TASA: House Public Education Committee votes out 13 bills, hears 31
Update from Texas Association of School Administrators:
The House Public Education Committee met Tuesday, April 11, to hear public testimony on these 31 bills. The committee also passed the following bills (on which testimony was heard March 28 and April 4) out of committee. They will now go to the full House.
HB 467 (Murphy, et al.) would amend the Education Code related to the calculation of the capacity of the bond guarantee program. A substitute bill was passed.
HB 713 (Wu, et al.), like SB 160 (Rodríguez, et al.), would prohibit the commissioner and TEA from adopting or implementing a performance indicator in any agency monitoring system, including the performance-based agency monitoring system, that evaluates the total number of students or percentage of students who receive special education services. This bill is intended to end the controversial 8.5 percent special education indicator in TEA policy that has functioned as a cap. A substitute bill was passed.
HB 743 (Farrar, et al.) would add a new section to the Education Code that stipulates that social workers may provide social work services to students and families in a school or district and collaborate with school administrators and other school professionals to enhance students’ learning environments.
HB 2051 (Huberty) would increase the New Instructional Facility Allotment (NIFA) from $250 to $1,000 per ADA and expand NIFA to students attending remodeled/renovated schools. A substitute bill was passed.
HB 1081 (Arévalo) would expand NIFA to students attending a renovated or repurposed facility or a leased facility operating for the first time as an instructional facility. A substitute bill was passed.
HB 1720 (Phillips) would require a school administrator or nurse of a public elementary school who determines or otherwise becomes aware that a child enrolled in the school has lice to provide written or electronic notice of that fact to the parent of the child and to the parent of each child assigned to the same classroom as the child with lice without identifying the child with lice.
HB 2205 (Kuempel) would require a school district or open-enrollment charter school employee to report child abuse or neglect to both the Department of Family and Protective Services and a local or state law enforcement agency.
HB 3157 (Dennis Bonnen) would allow an individual who attends a public or private school to be screened using photoscreening to detect vision disorders.
HB 1342 (Parker) would require that anti-victimization programs that school districts are required to provide include annual age-appropriate, evidence-based child sexual abuse prevention training designed to promote self-protection, prevent sexual abuse of children, and reduce child pregnancy. A substitute bill was passed.
HB 2130 (Roberts, et al.) would require TEA to conduct a study on the impact of the statewide assessment program on students in special education programs. A substitute bill was passed.
HB 2442 (Ken King) would change law to refer to the required minutes of operation (rather than instruction) required of public school districts, charter schools, and other education programs. A substitute bill was passed.
HB 1076 (Oliverson, et al.) would delete the specific requirement that schoolchildren in grades 6 and 9 receive spinal screenings. Instead, the executive commissioner of Health & Human Services would be instructed to consider the most recent nationally accepted and peer-reviewed scientific research in determining the appropriate ages for conducting the spinal screening. A substitute bill was passed.
HB 1776 (Ashby), heard on March 21, would eliminate the required U.S. history end-of-course assessment and replace it with the civics test administered by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A substitute bill was passed.