HBA-MPM H.B. 2062 77(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 2062 By: Tillery Public Education 4/16/2001 Introduced BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Texas Administrative Code requires that a student attend school for at least 4 hours per day to be counted in a school's average daily attendance (ADA) statistics as a full-time student. With the exception of charter schools, schools must also operate on a seven-hour school day. These requirements prevent public schools from being able to offer a self-paced program for students who are at risk for dropping out of school. House Bill 2062 authorizes a school district to implement self-paced programs for these students and provides that students in a self-paced program be counted when computing a district's ADA. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that rulemaking authority is expressly delegated to the commissioner of education in SECTION 1 (Section 27.081, Education Code) of this bill. ANALYSIS House Bill 2062 amends the Education Code to authorize a school district to implement a self-paced program for students at risk of dropping out of school or contract with a private or community-based public dropout recovery education program provider to operate a self-paced program on the district's behalf. The program must: _be available only to a student who is identified as an appropriate program participant and whose parents consent to the student's participation; _require a student to receive at least 10 hours of weekly instruction time; _allow a student to complete required curriculum at home at the student's pace; _provide for periodic monitoring of a student's progress; and _comply with any rules adopted by the commissioner of education. The bill requires the commissioner to include students in a self-paced program in the computation of the district's average daily attendance for funding purposes. 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.