By Garcia                                             H.B. No. 1251
         76R4429 CAS-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to information concerning students who drop out of public
 1-3     school.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 39.052(c), Education Code, is amended to
 1-6     read as follows:
 1-7           (c)  The commissioner shall adopt rules for requiring
 1-8     dissemination of appropriate student performance portions of campus
 1-9     report cards annually to the parent[, guardian, conservator,] or
1-10     other person having lawful control of each student at the campus.
1-11     In the case of a report card relating to a high school campus, the
1-12     portions of campus report cards disseminated to the parent or other
1-13     person having lawful control of a student must include information
1-14     concerning the number and percentage of students who, for the most
1-15     recent three-year or four-year period, depending on the grade
1-16     levels offered at the campus, started high school at the campus and
1-17     dropped out of school before graduating.  The parent or other
1-18     person having lawful control of a former campus student who has
1-19     dropped out of school shall also be provided the information
1-20     required by this subsection as soon as practicable after the
1-21     student drops out of school.  On written request, the school
1-22     district shall provide a copy of a campus report card to any other
1-23     party.
1-24           SECTION 2.  Not later than January 1, 2000, the commissioner
 2-1     of education shall adopt rules in accordance with Section
 2-2     39.052(c), Education Code, as amended by this Act.  Those rules
 2-3     apply to public school campus report cards for the 2000-2001 school
 2-4     year and thereafter.
 2-5           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
 2-6     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
 2-7     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
 2-8     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-9     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
2-10     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
2-11     passage, and it is so enacted.