By: Moncrief S.B. No. 1363
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
1-1 relating to the provision of educational materials in the public
1-2 schools to blind or visually handicapped students.
1-3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-4 SECTION 1. Subsection (e), Section 12.03, Education Code, is
1-5 amended to read as follows:
1-6 (e) The Central Education Agency shall require a publisher
1-7 of a textbook that is adopted by the State Board of Education to
1-8 furnish the agency with computerized textbook files for the
1-9 production of braille textbooks if such computerized textbook files
1-10 are requested by the State Board of Education. Publishers will
1-11 arrange the computerized textbook files in one of several optional
1-12 formats specified by the State Board of Education <computer
1-13 diskettes for literary subjects in the American Standard Code for
1-14 Information Interchange (ASCII) from which Braille versions of the
1-15 textbook can be produced. The publisher will furnish the agency
1-16 with computer diskettes in ASCII for non-literary subjects, e.g.,
1-17 natural sciences, computer science, mathematics, and music, when
1-18 Braille specialty code translation software is available>.
1-19 SECTION 2. Subdivisions (3) and (6), Subsection (e-1),
1-20 Section 12.03, Education Code, are amended to read as follows:
1-21 (3) Public members of the commission who are not
1-22 employed by publishing companies that have contracts with the
1-23 Central Education Agency are <shall serve at their own expense and
2-1 are not> entitled to reimbursement by the state for their actual
2-2 transportation and lodging expenses related to participation in the
2-3 commission's activities, provided funds are available for such
2-4 reimbursement from gifts and grants received by the Central
2-5 Education Agency. The Central Education Agency may accept gifts
2-6 and grants to provide the reimbursement under this subdivision.
2-7 The agency shall deposit the gifts and grants in the state treasury
2-8 to the credit of a special fund to be used only for reimbursement
2-9 under this subdivision. Representatives of a state agency shall be
2-10 reimbursed from the funds of that agency.
2-11 (6) Unless continued in existence by further Acts of
2-12 the Texas Legislature, the commission is abolished on September 1,
2-13 1995 <1993>.
2-14 SECTION 3. Section 12.03, Education Code, is amended by
2-15 adding Subsection (f) to read as follows:
2-16 (f) The State Board of Education is authorized to acquire,
2-17 purchase, and contract for free ancillary and supplementary
2-18 instructional materials for the education of blind and visually
2-19 handicapped public school students whenever publishers provide such
2-20 materials to school districts for use by sighted students at no
2-21 charge to the districts. The State Board of Education shall not
2-22 require publishers to provide computer diskettes for ancillary or
2-23 supplementary instructional materials.
2-24 SECTION 4. The importance of this legislation and the
2-25 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
3-1 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
3-2 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
3-3 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
3-4 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
3-5 passage, and it is so enacted.