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House Bill 130 |
House Author: Patrick et al. |
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Effective: Vetoed |
Senate Sponsor: Zaffirini et al. |
House Bill 130 amends the Education Code to require the commissioner of education, using funds appropriated for the purpose, to establish a program under which grants are awarded to school districts to implement an enhanced quality full-day prekindergarten program for children who are otherwise eligible for a district's half-day prekindergarten classes. The bill establishes priorities for the awarding of grants to school districts for each school year and establishes class size limits for prekindergarten classes implemented through the program. The bill requires each class to have at least one certified teacher with specified credentials in early childhood education, but if no certified teacher is available and program services are provided by a community provider under a contract with the district, it allows the provider to employ temporarily a teacher certified by the Council for Professional Recognition as a child development associate who has a minimum of three years' experience in early childhood education and is taking one or more college education courses emphasizing early childhood education. However, the provider must employ a properly credentialed teacher not later than the contract's third anniversary date. The bill requires a district to select and implement a curriculum that includes the prekindergarten guidelines established by the Texas Education Agency (TEA).
The bill requires a district providing an enhanced program to use at least 20 percent of its grant funds to contract with one or more eligible community providers for program services unless the commissioner waives that requirement on a documented showing that the area does not have a sufficient number of eligible providers, that the district did not receive applications or other indications of interest from eligible providers, or that the district and eligible providers interested in contracting with the district were unable to reach an agreement.
House Bill 130 sets forth specific eligibility criteria for a community provider to contract with a school district to provide an enhanced full-day prekindergarten program and requires a district and a provider contracting for program services to enter into a written contract governing the services to be provided. The bill establishes that the amount of reimbursement provided by a school district to a provider is negotiable between the district and the provider based on the services provided, subject to a minimum per-student reimbursement level imposed by the formula set forth in the bill. The bill prohibits a provider from denying enhanced program services to a student on the basis of race, religion, sex, ethnicity, national origin, or disability.
House Bill 130 imposes certain annual reporting requirements on a school district operating an enhanced program and requires TEA to collect and maintain information reported by a school district relating to certain reading diagnoses and information from the statewide standardized test given to students in the third grade; it also requires TEA to produce longitudinal student performance reports using student-level information collected for consecutive grade levels and to make the reports available to parents and the public. The bill requires the Legislative Budget Board to conduct, or contract for, an evaluation of the effectiveness of the enhanced program using the information reported to and collected by TEA and to deliver an interim report to the legislature containing the evaluation's preliminary results not later than December 1, 2012. The bill also sets forth the commissioner's duties regarding the role of regional education services centers in assisting school districts that participate in the enhanced program and regarding a determination of the amount of each grant awarded under the program, which is capped at $4 million per district or open-enrollment charter school per year.
House Bill 130 also extends the existing requirement for students in kindergarten through grade five to participate in moderate or vigorous daily physical activity for at least 30 minutes throughout the school year either as part of the district's physical education curriculum or through structured daily recess activity to a student enrolled in full-day prekindergarten and, to the extent practicable, to a student enrolled in prekindergarten on less than a full-day basis in the same manner and degree as a student in full-day prekindergarten.
Reason Given for Veto: "House Bill No. 130 would create a grant program to enable eligible school districts to implement or continue full-day prekindergarten programs. Eligibility would be limited to districts whose third grade students have scored above the state average on the reading portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) for the past three years. Of those eligible districts, any previous recipients of pre-kindergarten grant funding from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) would receive funding priority.
"With limited state resources dedicated to pre-kindergarten, grant money should be directed to districts with the greatest academic need. State funding should also be directed to programs demonstrating the most efficiency, thereby benefiting the largest number of Texas students.
"Pursuant to my veto of House Bill No. 130 and approval of the state budget, the $25 million appropriated for House Bill No. 130 should be used to expand the number of students served by the existing grant program. As a result, TEA will be equipped to provide assistance to half-day pre-kindergarten programs in districts whose third graders have scored below the state average on the reading portion of TAKS for the past three years.
"Under the funding formula for the existing grant program, $25 million would serve more than 27,000 students over the next biennium, which is 21,000 students more than the estimated 6,800 students that would have been served under the bill’s proposed program – or a 305 percent increase. Expanding our current grant program, rather than creating an additional pre-kindergarten program, will serve more students with greater needs."