The Texas 88th Legislation Has Ended, Bills Head To Governor Abbott’s Desk, Abbott Calls Special Session for failed Bill On Property Taxes
Hello SAISD Parents an San Antonio Community Members,
This week has been long and filled with a lot of chaos but these are some of the bills that our Governor could sign into law. If he feels that any bill doesn’t meet his standards then he could call for a special session. So, now we wait for all the bills to be sent to his desk and see if he approves all them.
Let’s start with HB3 which contains a number of provisions to increase security in schools. It includes requirements for at least one armed officer to be present at each school. The schools that lack funding or personnel may be exempt from this requirement, which is not the right answer to deny safety to poorer districts. This new mandate would require a yearly review instead of the every five years that we have in place today. Now, TEA Agency would create the new standards for informing the parents of any violent activity on school campuses. The new bill will also provide $15,000 and $10 for every student to update all security systems. This bill also wouldn’t allow any armed staff from making any arrests unless there’s a risk of severe physical harm or death. This bill is headed to the governor’s desk and it’s expected to pass into law.
SB15 requires all college athletes in Texas to play on sports teams that are based on their sex assigned at birth. Now this bill will allow females students to play on men’s team if there’s no corresponding sports team for women. This is also headed to the governor’s desk for consideration.
Next, HB18 which was originally meant to ban tenure in Texas which is what our Lt. Governor Dan Patrick made a priority this legislation has been changed by the Texas House. So instead of banning tenure it would regulate the practices at public universities. Which means that under the legislation that was approved late Sunday states “only an institution of higher education’s governing board, on the recommendation of the institutions chief executive officer and the university systems chancellor if applicable, may grant tenure”. Then the measure also codifies the reasons for a dismissal for a professors with tenure which may include failure to perform duties, violation of laws or policies of the university system and not acting in a professional mannerism. Now this bill will also go to the governors desk.
Lastly, teacher raises that are attached to HB100 that would also create a school voucher program is on the table. This bill was created as a last ditch effort to create a school voucher program that would use tax payers money to pay for private schools. This bill has many factors within it and it also includes raises for teacher but only at $50 which will be added to the current allotment of $6120 per student. Public schools would still be funded by attendance and not enrollment. The bill also states that certified educators that have been teaching for 10 years or more would have to be paid a minimum of $60,000. In the end the House believes that the voucher program that they tried to pass would create an Educational Savings Accounts to be used at charter or private schools depending on the parents’ choice. This could lead to our public schools losing funding and could essentially cause us to lose more teachers. The changes that were made throughout this bill by the House could lead us into a special session. In my opinion it is a good thing because the new bill that the Senate creates has an overwhelming amount of funding that would affect our entire educational system.
These are some of the education bills that will be brought to the Governors desk, but know that our Texas Legislation came to an end on May 29th at midnight. So, for now all we can do is wait and see what our Governor will do with these bills.
Gov. Abbott called a Special Session for the failed property tax bill. Special session #1 will focus only on cutting property taxes and cracking down on illegal human smuggling. We must cut property taxes. During the regular session, we added $17.6 billion to cut property taxes. However, the legislature could not agree on how to allocate funds to accomplish this goal.
If anyone has questions or concerns please email me at lena.lopez@saobserver.com.
Have a blessed week,
Lena Lopez
