Honorable Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor, Senate
FROM:
Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
SB1566 by Kolkhorst (Relating to certain powers and duties of the board of trustees of an independent school district and the governing body of an open-enrollment charter school.), As Passed 2nd House
No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.
The bill amends the roles and responsibilities of local school board trustees and requires the creation of a data website for trustee review of campus and district academic achievement data during the local decision making processes. The website would be available to campuses, and public information on the website would be available to the public.
The bill allows a board member to file suit against a district if the district does not provide documents in the manner required by the TEC.
The bill does not require a local district board of trustees to hear grievances about extracurricular participation unless the grievance alleges a violation of parental rights under Texas Education Code Chapter 26.
The bill requires a District of Innovation to post its current local innovation plan to the district's website and provide a copy of proposed, adopted, or renewed plans to TEA for posting on the TEA website.
The bill would permit the board of trustees of a school district to establish before-school and/or after-school programs for students in elementary or middle school. The bill directs the district to conduct a request for proposals to determine if a contract to provide services would be in the best interest of the district.
The bill prohibits a school district, open-enrollment charter school, or private school from prohibiting a person who holds a license to carry a handgun from transporting or storing a handgun, other firearm, or ammunition in a locked, privately owned or leased motor vehicle in certain parking areas, provided the handgun, other firearm, or ammunition is not in plain view.
The bill would require the Board of Trustees to adopt a policy to establish parental notification requirements in the event that an elementary school administrator or nurse becomes aware that a child enrolled in the school has lice.
The bill would require school districts that are required to complete a dropout recovery plan to include career and technology and/or technology application courses in that plan.
The bill would require each county board of education, board of county school trustees, or office of county school superintendent in a county with a population of 2.2 million or more and that is adjacent to a county with a population of more than 800,000 to be abolished effective November 15, 2017, unless the entity was continued by voters through an election in November 2017. The bill would provide for the process by which each applicable entity should be dissolved. This analysis assumes this section would apply only to the county education department for Dallas County.
The bill takes effect September 1, 2017.
The Texas Education Agency indicates that implementation of the bill would result in a cost; however, this analysis assumes that the cost could be absorbed with existing resources.
Local Government Impact
TEA anticipates nominal impact resulting from the bill's trustee training requirements.
Additionally, school districts and charter schools that use the academic achievement data website will be required to load the necessary data to the Texas Student Data System on at least a quarterly basis during each school year. However, schools will have the ability to choose to participate, any additional administrative costs incurred would be on a voluntary basis.
School districts may experience minimal cost savings for complaints they may no longer have to address.
School districts may experience court costs and reasonable attorney's fees for board member legal suits.
School districts would experience costs related to issuing requests for proposals and contracting with a licensed child-care facility. However, district participation would be voluntary.
School districts required to provide dropout reports could incur additional costs. TEA estimates the cost to be $10,000 per school district during the first year of report preparation.
TEA indicates that there would be an impact to the districts that use the services of the affected county education department. According to TEA, the county education department that would be affected by the bill provide services such as transporting students and assisting in the education of special education students. Under the provisions of the bill local school districts would need to begin to provide these services instead.
TEA indicates that any state aid that was previously distributed to the county education