By:  Bivins                                            S.B. No. 520

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

                                       AN ACT

 1-1     relating to eligibility to serve as a public member of the State

 1-2     Board for Educator Certification.

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

 1-4           SECTION 1.  Subsection (a), Section 21.033, Education Code,

 1-5     is amended to read as follows:

 1-6           (a)  The State Board for Educator Certification is composed

 1-7     of 15 members.  The commissioner of education shall appoint an

 1-8     employee of the agency to represent the commissioner as a nonvoting

 1-9     member.  The commissioner of higher education shall appoint an

1-10     employee of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to

1-11     represent the commissioner as a nonvoting member.  The governor

1-12     shall appoint a dean of a college of education in this state as a

1-13     nonvoting member.  The remaining 12 members are appointed by the

1-14     governor with the advice and consent of the senate, as follows:

1-15                 (1)  four members must be teachers employed in public

1-16     schools;

1-17                 (2)  two members must be public school administrators;

1-18                 (3)  one member must be a public school counselor; and

1-19                 (4)  five members must be citizens who are not and have

1-20     not, in the five years preceding appointment, been employed by a

1-21     public school district or by an educator preparation program in an

1-22     institution of higher education.

1-23           SECTION 2.  Subdivision (4), Subsection (a), Section 21.033,

 2-1     Education Code, as amended by this Act, applies only to a person

 2-2     appointed as a public member to the State Board for Educator

 2-3     Certification on or after the effective date of this Act.

 2-4           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the

 2-5     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-6     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

 2-7     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

 2-8     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

 2-9     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

2-10     passage, and it is so enacted.