By Harris                                              S.B. No. 352
       74R1472 CAS-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to authorizing a school district to require students to
    1-3  wear uniforms.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Subchapter Z, Chapter 21, Education Code, is
    1-6  amended by adding Section 21.940 to read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 21.940.  SCHOOL UNIFORMS.  (a)  The board of trustees of
    1-8  a school district may adopt rules that require students at a school
    1-9  in the district to wear school uniforms if the board determines
   1-10  that the requirement would improve the learning environment at the
   1-11  school.
   1-12        (b)  A parent or guardian of a student assigned to attend a
   1-13  school at which students are required to wear school uniforms may
   1-14  choose for the student to be exempted from the requirement or to
   1-15  transfer to a school at which students are not required to wear
   1-16  uniforms and at which space is available if the parent or guardian
   1-17  provides a written statement that, as determined by the board of
   1-18  trustees, states a bona fide religious or philosophical objection
   1-19  to the requirement.
   1-20        (c)  Students at a school at which uniforms are required
   1-21  shall wear the uniforms beginning on the first day of the school
   1-22  year following the school year in which the board of trustees
   1-23  adopts the rules that require the uniforms.
   1-24        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-1  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-2  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-3  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-4  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-5  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-6  passage, and it is so enacted.