BILL ANALYSIS

S.B. 213

By: Seliger

Public Education

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Individual graduation committees provide alternative methods by which high school students who are otherwise ineligible for graduation but meet certain qualifications may graduate and be awarded a diploma. It has been noted that the statutes governing these committees are set to expire in the near future. S.B. 213 seeks to address this issue by postponing the expiration dates on statutes governing individual graduation committees.

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

S.B. 213 amends the Education Code to postpone from September 1, 2019, to September 1, 2023, the date on which the following statutory provisions expire:

· provisions requiring the commissioner of education to establish a graduation qualification procedure for certain students who entered ninth grade before the 2011-2012 school year;

· provisions requiring a public school district to establish an individual graduation committee to determine whether certain students qualify to graduate and to report through the Public Education Information Management System certain information relating to the individual graduation committees;

· provisions subjecting an open-enrollment charter school to such a graduation qualification procedure and to the requirement to establish an individual graduation committee;

· provisions authorizing certain students who are eligible for a diploma on the basis of individual graduation committee review to receive a diploma; and

· provisions establishing that a student who, after retaking an end-of-course test for Algebra I or English II, has failed to perform satisfactorily on the end-of-course test but receives a score of proficient on the Texas Success Initiative diagnostic assessment for the corresponding subject satisfies the requirement concerning the Algebra I or English II end-of-course test, as applicable.

EFFECTIVE DATE

Except as otherwise provided, on passage, or, if the bill does not receive the necessary vote, on the 91st day after the last day of the legislative session.