| Yesterday, the House Public Education Committee passed both HB 2, the House’s school finance proposal, and SB 2 which they replaced with their updated version of their ESA plan. However, these bills were originally scheduled to be passed on Tuesday. Late Monday evening, official “runs” or estimates of the increases that would result from HB 2 were distributed to committee members and large disparities in the benefit to districts resulted in significant concern. Chairman Buckley and Speaker Burrows were not expecting the large disparities, and as a result, Chairman Buckley postponed the meeting to review the cause of the disparities and consider potential solutions. Ultimately, the bill was not further amended prior to being voted out on Thursday, but Chairman Buckley did commit to filing an amendment on the floor designed to reduce those disparities. These issues are not particularly surprising because the bill is extremely complex and reduces, eliminates, or restructures existing provisions of the school finance formula to pay for parts of the increased funding in the bill. As Chairman Buckley notes, increasing the Basic Allotment is the most equitable way to provide additional funding to schools, but when other funding structures are adjusted to pay for that increase, the actual increase to school districts begins to vary wildly. |
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Bills are prioritized based on the expected impact to the district or the level of public attention garnered by the bill, not based on the preferences of the district. High priority bills are either a state leadership priority, related to a Plano ISD legislative priority, would require significant resources to implement a change in district policy, practice, or procedures, or would otherwise significantly impact the district. |
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HOUSE FLOOR ACTION
This week, the House heard its first bills on the House floor and passed bills, sending them to the Senate. Three bills related to property taxes passed. - HB 195 requires county tax assessor-collectors to post information related to the percentage of tax revenue that is paid in recapture on the tax assessor-collector's website.
- HB 22 exempts all intangible business personal property from property taxation.
- HB 9/HJR 1 exempts the first $250,000 of appraised value of business personal property from property taxation.
HOUSE COMMITTEES Next week, the House Public Education Committee will hear 14 bills primarily dealing with student health and well-being. - HB 367 requires the parent of a student seeking an excused absence for a life-threatening illness to have a physician fill out a specific form adopted by the district that includes a statement that the illness is serious or life-threatening
- HB 497 requires districts to obtain written parental consent before providing behavioral or mental health services or treatment to a child, including contraceptives or informational materials related to family planning, human sexuality, or mental health
- HB 549 requires districts to ensure the availability of at least one airway clearance device on each campus, specifically designed to address foreign-body airway obstructions only if the campus receives donations or funds specifically allocated or donated for this purpose
- HB 983 makes personal information of educators maintained by TEA confidential and excepted from public information
- HB 1188 requires districts to refer students receiving special education services or students suspect to have an intellectual or developmental disability to a local intellectual and developmental disability authority for services of public benefits
- HB 1290 prohibits districts from including food containing specific additives in the free or reduced-price meal
- HB 1368 requires districts with more than 10,000 students to notify parents if the school lacks a full-time nurse, school counselor, or librarian for more than 30 consecutive instructional days within the same school year
- HB 2243 establishes the Texas Commission on Teacher Job Satisfaction and Retention, aiming to develop recommendations to enhance teacher job satisfaction and retention
- HB 2310 requires TEA and the Health and Human Services Commission and the Texas Workforce Commission to develop and implement a strategic plan to improve early learning and educational opportunities for young children with disabilities or developmental delays and outlines specific requirements
- HB 2849 requires the board of trustees to adopt a recess policy based on the model recess policies developed by the Department of State Health Services School Health Advisory Committee that specifies the number of minutes of weekly unstructured playtime and whether a student’s recess time may be withheld as a form of student discipline
- HB 3099 provides additional funding for adult high school charter programs
- HB 3546 allows districts to change the date on which they hold the general election for trustees to November
- HB 3629 prohibits a person from serving as a trustee if they’re required to register as a sex offender
- HB 3627 allows the Chair of the State Board of Education to employ personnel as needed to assist the board in fulfilling its duties
The House Committee on Governmental Affairs is also meeting Tuesday, and will hear HB 4317, which limits severance pay for Superintendents and Chief Executive Officers of charter schools or other political subdivisions to 20 weeks of pay and prohibits severance pay for those individuals if they are terminated for misconduct. SENATE COMMITTEES The Senate K-16 Education Committee will hear bills related to school district bonds, employee conduct, and other school safety bills. - SB 604 requires the Texas Permanent School Fund to post on their website a list of districts with existing bonds guaranteed by the PSF that have been downgraded to a speculative bond rating along with the bond’s outstanding balance.
- SB 843 requires TEA to develop and maintain a bond, tax, and project database to include specific detailed data and information related to school districts’ bonds, tax rates, and projects, including ballot language, projected I&S rates, election results, a list of projects funded by the bod, the use of bond proceeds, approved tax rate changes for M&O, and election outcomes.
- SB 1636 prohibits school districts from utilizing revenue generated from interest and sinking taxes to pay for deferred maintenance.
- SB 2395 prohibits the use of unspent bonds on anything other than the specific purposes for which the bonds were initially authorized or to retire the bonds.
- SB 571 prohibits a district or any contracting entity or subcontractors of entities providing services to a school district from hiring an individual for a position that will have duties that require them to be physically present at an instructional facility if they’ve been convicted of a felony or engaged in misconduct per the Interagency Reportable Conduct Search Engine.
- SB 1224 requires the superintendent to notify local law enforcement within 48 hours upon becoming aware of certain alleged educator misconduct.
- SB 1832 allows parents of students to choose between transferring their child to another public school campus or receiving funding to enroll their child in a private school, including homeschooling if an employee is convicted of or placed on deferred adjudication for an offense committed against the student, if the employee is the subject of a report for certain misconduct or engages in grooming against the student.
- SB 2392 requires principals or their designee to notify local law enforcement authorities within 72 hours if they have reasonable grounds to believe certain criminal activities have occurred on school property or during school-related activities, including deadly conduct, terroristic threats, drug-related offenses, possession of certain weapons, human trafficking, sexual offenses, and certain felonies, and other criminal offenses that could lead to student expulsion.
- SB 747 allows districts to expel or place a student in DAEP if they release intimate visual material of a minor that is created using AI. The bill also amends the definition of bullying to include the production or distribution of a video or image that appears to depict another student with the student’s intimate parts exposed or engaged in sexual conduct, including a video or image created using AI and requires a district’s anti-bullying policy to specifically address aforementioned incidents of bullying.
- SB 2623 establishes the School Safety Zones Task Force and prohibits the provision of homeless services within 1.5 miles of a school safety zone.
- SB 2624 prohibits navigation services for homeless individuals from being provided within 1.5 miles of an institution of higher education, playground, or a school.
- SB 2185 requires TEA to review districts that offer alternative language education methods and approve districts to receive an alternative language education allotment of 0.15 for a bilingual student and 0.05 for a non bilingual student if the student is in an alternative language education method using dual language immersion/one-way or two-way program model. The bill also requires a school district receiving an exception from bilingual education to include specific additional information related to alternative language education methods in the PEIMS report.
As a reminder, you can access a list of all bills scheduled for a hearing at any time using the “Bills Scheduled for a Hearing” button at the top of this email. |
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