Honorable Dan Patrick, Chair, Senate Committee on Education
FROM:
Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
SB418 by Ellis (Relating to a notification requirement if a public school campus or open-enrollment charter school does not have a nurse assigned to the campus during all instructional hours.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted
No fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.
The bill would require a public school, including an open-enrollment charter school, that did not have a full-time nurse assigned to it for more than 30 consecutive instructional days to provide written notice of this fact to each student's parent or guardian. The bill would require the principal to provide the notice by the 30th instructional day after the first day the school was without a full-time nurse and would require the school to keep a copy of the notice on file. A school could satisfy the notice requirement by posting the notice on the school's Internet website not more than three links from the home page. The school would also be required to make a good faith effort to provide a bilingual form of the notice to any parent or guardian whose first language was not English.
Local Government Impact
Districts could curb some expenses by providing the required notices with other information required at the beginning of the school year. If the nurse vacancy occurred after the start of the year, districts would have to distribute notices within 30 instructional days of the first date that the nurse was no longer available. Administrative costs for schools would not be significant if they elected to post the required notice on their websites.