Enrolled Bill Summary

            Senate Bill 1026 amends the Education Code to allow the University of Houston-Clear Lake to establish and coordinate cooperative education programs under which it may employ high school and junior college students to work at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center on either a full-time or part-time basis. The act requires the space center to ensure that students' work is related to science, mathematics, or engineering to encourage study in those disciplines at a college or university, and it requires a school district or junior college district whose students participate in the program to determine, in cooperation with either the State Board of Education or the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, as applicable, the number and type of credit those students may earn toward a diploma, certificate, or associate degree.

            Senate Bill 1026 also allows the coordinating board to establish and coordinate a similar cooperative education program for a public senior college or university that would allow undergraduate or graduate students to work at the space center on a part-time or full-time basis while earning college credits.