HBA-MPM H.B. 14 77(R)    BILL ANALYSIS


Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 14
By: Corte
Public Education
3/26/2001
Introduced



BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE 

Increasingly, teachers and other school employees in Texas schools are
becoming victims of assault by students.  According to the United States
Department of Education, over a five-year period from 1994 through 1998,
teachers were the victims of approximately 1,755,000 nonfatal crimes at
schools nationwide, including 1,087,000 thefts and 668,000 violent crimes
such as rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple
assault.  Current law specifies that simple assault on an educator is not
an offense that automatically warrants expulsion.  Students are only
expelled from school for committing aggravated assault, including assault
with a weapon or that causes serious bodily harm.  A goal of all schools is
to provide a safe environment for educators to teach and students to learn.
House Bill 14 establishes simple assault against a public school employee
as an offense for which expulsion of the offending student is automatic. 

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does
not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state
officer, department, agency, or institution. 

ANALYSIS

House Bill 14 amends the Education Code to require a student who
intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes bodily injury to a school
employee on school property or at a school-sponsored activity to be
expelled.  The bill requires a student who intentionally, knowingly, or
recklessly causes bodily injury to a person other than a school employee
within 300 feet of school property or while attending a schoolsponsored or
school-related activity to be placed in an alternative education program. 

EFFECTIVE DATE

On passage, or if the Act does not receive the necessary vote, the Act
takes effect September 1, 2001. The Act applies beginning with the
2001-2002 school year.