HBA-SEB S.B. 1561 76(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisS.B. 1561 By: Barrientos Public Education 5/12/1999 Engrossed BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE S.B. 1561 establishes guidelines for combating the school dropout rate. It prohibits a campus or school district from being rated acceptable unless its annual event dropout rate is five percent or less. This bill requires the commissioner of education to report to the legislature with a plan to incrementally decrease the annual event dropout rate. This bill also requires a school district to make a good faith effort to determine and document the educational status of certain students who may have dropped out of school and provides for financial rewards to certain high school campuses that achieve an annual reduction in the longitudinal dropout rate. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution. SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS SECTION 1. Amends Section 5.001, Education Code, to define "annual event dropout rate," "dropout," and "longitudinal dropout rate." Redesignates Subdivisions (3), (4), (5), (6), and (7) to Subdivisions (4), (6), (7), (9), and (10). Makes conforming changes. SECTION 2. Amends Section 39.051, Education Code, by adding Subsection (g), to prohibit a campus or district from being rated acceptable unless its annual event dropout rate is five percent or less, beginning with the 2000-2001 school year. Requires the commissioner of education (commissioner) to report to the legislature in January, 2001, with a plan to incrementally decrease the annual event dropout rate so that an acceptable rating may be set by a school year stated in that plan which provides a campus and district longitudinal dropout rate of five percent. SECTION 3. Amends Section 39.182(a), Education Code, to require the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to prepare and deliver a report to specific members of the state government which contains a statement of the annual event dropout rate of students in grade levels 9 through 12, expressed in the aggregate and by grade level and disaggregated by sex and by the number of students who have also been retained at a grade level. Requires TEA to also include in the report a statement of the projected cross-sectional and longitudinal dropout rate grade levels 7 through 12 for the next five years based on the most recent annual event dropout rate and a description of a measurable systematic plan for reducing the cross-sectional and longitudinal dropout rates to five percent or less beginning with the 2004-2005 school year, rather than the 1997-1998 school year. Makes a conforming change. SECTION 4. Amends Section 42.152, Education Code, by adding Subsections (s) and (t), as follows: (s) Requires the commissioner to withhold $250,000 or a greater amount as determined in the General Appropriations Act each fiscal year from funds appropriated for allotments under this section (Compensatory Education Allotment). Requires the commissioner to distribute $10,000 or a greater amount as determined in the General Appropriations Act to each of the 20 high school campuses that achieved the greatest annual reduction in the longitudinal dropout rate for the preceding school year. Requires the commissioner to distribute $50,000 or a greater amount among other districts selected by the commissioner according guidelines adopted by the commissioner to be used for instructional materials or program replication based on programs used to lower the dropout rate in certain districts. (t) Requires the commissioner to reduce each district's allotments in the manner described under Section 42.253 (Distribution of Foundation School Fund) after deducting the amount withheld under Subsection (s). SECTION 5. Amends Section 29.081, Education Code, by adding Subsections (j) and (k), as follows: (j) Requires a school district make a good faith effort to determine and document the educational status of each student who does not resume attendance in school in the district at the beginning of a school year, unless the student graduated, or who is absent from school for 10 or more consecutive school days, if the absences are unexcused. (k) Requires a school district to take and document all possible steps to encourage or require students identified in Subsection (j) to return to school. SECTION 6. Effective date: September 1, 1999. SECTION 7. Emergency clause.