Enrolled Bill Summary

            House Bill 3573 amends the Education Code to allow a local school board to adopt a policy setting the number of excused absences a student may have to participate in an officially sponsored or sanctioned extracurricular activity. The act makes such local policy prevail over a conflicting State Board of Education policy but requires a local policy to permit at least 10 such absences during the school year.

            House Bill 3573 also transfers education board authority over University Interscholastic League rules and procedures governing extracurricular activities to the commissioner of education and limits that authority to approval or disapproval of those rules and procedures without the authority to modify them, and clarifies that the minimum three-week suspension from school required under the code's no-pass/no-play provisions must span at least three school weeks, exclusive of school breaks.

            These changes apply beginning September 1, 1999.