By Garcia                                              H.B. No. 840
         76R148 AJA-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to admission to a public school under the public education
 1-3     grant program.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 29.201, Education Code, is amended to
 1-6     read as follows:
 1-7           Sec. 29.201.  PARENTAL CHOICE.   Notwithstanding any other
 1-8     provision of this code, as provided by this subchapter an eligible
 1-9     student is entitled, if the student's enrollment would not cause
1-10     the district as of the date of the student's enrollment to exceed
1-11     the class size limit prescribed by Section 25.112(a), to:
1-12                 (1)  [may] attend a public school in the district in
1-13     which the student resides; or
1-14                 (2)  [may] use a public education grant to attend any
1-15     other district chosen by the student's parent.
1-16           SECTION 2.  Section 29.203(d), Education Code, is amended to
1-17     read as follows:
1-18           (d)  A school district chosen by a student's parent under
1-19     Section 29.201 that has more acceptable applicants for attendance
1-20     under this subchapter than available positions may not [is entitled
1-21     to] accept or reject the application for the student to attend
1-22     school in that district by using [but may not use] criteria that
1-23     discriminate on the basis of a student's race, ethnicity, academic
1-24     achievement, athletic abilities, language proficiency, sex, or
 2-1     socioeconomic status.  The [A] school district [that has more
 2-2     acceptable applicants for attendance under this subchapter than
 2-3     available positions] must give priority to  students at risk of
 2-4     dropping out of school as defined by Section 29.081 and must fill
 2-5     the available positions by lottery.  However, to achieve continuity
 2-6     in education, a school district may give preference over at-risk
 2-7     students to enrolled students and to the siblings of enrolled
 2-8     students residing in the same household or other children residing
 2-9     in the same household as enrolled students for the convenience of
2-10     parents, guardians, or custodians of those children.
2-11           SECTION 3.  This Act applies beginning with the 1999-2000
2-12     school year.
2-13           SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the
2-14     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-15     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-16     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-17     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
2-18     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
2-19     passage, and it is so enacted.