BILL ANALYSIS |
C.S.H.B. 3341 |
By: Peña |
Juvenile Justice & Family Issues |
Committee Report (Substituted) |
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Interested parties report that there are, unfortunately, many cases where law enforcement personnel must eliminate real threats from the classroom. However, the parties contend, law enforcement personnel should not be given unlimited authority when dealing with Texas children, and Texas children should not be subjected to abuse by officers using excessive force in schools. C.S.H.B. 3341 seeks to address issues relating to the use of force against students.
|
||||||||||
CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT
It is the committee's opinion that this bill expressly does one or more of the following: creates a criminal offense, increases the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or changes the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.
|
||||||||||
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
|
||||||||||
ANALYSIS
C.S.H.B. 3341 amends the Education Code to require the superintendent of a school district to notify a student's parent or guardian as soon as practicable after the student is subjected to a restraint or arrested on school property or during a school-sponsored or school-related activity. The bill sets out the information regarding the incident required to be included in the notice. The bill requires a superintendent, after the last day of classes each school year and not later than the date specified by commissioner of education rule, to submit to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) a report containing information on the uses of restraints against and the arrests of students that occurred during the preceding school year, organized by campus. The bill sets out the information required to be included in the report, prohibits the report from including personally identifiable student information, and requires the report to comply with the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974. The bill requires a school district that enters into a memorandum of understanding with a local law enforcement agency for the provision of a regular police presence on campus to designate in the memorandum of understanding which entity will be responsible for collecting the information for the report. The bill makes it a Class A misdemeanor offense for a superintendent to knowingly fail to provide the required notice to a student's parent or guardian or to submit the required report to TEA. The bill requires TEA to collect the reports submitted by superintendents, compile the information, and make the information available to the public. The bill applies beginning with the 2015–2016 school year.
|
||||||||||
EFFECTIVE DATE
On passage, or, if the bill does not receive the necessary vote, September 1, 2015. |
||||||||||
COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE
While C.S.H.B. 3341 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following comparison is organized and formatted in a manner that indicates the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.
|
||||||||||
|