By Ramsay, Averitt, Telford, Van de Putte               H.B. No. 90
       74R1463 KKA-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to a period of silence in public schools.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Subchapter Z, Chapter 21, Education Code, is
    1-5  amended by adding Section 21.940 to read as follows:
    1-6        Sec. 21.940.  PERIOD OF SILENCE.  At the beginning of the
    1-7  first class of each school day, all public school students shall
    1-8  observe a brief period of silence, not to exceed two minutes in
    1-9  duration, to be used according to the dictates of the individual
   1-10  conscience of each student.
   1-11        SECTION 2.  This Act applies beginning with the 1995-1996
   1-12  school year.
   1-13        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-14  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-15  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-16  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-17  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-18  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-19  passage, and it is so enacted.