House Public Education Subcommittee hears bills on bilingual education, civics instruction, antisemitism

Date Posted: 4/03/2025 | Author: Tricia Cave
The House Public Education Committee’s Subcommittee on Academic and Career-Oriented Education met Thursday to consider the following five bills.
- House Bill (HB) 295 by Rep. Matt Shaheen (R–Plano) would call out antisemitism in the definition of bullying for school discipline policies, ostensibly making it easier to give disciplinary consequences for the offense.
- ATPE-supported HB 824 by Rep. Jolanda Jones (D–Houston) would include civics instruction in the required government curriculum for high school students.
- ATPE-supported HB 1579 by Rep. Bobby Guerra (D–McAllen) would establish the Texas State Seal of Bilingualism and Biliteracy for high school students. The bill would create a formal recognition on a student’s transcript that the student is biliterate and has achieved fluency in a language other than English.
- HB 1581 by Guerra would provide training materials to school districts for bilingual, dual language immersion, and special language programs, as well as additional monitoring of the program by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). The bill is derived from the recommendations of the TEA Strategic Plan for Emergent Bilingual Support.
- HB 2189 by Rep. Donna Howard (D–Austin) aims to improve high school health-related CTE courses by providing high-quality instructional materials; studying the feasibility of partnerships between districts and colleges for the purposes of sharing labs and equipment; and requiring a regular review of dual-credit health programs to ensure alignment with university degree programs.
The bills were all left pending. The subcommittee does not vote on, or have a formal process of, forwarding legislation to, or holding legislation from, the full House Public Education Committee. After they hold a hearing on a bill, the bill is then eligible for a vote on passage by the full committee.
CONVERSATION
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU

04/17/2025
Teach the Vote’s Week in Review: April 17, 2025
We will be back next week with a full edition of Teach the Vote’s Week in Review. In the meantime, we wish you a happy and restful weekend with your family and friends.

04/17/2025
Statement from ATPE Executive Director Dr. Shannon Holmes on the passage of SB 2
“What we saw yesterday is not the type of government we want in our state nor the type of government we deserve.”

04/17/2025
Busy but short week for the Texas Senate
While much of the spotlight was on the House voucher debate this week, several education bills moved along in the Senate.