On Tuesday, April 9, 2019, the House Public Education Committee heard 38 bills, which were overwhelmingly related to charter schools. A few bills regarding accountability, assessment, and student discipline were also heard. The vast majority of charter schools bills focused on raising the transparency and accountability of charters and on creating parity between traditional districts and charters.

ATPE registered support for the following bills:

• House Bill (HB) 43 (Hinojosa, et al., D-Austin): Would add “discipline history” to the list of prohibited factors a charter can take into account when accepting students and removes the ability of charters to exclude students with documented history of criminal offense, juvenile court adjudication, or discipline problems. Does allow charters with at least 75% students who are 18 years or older to provide for these exclusions.
• HB 139 (González, M., D-Clint): Would require charters to provide notice of an expansion amendment to open a new campus just as is required for entirely new charters. The notice must be provided no later than 18 months before the campus opens and include geographic specificity.
• HB 228 (Krause, R-Fort Worth): Would create new eligibility standards for districts to become a District of Innovation (DOI), including academic performance eligibility and financial eligibility, as determined by the commissioner. Requires that the DOI plan establish performance objectives for the district.
• HB 570 (Capriglione, R-Southlake): Would require the governing bodies of charter holders and charter schools to hold each open meeting in the geographic area in which the charter served and to be broadcast over the Internet (these changes were made in a committee substitute).
• HB 636 (White, R-Hillister): Applies to the disclosure of interested parties involved in contracts that require a vote by the governing body of the governmental entities or have a value of at least $1 million. Would include open-enrollment charters as governmental entities, just as public school districts are.
• HB 1730 (Davis, Y., D-Dallas): Would require that new and expanded charter campuses be more than one mile from another open-enrollment charter campus, unless the other campus has been operating at maximum student enrollment described by their charter for at least the two preceding school years.
• HB 1853 (Pacheco, D-San Antonio): Would require charters to hire certified educators and protect educator rights, including for principals.
• HB 1981 (Cole, D-Austin): Would expand notification requirements to apply to charter expansion amendments and would require the notice to identify the closest public school campus to the charter.
• HB 2487 (Dutton, D-Houston): Would make charters subject to the provision of Government Code chapter 617 regarding collective bargaining and strikes.
• HB 2510 (Hinojosa, et al., D-Austin): Would require that charters post their code of conduct on their website and require it to include suspension policies. Requires that charter policies and procedures for suspension and expulsion comply with Chapter 37 of the Texas Education Code and that suspensions not exceed three days.
• HB 2621 (Bailes, R-Shepherd): Would create a common admission application form for charters and requires the commissioner to manage a waiting list. Each charter would be required to report to the commissioner information on enrollment and waiting list numbers. Would also require the commissioner to identify which charters are corporate affiliates or substantially related charters holders and aggregate this information, to be posted online with the aggregated enrollment and waiting list numbers reported from the charters.
• HB 2760 (Allison, R-San Antonio): States that districts can submit a statement to the commissioner regarding the impact a new charter school or charter expansion will have on the district. The commissioner would be required to issue an impact report on the charter application that includes information related to how the charter will affect the community, educational availability and duplication, financial burden on district, cost to state, and the written statement aforementioned. The impact report will be made public on the TEA website and provided to the charter or applicant and the others who are to receive the currently required notice.
• HB 2776 (Allison, R-San Antonio): Would require charters to prepare and submit to TEA an “informed choice report” that includes academic information, demographic information, their calendar, information on transportation and meals, information on extracurriculars and academic course offerings, parental requirements, rights, and responsibilities, teacher statistics including salary, number on the waiting list, admission criteria, discipline policies, rates of disciplinary action, if the school uses an online program, number of school counselors and nurses, and if students have access to a library.
• HB 2824 (VanDeaver, R-New Boston): Would extend Rep. VanDeaver's writing pilot from the 84th session (HB 1164) through 2022-2023. This writing portfolio assessment tests the feasibility of replacing the current 26-line essay requirement. Would require the agency to develop methods to determine the validity of the scoring process. Rep. VanDeaver said that there were 30,000 students participating in Spring of 2018, and only 5-6 staff members in charge of the pilot at TEA.
• HB 2964 (Davis, Y., D-Dallas): Would prohibit the employment of those who have engaged in misconduct that presents a risk to students, as documented by either a school district or the State Board for Educator Certification.
• HB 2983 (Huberty, R-Humble): Would reduce the number of state-administered assessments for students who have already demonstrated mastery in certain subjects, potentially reducing tests from 17 to 10.
• HB 2987 (Ramos, D-Richardson): Would require charters to post for each governing board member their biographical information, business interests, if they are elected or appointed, and the length of their service.
• HB 3013 (Talarico, et al., D-Round Rock): States that charters are subject to the law regarding the suspension of students and restricts the reasons charters can expel students only to Section 37.007 of the Texas Education Code.
• HB 3069 (González, M., et al., D-Clint): Would require the commissioner to establish a professional development grant program to encourage teachers to obtain computer science certification and continue professional development in coding, computational thinking, and computer science education.
• HB 3263 (Allen, D-Houston): Would protect charter school employees under the Whistleblower Act, just as school district employees are.
• HB 3877 (Ramos, D-Richardson): Would require charter schools to post their financial statements through a clearly identifiable link that appears in a prominent place on their home page.
• HB 4242 (Bernal, et al., D-San Antonio): Would require that state assessments be evaluated by an independent group of qualified educators with Texas teaching experience for readability. Requires the commissioner to hold a public hearing before determining the readability of the assessments and requires that the readability be released for each questions and passage along with the questions and answer keys (at the appropriate time). Requires the State Board of Education to review assessment instruments and places a one-year pause on accountability and testing until unless the readability standards are met. Requires the commissioner to request a federal waiver if standards are not met.

