By Gallego                                            H.B. No. 3770
         76R5905 KKA-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to the ability of certain public school students to attend
 1-3     school at campuses other than those to which the students are
 1-4     regularly assigned.
 1-5           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-6           SECTION 1.  Subchapter B, Chapter 25, Education Code, is
 1-7     amended by adding Section 25.0341 to read as follows:
 1-8           Sec. 25.0341.  ASSIGNMENTS AND TRANSFERS FOR CERTAIN
 1-9     STUDENTS.  (a)  A student's parent or other person standing in
1-10     parental relation to the student may request assignment or transfer
1-11     of the student to a campus in the school district in which the
1-12     student is entitled to attend school under Section 25.001 other
1-13     than the campus to which the student is regularly assigned if the
1-14     student:
1-15                 (1)  during the preceding school year, failed to
1-16     perform satisfactorily on an assessment instrument in reading or
1-17     mathematics under Section 39.023(a), (b), or (c); and
1-18                 (2)  is assigned to attend a campus that was, at any
1-19     time in the preceding three years, identified as low-performing by
1-20     the commissioner under Subchapter D, Chapter 39, on a basis other
1-21     than the dropout rate.
1-22           (b)  A parent of a student described by Subsection (a) or a
1-23     person standing in parental relation to the student may submit a
1-24     list to the school district of not more than five other campuses in
 2-1     the district, in order of preference, that the parent or other
 2-2     person would prefer the student to attend.  A school district shall
 2-3     assign or transfer the student to the highest-ranked campus on the
 2-4     list at which space is available.
 2-5           (c)  If a district is unable to provide a modified assignment
 2-6     or transfer under this section to a student because of the limited
 2-7     number of facilities in the district or because of a lack of
 2-8     available space at any other appropriate campus, the district shall
 2-9     provide remedial services to the student.  The district shall also
2-10     provide the student with transportation to the remedial services if
2-11     the student is entitled to receive transportation to the campus at
2-12     which the student regularly attends school.
2-13           (d)  A school district shall maintain a waiting list of
2-14     students who have been denied modified assignments or transfers
2-15     under this section because of a lack of available space.  The
2-16     district shall grant the modified assignments or transfers during
2-17     the school year as space becomes available.
2-18           (e)  A school district shall give priority to students
2-19     seeking modified assignments or transfers under this section over
2-20     students seeking  modified assignments or transfers under Section
2-21     25.033.
2-22           (f)  A school district shall maintain records relating to
2-23     each modified assignment or transfer requested under this section,
2-24     and report the disposition of each request through the Public
2-25     Education Information Management System (PEIMS) under Section
2-26     42.006.
2-27           SECTION 2.  This Act applies beginning with the 1999-2000
 3-1     school year.
 3-2           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
 3-3     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
 3-4     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
 3-5     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 3-6     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
 3-7     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
 3-8     passage, and it is so enacted.