in P.E. class, running with his classmates when he collapsed.
“This should have never happened to our son. This should have never happened,” his mother said.
The Riverside County Coroner’s Bureau found that the boy died of a heart defect, with both heat and physical exertion as contributing factors.
Out of his tragic death, the Robinson family pushed for Yahushua’s Law, a piece of legislation aimed at creating extreme weather guidelines for all California schools.
Janee, who is also a P.E. teacher in the same school district her son attended, said on the day he died, she had kept her students indoors.
“These students should not have been outside, and to think that my child died while my students were in,” she said.
On Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Yahushua’s Law, which will require the California Department of Education to “establish uniform guidelines and requirements for public schools in order to ensure the protection of pupils from physical activity during extreme weather conditions.”
Guidelines Janee believes would have spared her son’s life.
“This law would have saved my son because it would have told or set a standardized measure of students being in or out,” she said.
Yahushua’s Law will go into effect in July 2026.
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