ATPE submitted written, neutral testimony on Chairman Dan Huberty's (R-Humble) HB 3904. HB 3904, in general, is a "clean-up" bill for last session's HB 22, and aims to clarify and specify the law to match the original intent of the policy. The bill clarifies the treatment of dual credit as an accountability measure and adds in complete coherent industry certification course sequences, students who participate in extracurriculars, and ninth graders who are on track to graduate with their cohort. For K-8, the bill adds indicators accounting for students who participate in full-day pre-K, students who participate in math and literacy academies, and students who participate in extracurriculars. Importantly, the bill limits the domain performance ratings to be no more than 50% reliant on test scores. For the student achievement domain, 40% would be attributed assessments, 20% from high school graduation, and 40% from CCMR. The bill also makes changes to accountability for dropout recovery schools. Individual graduation committees are also continued in this bill.

ATPE did not support the provision in the original bill that allowed the commissioner to order reconstitution of a below-standard campus and implement “strategic staffing”, which was largely based on test performance-based measures of teachers. The Chairman has changed the bill in a committee substitute to eliminate this provision, which is great!

The following bills were also heard in committee:

• HB 769 (Davis, S., et al., R-West University Place): Would require the board of trustees to receive approval from the commissioner for any severance payment to a superintendent who has been terminated based on malfeasance. Further requires that Foundation School Program funds may not be used to pay the severance and that no severance may be paid to a superintendent who has completed less than 51% of their contract. The committee substitute for the bill clarifies the definition of malfeasance and removes retroactive reporting.
• HB 1003 (Collier, D-Fort Worth): Would create an admission preference for students who reside in the attendance zone of the school district within which the charter is located. Allows for a separate lottery for these students.
• HB 1301 (Davis, S., R-West University Place): Would require school districts with enrollment of 10,000 or more to publish monthly web reports on board minutes, plans, and objectives, and quarterly reports on academic achievement and district finances. This bill is aimed at only affecting Houston ISD.
• HB 2190 (Hunter, R-Corpus Christi): This bill only applies to a charter with an enrollment greater than 200 located in a county with less than 400,000 that contains a municipality of least 300,000 (aimed specifically at a Corpus Christi area school). Allows the charter to admit a child of a school employee. Testimony on the bill was positive and Hunter said that he would entertain the bill being statewide. Chairman Huberty said they could change the bill to impact the entire state as an amendment on the House floor.
• HB 2406 (Geren, R-Fort Worth): States that a charter may not spend public funds for political advertising or for communications describing measures that are false or could influence voters. Brings parity to charters, as school districts are already subject to this law.
• HB 2488 (Dutton, D-Houston): States that if a charter school has 5,000 or more students in average daily attendance, it is considered to be a state agency for purposes of Chapter 2161 of the Government Code regarding Historically Underutilized Business (HUB). Just as school districts do, charters would have to comply with provisions regarding HUBs, which would include a commitment to increasing contracting opportunities with these businesses.
• HB 2991 (Talarico, D-Round Rock): Would require, rather than allow, districts and charters to develop and implement a positive behavior and restorative justice program. Through the program, the district or school can provide an alternative to suspension. Creates, in Chapter 37 of the Texas Education Code, a restorative justice coordinating council to assist the agency and school districts in developing restorative justice programs and training.
• HB 3012 (Talarico, et al., D-Round Rock): Would require that school districts provide students an alternative means of instruction for the classes the student misses while in in-school suspension (ISS) or out-of-school suspension (OSS), and that at least one option should not require the use of the internet. The committee substitute for this bill reduces this requirement to only apply to core courses and states that the instruction doesn't have to be in-person.
• HB 3155 (Deshotel, D-Beaumont): Would require municipalities to regard charters as school districts for purposes of zoning, permitting, code compliance, and development. Also applies land development standards to charters. Would prohibit municipalities, counties, or political subdivisions from enacting or enforcing an ordinance that prohibits a charter school from operation.
• HB 3219 (Allison, R-San Antonio): Would allow campus behavior coordinators to create behavior contracts for students who violate the code of conduct and require their parent to sign the contract as a condition of not taking immediate action against the student.
• HB 3322 (Burns, R-Cleburne): Would require school districts to post who is responsible for discipline on their website. According to testimony, the bill arose out of a town hall by Senator Kolkhorst.
• HB 3398 (Johnson, Jarvis, D-Houston): Would require the TEA committee responsible for reviewing accountability appeals to review the challenges by school districts or charters. Requires that the commissioner not limit the challenge if the school district or charter created the inaccuracy and requires that the commissioner correct the rating if the rating assigned was too low.
• HB 3861 (Bohac, R-Houston): Would allow districts who have been granted program charters by their board and who have contracted with a charter to jointly operate the campus and receive district-charter funding under last session's SB 1882. Rep. Bohac said that this would only affect Spring Branch ISD and Aldine ISD in the Houston area, as these districts already have such program charters.
• HB 3941 (Deshotel, D-Beaumont): Would require TEA to develop a process for providers to apply for the authority to operate an online adult high school diploma from for eligible students. Student must reside in Texas, be 19 or older, have been unable to satisfy high school graduation requirements at the normal time, have been unable to meet the graduation requirements of any other program, and meet any other requirements as set out by the commissioner.
• HB 4209 (Davis, Y., D-Dallas): Would require that charter governing board members are elected and that their terms do not exceed four years. Parents of students enrolled would be able to vote. Rep. Davis said that the bill will be revised.

The Committee will meet again this Thursday for a formal meeting just to vote out bills that have been heard by the Committee so far. Chairman Huberty stated at the end of the hearing that most of the controversial bills have been heard now, but that nearly 600 bills have been referred to them. There are still several weeks of session to go and many more important bill topics to cover! Stay tuned.