By:  Shapiro, Carona, Lucio                             S.B. No. 42
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                       AN ACT
 1-1     relating to authorizing school districts to offer drug testing
 1-2     programs.
 1-3           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-4           SECTION 1.  Chapter 38, Education Code, is amended by adding
 1-5     Section 38.011 to read as follows:
 1-6           Sec. 38.011.  DRUG TESTING PROGRAM.  (a)  In this section:
 1-7                 (1)  "Controlled substance" and "marihuana" have the
 1-8     meanings assigned by Chapter 481, Health and Safety Code.
 1-9                 (2)  "Parent" includes a person standing in parental
1-10     relation.
1-11           (b)  A school district may provide a drug testing program
1-12     under which a student, at the request of the student's parent, is
1-13     randomly tested for the presence in the student's body of marihuana
1-14     or a controlled substance.
1-15           (c)  A school district that provides a program under this
1-16     section shall charge the parent of a student participating in the
1-17     program a fee to cover the costs of administering the program and
1-18     conducting the drug tests.
1-19           (d)  Results of a drug test conducted under this section are
1-20     confidential and, unless required by court order, may be disclosed
1-21     only to the student and the student's parent.  A school district
1-22     providing a program under this section shall ensure that the
1-23     student's parent receives test results directly from the lab
1-24     analyzing the test or from an appropriate person who is not
 2-1     employed by the district.
 2-2           (e)  This section shall have no effect on any other drug
 2-3     testing program in a school district.
 2-4           SECTION 2.  This Act applies beginning with the 1999-2000
 2-5     school year.
 2-6           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
 2-7     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
 2-8     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
 2-9     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-10     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
2-11     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
2-12     passage, and it is so enacted.
2-13                          COMMITTEE AMENDMENT NO. 1
2-14           Amend Section 1, line 16, to strike word shall and insert
2-15     "may"
2-16                                                                Oliveira