The House Public Education Committee met Tuesday with an agenda of around 20 bills, including the House’s major testing and accountability reform bill; a bill aimed at banning “furries” from public schools; and the Senate’s Ten Commandments bill, among others. The hearing was split due to the long calendar on the House floor. The committee heard one bill before adjourning at 9:30 a.m. to go to a caucus meeting and then to the floor. Committee members were not able to adjourn from the floor until around 9 p.m., when they headed back to the committee meeting to finish off their agenda.    

The bills heard by the committee were: 

• ATPE-supported House Bill (HB) 4 by Chairman Brad Buckley (R–Salado) is the House’s testing and accountability reform package. ATPE did not support the original bill as filed, but the committee substitute, which was released after the hearing had already begun Tuesday morning, completely transformed the bill and allowed us to support it. The bill would repeal the STAAR test, to be replaced next spring with a new nationally norm-referenced test administered on a through-year (beginning, middle, and end of year) basis, with results provided within 24 hours of administration so the data is usable to measure yearly growth. Additionally, the bill would reduce testing by eliminating social studies, standalone writing, and English II exams, lowering standardized testing to federally mandated tests only. After hearing testimony on HB 4, the chairman went ahead and voted it out of committee around 3:45 a.m.  
• ATPE-opposed HB 54 by Rep. Stan Gerdes (R–Smithville) is meant to ban “furries” from public schools. The bill stems from an alleged incident in Gerdes’ hometown district, Smithville ISD, and aims to target both clothing, such as cat ear headbands, and “animal behavior,” such as meowing. During the bill’s layout, Rep. James Talarico (D–Round Rock) questioned Gerdes about what prompted the filing of the bill. Under questioning, Gerdes admitted that while there were unsubstantiated rumors of an incident in his hometown of Smithville, they are unconfirmed. Talarico said he felt rumors like this and one in his own home district of Round Rock were part of a greater coordinated attack on public schools and questioned why the committee was taking precious time near the end of session to hear the bill. Talarico pointed out Gov. Greg Abbott (R) had further spread these rumors while on his quest for private school vouchers as well and said he felt the intention to harm public schools was clear. This led to a testy exchange with Rep. Jeff Leach (R–Plano), who defended Gerdes for bringing the bill and questioned Talarico’s motivations for saying the bill was an attack on public schools. ATPE opposes the bill. In addition to seemingly being designed to cast dispersions on public schools, HB 54 as drafted is vague and overly broad, which is made more problematic because it is tied to financial penalties for already cash-strapped schools.  
• HB 775 by Rep. James Frank (R–Wichita Falls) would allow school boards to vote to decline homeschool participation in UIL events. If the school board denied participation, the student would then be allowed to go to the next closest school and participate there. 
• ATPE-supported HB 850 by Rep. Suleman Lalani (D–Sugar Land) would require that all schools have defibrillators within three minutes of any spot on campus. The bill would also require schools to have an emergency plan for cardiac events and TEA to establish a grant program to pay for the defibrillators. 
• ATPE-supported HB 1122 by Rep. Janie Lopez (R–San Benito) would phase in the requirement for a counselor on every campus so smaller districts have more time to comply with the law. By the 2027-28 school year, all districts with 500 or more students would be required to have a full-time counselor on each campus. Districts with 300 or fewer students would have until the 2031-32 school year to employ a part-time counselor or enter into a shared services arrangement with other districts for counselors. 
• ATPE-supported HB 1249 by Rep. Erin Zwiener (D–Dripping Springs) would allow the use of a student writing portfolio in standardized tests. 
• ATPE-supported HB 1405 by Rep. Ron Reynolds (D–Missouri City) aims to prevent bullying and cyberbullying in schools and would require school employees to report suspected bullying to the campus behavior coordinator. The bill would also require schools to provide supportive measures to the student who experienced bullying.  
• ATPE-supported HB 1573 by Rep. Venton Jones (D–Dallas) would require school districts to set policies that establish benchmarks for how much square footage a custodian is required to be responsible for cleaning and maintaining. Jones pointed out in his bill layout that custodians are frequently being asked to do more with less, as well as having their duties expanded more and more into impossible workloads. When a custodian can’t reasonably complete their duties, sanitation and cleanliness suffer, leading to potential health risks for students and staff, Jones said. 
• ATPE-supported HB 2336 by Rep. Alma Allen (D–Houston) would allow district employees to request in-person grievance hearings. 
• HB 2757 by Frank would allow the child of a foreign military member who is stationed in Texas to attend school. 
• ATPE-supported HB 3369 by Rep. AJ Louderback (R–Victoria) would allow removal of unruly spectators from school athletic or extracurricular activities. Louderback said his bill is needed because game officials have seen an increase in verbal abuse and violent behavior from spectators, leading to a shortage in officials willing to work these events.  
• HB 3372 by Rep. Will Metcalf (R–Conroe) would ban school administrators from providing paid consulting or contract work. This bill specifically targets administrators who do outside contract work for educational companies that may enter into contracts with the administrator’s district. 
• ATPE-supported HB 3622 by Rep. Brooks Landgraf (R–Odessa) would increase ADA funding for alternative education programs. 
• HB 4442 by Rep. Salman Bhojani (D–Euless) would require districts to offer a mindfulness elective course. ATPE asked the author to make this an optional offering from districts, pointing out smaller districts may not have the personnel to offer the course. Bhojani did lay out a committee substitute to the bill that made the change ATPE requested, thus, while we did not support the bill as filed in committee, ATPE will support the committee substitute as it moves forward. 
• HB 4687 by Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins (D–San Antonio) would make charter school board members immune from liability. Currently, only some charters enjoy these protections, while there are a couple of specialized charter groups that do not have immunity. This bill would extend those protections to those groups as well.  
• HB 4893 by Rep. Rhetta Bowers (D–Dallas) would create the Breakthrough Program, a postsecondary advising program for first generation college students.  
• HB 5089 by Rep. Charlie Geren (R–Fort Worth) would require 20% of registered voters in a district to sign and present a petition to the State Board of Education (SBOE) in order to split a school district. The bill would also require an even split of all debt and property between the old and newly created districts. This bill came about as a result of the proposed split of Keller ISD earlier this year, and among those who showed up to testify were school board members, defending their actions, and community members, upset about the attempted split.  
• HB 5515 by Buckley would cap the freight and shipping costs for instructional materials. 
• HB 5606 by Rep. Terry Wilson (R–Georgetown) would allow retired members’ sick days to transfer to a district’s sick leave bank to be used by current employees. 
• ATPE-opposed SB 10 by Sen. Phil King (R–Weatherford) would mandate display of the Ten Commandments in 16-by-20 inch size in every classroom. As with similar bills in recent sessions, ATPE submitted this testimony on the bill. 
• SB 24 by Sen. Donna Campbell (R–New Braunfels) which would require teaching about tactics and historical events surrounding communist regimes to enhance student understanding of communism. Students would be taught about these events in grades 4-12 social studies.  

The committee finished hearing public testimony just after 6 a.m. and adjourned without having voted pending bills out of committee. Chairman Buckley said he intended to call a formal meeting of the committee later Wednesday to vote out pending bills. ATPE will attend that formal hearing when it is called and report back on the bills voted out. As previously mentioned on Teach the Vote, the House has a deadline of Monday, May 12, for all House bills to be heard and voted out of committee, with committee reports distributed. This means the committee only has one more week to hear bills and vote them out before the deadline.