HBA-MPM H.B. 14 77(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 14 By: Corte Public Education 3/26/2001 Introduced BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Increasingly, teachers and other school employees in Texas schools are becoming victims of assault by students. According to the United States Department of Education, over a five-year period from 1994 through 1998, teachers were the victims of approximately 1,755,000 nonfatal crimes at schools nationwide, including 1,087,000 thefts and 668,000 violent crimes such as rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. Current law specifies that simple assault on an educator is not an offense that automatically warrants expulsion. Students are only expelled from school for committing aggravated assault, including assault with a weapon or that causes serious bodily harm. A goal of all schools is to provide a safe environment for educators to teach and students to learn. House Bill 14 establishes simple assault against a public school employee as an offense for which expulsion of the offending student is automatic. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution. ANALYSIS House Bill 14 amends the Education Code to require a student who intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes bodily injury to a school employee on school property or at a school-sponsored activity to be expelled. The bill requires a student who intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes bodily injury to a person other than a school employee within 300 feet of school property or while attending a schoolsponsored or school-related activity to be placed in an alternative education program. EFFECTIVE DATE On passage, or if the Act does not receive the necessary vote, the Act takes effect September 1, 2001. The Act applies beginning with the 2001-2002 school year.