1-1     By:  Gallegos                                         S.B. No. 1784
 1-2           (In the Senate - Filed March 12, 1999; March 15, 1999, read
 1-3     first time and referred to Committee on Education; April 16, 1999,
 1-4     reported favorably by the following vote:  Yeas 8, Nays 0;
 1-5     April 16, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to the provision of private community-based dropout
 1-9     recovery education programs to provide alternative education
1-10     programs for students at risk of dropping out of school.
1-11           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-12           SECTION 1.  Subsection (e), Section 29.081, Education Code,
1-13     is amended to read as follows:
1-14           (e)  A school district may use a private or public
1-15     community-based dropout recovery education program to provide
1-16     alternative education programs for students at risk of dropping out
1-17     of school.  A school district, when utilizing a community-based
1-18     dropout recovery education program, shall develop goals,
1-19     objectives, and guidelines that best address the needs of students
1-20     at risk of dropping out of school.  These guidelines shall include,
1-21     but need not be limited to, grading students' work, offering course
1-22     credit, curriculum development and implementation, modifying
1-23     instructional time requirements, performance standards,
1-24     qualifications of staff and faculty, class size, student-faculty
1-25     ratios, and methods of evaluating subject mastery.  The guidelines
1-26     may, but do not necessarily need to, comply with all the
1-27     requirements of this code.  [The program must grade students' work,
1-28     offer course credit, modify instructional time requirements, and
1-29     establish methods of evaluating subject mastery.]
1-30           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
1-31           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-32     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-33     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-34     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-35     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
1-36                                  * * * * *