By Pitts                                               H.B. No. 449
         76R1819 KKA-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to a requirement that a public school principal provide
 1-3     notice to a juvenile probation department before suspending or
 1-4     expelling a student.
 1-5           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-6           SECTION 1.  Subchapter A, Chapter 37, Education Code, is
 1-7     amended by adding Section 37.0041 to read as follows:
 1-8           Sec. 37.0041.  PRIOR NOTIFICATION TO JUVENILE PROBATION
 1-9     DEPARTMENT.  (a)  Except as provided by Subsection (b), the
1-10     principal of a public  primary or secondary school, or a person
1-11     designated by the principal, shall notify the juvenile probation
1-12     department for the county in which the school is located before
1-13     suspending a student as provided by Section 37.005 or expelling a
1-14     student as provided by Section 37.007.
1-15           (b)  If the principal or person designated by the principal
1-16     orders the immediate expulsion of a student as authorized by
1-17     Section 37.019, the principal or person designated shall notify
1-18     the juvenile probation department immediately after expelling the
1-19     student.
1-20           (c)  The notification required by this section is an
1-21     additional requirement that does not replace or otherwise affect
1-22     the duty of a school district to provide notification under Section
1-23     37.010.
1-24           SECTION 2.  This Act applies beginning with the 1999-2000
 2-1     school year.
 2-2           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
 2-3     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
 2-4     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
 2-5     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-6     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
 2-7     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
 2-8     passage, and it is so enacted.