| TO: | Honorable Florence Shapiro, Chair, Senate Committee on Education |
| FROM: | John S. O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | HB136 by Villarreal (Relating to providing notification to parents of eligible children of the availability of prekindergarten programs.), As Engrossed |
The bill would require the Texas Education Agency (TEA), in cooperation with other state agencies, to develop strategies for increasing public awareness of prekindergarten programs. The bill would require school districts to report strategies implemented for increase public awareness of public prekindergarten programs to TEA. The bill would direct the agency to conduct a study to identify effective methods of communicating the availability of prekindergarten programs and to make recommendations to school districts based on the study not later than February 2010.
The bill would authorized the Agency to develop outreach materials for use by school districts to increase community awareness of prekindergarten programs.
The agency would be required to report by December 1, 2010 to the Lieutenant Governor, the Speaker of the House, and the chairmen of the legislative standing committees with primary jurisdiction over public education on the strategies developed under the provisions of the bill.
The bill would require TEA to post reports received from each school district on the TEA website within 90 days of receiving a report.
TEA estimates a one-time contract cost of $100,000 in FY2010 to perform the required study and ongoing costs of $80,000 in FY2010 and each subsequent year for contracted services to develop and provide outreach materials and perform web postings of annual reports from each school district.
| Source Agencies: | 701 Central Education Agency
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| LBB Staff: | JOB, JSp, JGM, JSc
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