By Shields                                             H.B. No. 907
       74R1639 KKA-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to prekindergarten classes in public schools.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Sections 21.136(a) and (f), Education Code, are
    1-5  amended to read as follows:
    1-6        (a)  Any school district may offer prekindergarten classes<,
    1-7  but a district shall offer prekindergarten classes if the district
    1-8  identifies 15 or more eligible children who are at least four years
    1-9  of age.  A school district may offer prekindergarten classes if the
   1-10  district identifies 15 or more eligible children who are at least
   1-11  three years of age>.
   1-12        (f)  Each school district that offers a prekindergarten class
   1-13  shall develop a system to notify the population in the district
   1-14  with children who are eligible for enrollment <in a prekindergarten
   1-15  class> of the availability of the class.  The system must include
   1-16  public notices issued in English and Spanish.
   1-17        SECTION 2.  Section 21.136(d), Education Code, is repealed.
   1-18        SECTION 3.  This Act applies beginning with the 1995-1996
   1-19  school year.
   1-20        SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-21  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-22  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-23  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-24  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-1  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-2  passage, and it is so enacted.