By:  Luna                                     S.B. No. 462

         97S0295/1                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

                                       AN ACT

 1-1     relating to the residency requirement for admission into the public

 1-2     schools of a school district.

 1-3           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-4           SECTION 1.  Subsection (b), Section 25.001, Education Code,

 1-5     is amended to read as follows:

 1-6           (b)  The board of trustees of a school district or its

 1-7     designee shall admit into the public schools of the district free

 1-8     of tuition a person who is over five and younger than 21 years of

 1-9     age on the first day of September of the school year in which

1-10     admission is sought if:

1-11                 (1)  the person and either parent of the person reside

1-12     in the school district, or if the person does not reside in the

1-13     school district, one of the parents resides in the school district

1-14     and that parent has joint custody and is a joint managing

1-15     conservator of the person;

1-16                 (2)  the person and the person's guardian or other

1-17     person having lawful control of the person under a court order

1-18     reside within the school district;

1-19                 (3)  the person has established a separate residence

1-20     under Subsection (d);

1-21                 (4)  the person is homeless, as defined by 42 U.S.C.

1-22     Section 11302, regardless of the residence of the person, of either

1-23     parent of the person, or of the person's guardian or other person

 2-1     having lawful control of the person;

 2-2                 (5)  the person is a foreign exchange student placed

 2-3     with a host family that resides in the school district by a

 2-4     nationally recognized foreign exchange program, unless the school

 2-5     district has applied for and been granted a waiver by the

 2-6     commissioner under Subsection (e); or

 2-7                 (6)  the person resides in the school district and is

 2-8     18 years of age or older or the person's disabilities of minority

 2-9     have been removed.

2-10           SECTION 2.  This Act applies beginning with the 1997-1998

2-11     school year.

2-12           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the

2-13     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

2-14     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

2-15     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

2-16     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

2-17     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

2-18     passage, and it is so enacted.