By:  Bernsen                                           S.B. No. 831
         99S0560/1                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                       AN ACT
 1-1     relating to parental notification of the employment of an
 1-2     inappropriately certified or uncertified teacher.
 1-3           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-4           SECTION 1.  Subchapter B, Chapter 21, Education Code, is
 1-5     amended by adding Section 21.057 to read as follows:
 1-6           Sec. 21.057.  PARENTAL NOTIFICATION.   (a)  A school district
 1-7     that assigns an inappropriately certified or uncertified teacher to
 1-8     the same classroom for more than 30 consecutive instructional days
 1-9     during the same school year shall provide written notice of the
1-10     assignment to a parent or guardian of each student in that
1-11     classroom.
1-12           (b)  The superintendent of the school district shall provide
1-13     the notice required by Subsection (a) not later than the 30th
1-14     instructional day after the date of the assignment of the
1-15     inappropriately certified or uncertified teacher.
1-16           (c)  The school district shall:
1-17                 (1)  make a good-faith effort to ensure that the notice
1-18     required by this section is provided in a bilingual form to any
1-19     parent or guardian whose primary language is not English;
1-20                 (2)  retain a copy of any notice provided under this
1-21     section; and
1-22                 (3)  make information relating to teacher certification
1-23     available to the public on request.
1-24           (d)  In this section, "inappropriately certified or
 2-1     uncertified teacher" means any teacher who does not have
 2-2     appropriate certification issued under this subchapter.
 2-3           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect beginning with the
 2-4     1999-2000 school year.
 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.