House Bill 120 | Effective: See below |
House Author: Bell, Keith et al. | House Committee: Public Education |
Senate Sponsor: Schwertner et al. | Senate Committee: Education K-16 |
House Bill 120 amends the Education Code to revise and set out provisions relating to college, career, and military readiness in public schools. Among other provisions, the bill does the following:
- requires the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to post certain data relating to postsecondary outcomes on its website and, using that data, to create a quantifiable statewide goal for public school students to achieve career readiness;
- requires the college, career, and military readiness plan adopted by the board of trustees of a public school district to include specific annual goals for student completion while enrolled in high school of postsecondary credentials and annual goals for the outcomes of the district's annual graduates at one, three, and five years after graduation from high school;
- requires that a district's college, career, and military readiness plan be approved by majority vote of the board of trustees and revises requirements for reporting regarding such a plan;
- extends eligibility for enrollment at no cost in a dual credit course under the Financial Aid for Swift Transfer (FAST) program to certain high school graduates involved with the Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P‑TECH) program or the Rural Pathway Excellence Partnership (R‑PEP) program;
- requires the state plan for career and technology education (CTE) to include procedures designed to ensure that a course of study offered under a Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) program is considered a CTE program;
- requires a district or open‑enrollment charter school, as part of the high school registration process and annually, to provide certain notice regarding military‑related training programs to the parent or guardian of each student enrolled in a JROTC program;
- with respect to subsidies for certification examination under the CTE program, increases from one to two the maximum number of subsidies that an eligible student may receive, makes a teacher's entitlement to a subsidy for passing a cybersecurity certification examination applicable more broadly to any CTE certification examination, and includes costs paid for associated fingerprinting or criminal history record information review among the examination costs that may be reimbursed;
- authorizes a district that has participated in the R‑PEP program to continue to participate in the program regardless of the number of students in average daily attendance in the district for the current school year and caps at $5 million the total amount of grants awarded for a school year to assist with the costs of planning, developing, establishing, or expanding R‑PEP program partnerships;
- expands the information school counselors must provide to a high school student and their parent or guardian about postsecondary education and requires TEA to make available to school counselors a related online training annually; and
- provides the option for high school students in the spring of the 11th grade or during the 12th grade to select and take once, at state cost, a nationally recognized career readiness test that measures foundational workforce skills.
Additionally, the bill makes the following changes with respect to the foundation school program effective September 1, 2025:
- extends entitlement to the benefits of the foundation school program to certain high school graduates involved with the P‑TECH or R‑PEP program;
- authorizes a district's use of foundation school program funds for the purposes of educating a student who has graduated from high school but is enrolled in the district in a program through which the student may earn dual credit and provides district graduates with certain advising support during the first two years after graduation;
- increases to $150 the additional CTE allotment provided for each student enrolled in a campus designated as a P‑TECH school and also entitles a district to that additional allotment for each student who completes a course of study offered under the P‑TECH program or the R‑PEP program, regardless of whether the student is enrolled in the district that provides the course of study;
- classifies courses offered under a JROTC program as an approved CTE program for purposes of the CTE allotment;
- authorizes an applicable district to receive R‑PEP allotment funding for up to 110 percent of the number of qualifying students for the school year immediately preceding the school year in which the district's enrollment first reached 1,600 or more;
- raises the annual cap on the total amount of state funding for R‑PEP allotments and outcomes bonuses to $20 million;
- raises the cap on the amount appropriated for new instructional facility allotments in a school year to $150 million and includes a renovated portion of an instructional facility to be used for the first time to provide high‑cost and undersubscribed CTE programs as a "new instructional facility" for purposes of such an allotment; and
- sets a cap on the total amount that may be used for reimbursement for certification examination subsidies.
House Bill 120 amends the Labor Code to require the enhanced wage filings by employers under the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act to include certain employment information necessary for the Texas Workforce Commission to conduct a regional labor demand assessment. The bill also revises provisions relating to the inventory developed by the industry‑based certification advisory council.
Except as otherwise provided, the bill takes effect June 20, 2025.