The Texas House Public Education Committee has significantly picked up the pace on the number of bills it heard in committee this week, hearing 14 bills as deadlines begin to loom regarding bills being heard and voted out of committee.  

Hundreds of bills have been referred to the committee. Any bills the committee wishes to move must be reported to the full House by May 12, which means just over four weeks remain for the committee to hear bills and make recommendations to the full House. ( The committee can still hear Senate bills after May 12.)  

Bills heard in committee Tuesday included: 

• HB 367 by Rep. Jon Rosenthal (D–Houston), which would establish the documentation needed to verify a serious or life-threatening illness for the purposes of missing school. The bill would require the creation of a form to verify the illness with the student’s physician.  
• HB 497 by Rep. Jared Patterson (R–Frisco), which would require parental consent for behavioral or mental health treatment in schools. The bill would require opt in through a general form provided to parents in order to provide this treatment. There was a similar requirement in the original version of HB 6 by Rep. Jeff Leach (R–Plano), though that bill included a substantially broader definition of “mental health” and would have required parental consent for every potential treatment or visit with a student. After ATPE asked that the language be removed from HB 6, it was. School counselors, nurses, and social workers testified Tuesday that this bill would cause an administrative burden and slow down crisis response, which needs to be done in a time-sensitive manner. 
• HB 549 by Rep. Cody Vasut (R–Angleton), which would require districts to place an airway clearance device on every campus and ensure that at least one staff member on each campus is trained to use the device.  
• HB 983 by Rep. Candy Noble (R–Lucas), which would require the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to keep certain information, such as names, addresses, email, Social Security numbers, and other personal information about an educator confidential. 
• HB 1290 by Rep. Caroline Harris-Davila (R–Round Rock), which would prohibit the use of specific food additives in school breakfasts and lunches.  
• ATPE-supported HB 1368 by Rep. Venton Jones (D–Dallas), which would require that schools notify parents in writing within 30 days if they do not have an assigned nurse, school counselor, or librarian.  
• HB 2243 by Rep. Tom Oliverson (R–Cypress), which would create a Texas Commission on Teacher Job Satisfaction and Retention.  ATPE provided written testimony to the committee on the bill, asking for teachers to be included in the panel along with fewer legislators, as well as asking for the study of additional information. A committee substitute is now available that does add teachers to the commission, as ATPE recommended.  
• ATPE-supported HB 2310 by Rep. Claudia Ordaz (D–El Paso), which would requires TEA, the Texas Workforce Commission, and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to develop a strategic plan to improve early learning for students with disabilities.  
• ATPE-supported HB 2849 by Rep. Alma Allen (D–Houston), which would require the Department of State Health Services School Health Advisory Committee to develop model policies for recess that include guidelines that maximize outdoor physical activity time. Once these model polices have been developed, school districts would be required to adopt a recess policy based on the model that specifies the number of minutes of unstructured playtime provided, as well as whether that time can be withheld for disciplinary purposes.  
• ATPE-supported HB 3099 by Rep. Stan Gerdes (R–Smithville), which would specify the formula for funding an adult education program run by a charter school.  
• HB 3546 by Rep. Armando Martinez (D–Weslaco), which would allow districts to hold school board elections in November if they choose to do so.  
• ATPE-supported HB 3629 by Rep. Candy Noble (R–Lucas), which would ensure that registered sex offenders are not eligible to run for a position on a school district’s board of trustees. 
• HB 3627 by Rep. Carl Tepper (R–Lubbock), which would allow the chair of the State Board of Education (SBOE), currently Aaron Kinsey (R–Midland), to hire staff for the state board. Currently, the 15 members of the State Board of Education are unpaid and have no staff. SBOE is tasked with approving instructional materials and course content, as well as monitoring the Permanent School Fund, among other duties. TEA has dedicated staff members that assist the board with their needs. The budget rider for this bill would allow Chair Kinsey to hire five staff members that report directly to him.   
• ATPE-supported HB 1188 by Rep. Christian Manuel (D–Port Arthur), which would require school districts to refer students receiving special education services to a local intellectual and developmental disability authority (LIDDA) for services and benefits. Families and advocates pointed out in public testimony that many schools do not provide information about the LIDDA when the child reaches age 14 as they are supposed to, and many families never learn about the services LIDDAs offer. In an unusual and heartwarming moment following testimony from the Handley family, the family that inspired this bill, Rep. Harold Dutton (D–Houston) moved that the bill be renamed the Caytlin Handley Act and immediately be voted out of committee, which it was on a unanimous vote. 

Caytlin Handley, for whom HB 1188 was named, appears before the House Public Education Committee Tuesday, April 9.

The committee voted to advance the following bills: 

• HB 123 by Dutton would expand testing in lower grades K-3 with the intent of catching literacy and numeracy issues early. The bill would also require that K-8 teachers who teach math attend a math academy, and it would provide funding for early literacy interventions. ATPE Governmental Relations Director Monty Exter testified on the bill before the committee March 18, stating that while ATPE doesn’t oppose the concept of reading or math academies, we are hopeful that lessons from the rollout of the reading academies will be applied to implementation of the math academies, preventing issues related to the unpaid time required of educators originally, as well as the lack of relevant information the academies provided to many experienced educators. He also expressed concern about the addition of testing in lower grades, which Exter argued isn’t needed because educators are already assessing students in early grades for reading proficiency. Regarding the bill’s high-intensity tutoring provision and the $250 allotment provided for this, Exter pointed out the funding is capped at 10% of students, which would prevent schools from hiring paraprofessionals to deliver this tutoring because 100 students would be needed to pay for one paraprofessional. The bill’s committee substitute ups this cap to 15% of students in an effort to give smaller schools an opportunity to participate, but this would still not be sufficient to hire the staff needed to execute the tutoring in the bill. The bill was voted out of committee by a 10-3 vote, with Reps. Gina Hinojosa (D–Austin), John Bryant (D–Dallas), and Trent Ashby (R–Lufkin) voting against. 
• ATPE-supported HB 2249 by Vice Chair Diego Bernal (D–San Antonio), which would establish the Texas Teacher Recruitment Scholarship Program. The scholarship program would provide $10,000 annual scholarships to college students interested in pursuing a teaching certification to obtain their degree and teaching certificate in exchange for agreeing to work at least five years in a Texas public school. The bill was passed unanimously by the committee.  

The House Public Education Committee is expected to meet again April 15.