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.