By:  Bivins                                            S.B. No. 521

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

                                       AN ACT

 1-1     relating to parental consent for certain activities in public

 1-2     schools.

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

 1-4           SECTION 1.  Subsection (b), Section 26.009, Education Code,

 1-5     is amended to read as follows:

 1-6           (b)  An employee of a school district is not required to

 1-7     obtain the consent of a child's parent before the employee may make

 1-8     a videotape of a child or authorize the recording of a child's

 1-9     voice if the videotape or voice recording is to be used only for:

1-10                 (1)  purposes of safety, including the maintenance of

1-11     order and discipline in common areas of the school or on school

1-12     buses;

1-13                 (2)  a purpose related to a cocurricular or

1-14     extracurricular activity; [or]

1-15                 (3)  a purpose related to regular classroom

1-16     instruction;

1-17                 (4)  a purpose related to the evaluation of an

1-18     educator; or

1-19                 (5)  media coverage of the school.

1-20           SECTION 2.  This Act applies beginning with the 1997-1998

1-21     school year.

1-22           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the

1-23     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-1     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

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

 2-3     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

 2-4     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

 2-5     passage, and it is so enacted.