By Solis                                               H.B. No. 470
       74R2891 KKA-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to preventing children from standing on a school bus that
    1-3  is in motion.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 21.173, Education Code, is amended to
    1-6  read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 21.173.  Standees.  A <(a)  Except as otherwise provided
    1-8  by this section, a> school district <that receives funding under
    1-9  Subsection (h) of Section 16.156 of this code> may not require or
   1-10  allow a child to stand on a school bus that is in motion.
   1-11        <(b)  A school district may apply to the commissioner of
   1-12  education for permission to operate a school bus with standees.  If
   1-13  the commissioner finds good cause, the commissioner may order that
   1-14  the district be permitted to operate the school bus with standees.>
   1-15        <(c)  If a district's application under Subsection (b) of
   1-16  this section is not acted on within a reasonable amount of time as
   1-17  determined by rule of the State Board of Education permission to
   1-18  operate buses with standees is considered to have been granted
   1-19  without regard to subsequent action by the commissioner.>
   1-20        <(d)  A school district that operates a bus with standees
   1-21  under Subsection (b) or (c) of this section may not operate one or
   1-22  more buses with standees for more than a total of 10 days during
   1-23  any school year, and the district may not permit more than one
   1-24  child per seat to stand while a bus is in motion.>
    2-1        <(e)  The State Board of Education shall adopt rules
    2-2  necessary to carry out this section.  The rules shall include
    2-3  guidelines describing situations that justify operation of a bus
    2-4  with standees and shall provide a mechanism that ensures that
    2-5  applications under Subsection (b) of this section are acted on
    2-6  without delay.>
    2-7        SECTION 2.  Section 3A, Chapter 280, Acts of the 53rd
    2-8  Legislature, Regular Session, 1953 (Article 6701d-1, Vernon's Texas
    2-9  Civil Statutes), is repealed.
   2-10        SECTION 3.  Section 16.156(h), Education Code, is repealed.
   2-11        SECTION 4.  This Act applies beginning with the 1995-1996
   2-12  school year.
   2-13        SECTION 5.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-14  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-15  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-16  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-17  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-18  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-19  passage, and it is so enacted.