76R14981                          
         By Gallegos                                           S.B. No. 1784
         Substitute the following for S.B. No. 1784:
         By Sadler                                         C.S.S.B. No. 1784
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to school district use of community-based dropout recovery
 1-3     education programs to provide alternative education programs for
 1-4     certain students.
 1-5           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-6           SECTION 1.  Section 29.081(e), Education Code, is amended to
 1-7     read as follows:
 1-8           (e)  A school district may use a private or public
 1-9     community-based dropout recovery education program to provide
1-10     alternative education programs for students at risk of dropping out
1-11     of school.  The programs must:
1-12                 (1)  provide not less than four hours of instructional
1-13     time per day;
1-14                 (2)  employ as faculty and administrators persons with
1-15     baccalaureate or advanced degrees;
1-16                 (3)  provide at least one instructor for each 28
1-17     students;
1-18                 (4)  perform satisfactorily according to performance
1-19     indicators and accountability standards adopted for alternative
1-20     education programs by the commissioner; and
1-21                 (5)  comply with this title and rules adopted under
1-22     this title except as otherwise provided by this subsection [program
1-23     must grade students' work, offer course credit, modify
 2-1     instructional time requirements, and establish methods of
 2-2     evaluating subject mastery].
 2-3           SECTION 2.  This Act applies beginning with the 1999-2000
 2-4     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.