BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 4487

By: Frullo

Public Education

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

With the growing recognition of school safety concerns, it has been asserted that it is of particular importance that teachers have and feel empowered to use a variety of disciplinary options to ensure a safe classroom environment conducive to learning. C.S.H.B. 4487 seeks to ensure that a teacher’s ability to remove a student from the classroom in order to maintain order and an environment conducive to learning is not intentionally or unintentionally negatively impacted by certain reporting requirements.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change 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. 4487 amends the Education Code to establish that a student who is sent by a teacher to the campus behavior coordinator's or other administrator's office to maintain effective discipline in the classroom or who is removed from class by a teacher for certain behavior that seriously interferes with the teacher's ability to communicate effectively with the students in the class or with the ability of the student's classmates to learn is not considered to have been removed from the classroom for the purposes of reporting data through the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) or other similar reports required by state or federal law. The bill applies beginning with the 2019-2020 school year.

EFFECTIVE DATE

On passage, or, if the bill does not receive the necessary vote, September 1, 2019.

COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE

While C.S.H.B. 4487 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following summarizes the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.

The substitute includes the following among the disciplinary actions not considered to be removing a student from the classroom for the purposes of reporting data through PEIMS or other similar reports required by state or federal law:

· a teacher sending a student to the office of any campus administrator to maintain effective classroom discipline; and

· a teacher removing a student from class for certain disruptive behavior.