Enrolled Bill Summary

            Senate Bill 894 amends the Education Code to require the commissioner of education to develop a process for auditing school district dropout records electronically and either develop or use existing systems and standards for audit reviews designed to identify districts that are at high risk of having inaccurate records and that consequently require on-site records monitoring. The bill prohibits on-site monitoring of a district if the audit indicates the district is not at high risk, and it provides a district identified as a high-risk district the opportunity to respond to that finding before any on-site monitoring begins. A district must respond within 30 days of being notified of that finding; if it does not respond within that time or if the response does not alter the finding, the bill requires the commissioner to order the on-site monitoring. The electronic audits provision replaces a previous requirement for each district to have its dropout records audited annually at its expense.

            Senate Bill 894 also allows the use of compensatory education funding to support certain programs at a campus where at least 40 percent of the students are educationally disadvantaged, rather than the 50 percent minimum threshold previously required for authorization, and it clarifies that programs serving students at risk of dropping out of school qualify for compensatory education funding. The bill also requires electronic reporting of district and campus expenditures of compensatory education funds and the development of a similar risk-based system for identifying districts that are at high risk of misusing funds or of inadequately reporting expenditures, with the consequences for a misuse of funds or a failure to take corrective action with regard to report procedures being a required local audit, on-site monitoring by the state, or, in the first case, both.