BILL ANALYSIS

S.B. 1016

By: Powell

Public Education

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is required to periodically conduct an audit of public school educator professional development requirements imposed by federal and state laws and by public school districts. Since the last audit was conducted, the state has added several additional educator training requirements, including suicide prevention training, digital learning training, and training regarding appropriate teacher‑student relationships. Given these changes, it has been suggested that audits should be conducted more regularly to ensure that training is not duplicative and remains relevant for educators and students. S.B. 1016 seeks to address this issue by revising these audit requirements for TEA.

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. 1016 amends the Education Code to change the frequency with which the Texas Education Agency (TEA) is required to conduct an audit of the professional development requirements applicable to educators in Texas from periodically to at least once every four years and to include in the audit any other continuing education and training requirements. The bill revises the requirement for TEA, based on audit results, to seek to eliminate conflicting requirements and consolidate duplicative requirements through certain methods by requiring TEA instead, based on audit results and with input from stakeholders and organizations that represent educators, to consider the value of maintaining existing state-mandated training requirements relating to specific topics and seek to eliminate any unnecessary topic-specific training requirements, eliminate any conflicting requirements, and consolidate any duplicative requirements through those methods.

S.B. 1016 requires TEA to complete an audit of professional development training requirements not later than December 31, 2020. The bill establishes that TEA is required to implement a provision of the bill only if the legislature appropriates money specifically for that purpose. If the legislature does not make such an appropriation, TEA may, but is not required to, implement a provision of the bill using other appropriations available for that purpose.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2019.