By Turner of Harris                                    H.B. No. 217

      75R825 KKA-D                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to transportation of students attending a juvenile justice

 1-3     alternative education program.

 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 37.011, Education Code, is amended by

 1-6     adding Subsection (j) to read as follows:

 1-7           (j)  A school district shall provide transportation to and

 1-8     from a juvenile justice alternative education program for each

 1-9     student who is enrolled in the district on the date a juvenile

1-10     court orders the student to attend the program and who resides two

1-11     or more miles from the program campus, measured along the shortest

1-12     route that may be traveled on public roads.  The district must

1-13     ensure that students attending the program are transported

1-14     separately from students not attending the program.

1-15           SECTION 2.  Section 37.012(a), Education Code, is amended to

1-16     read as follows:

1-17           (a)  The school district in which a student is enrolled on

1-18     the date a juvenile court orders the student to attend a juvenile

1-19     justice alternative education program shall transfer to the

1-20     juvenile board in charge of the juvenile justice alternative

1-21     education program for the portion of the school year for which the

1-22     juvenile justice alternative education program provides educational

1-23     services funds equal to the district's average per student

1-24     expenditure in alternative education programs under Section 37.008,

 2-1     minus the district's average per student transportation

 2-2     expenditure.

 2-3           SECTION 3.  This Act applies beginning with the 1997-1998

 2-4     school year.

 2-5           SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the

 2-6     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-7     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

 2-8     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

 2-9     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

2-10     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

2-11     passage, and it is so enacted.