Focus Report: Volume 74, Number 14, August 1995 Page: 4
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House Research Organization
Detachment of a district
Voters may take steps to de-annex an area from a
school district and create a separate district. Both
districts must contain at least nine square miles and have
at least 8,000 students. At least 25 percent of the
registered voters in each district must vote in the election
for the detachment to occur.
Localized decision-making
(Chapter 11)
District-level
School districts must develop an annual district
improvement plan to guide district and campus staff in
the improvement of student performance for all student
groups. The plan must include strategies for improving
student academic performance and reducing the number
of dropouts.
The district's annual improvement plan will be
developed, evaluated and revised with the assistance of a
district-level planning and decision-making committee,
made up of parents, community representatives, business
representatives and district professional staff members.
The committee must meet at least once after the TEA's
district performance report. School board policy will
determine how to select parents to serve on the district-
level committees and how to select community and
business representatives, who are supposed to
appropriately represent the community's diversity. The
professional staff members on the decision-making
committee - at least two-thirds of whom must be
teachers - will be selected by their peers.
Campus and site-based decisions
Schools are to maintain campus- and site-based
decision-making committees to direct and support student
improvement. These committees will have the same
makeup as district-level decision-making committees, will
be established under procedures prescribed by the school
board and are to be involved in decisions in areas of
planning, budgeting, curriculum, staffing patterns, staff
development and school organization. Each campus-level
committee must hold at least one annual public meeting
after the TEA's annual rating of the campus.State responsibility
The commissioner will oversee the training and
technical support of district- and campus-level decision
making. The TEA will annually survey district- and
campus-level decision-making committees to determine the
involvement of various interests.
Home-rule districts (Chapter 12)
Local voters may choose to operate their school district
as a home-rule school district. Home-rule school districts
are subject only to their charter requirements, federal law
and court orders and the portions of the education code
that specifically apply to them.
Home-rule school districts are not affected by state
rules regarding minimum teacher salaries, teacher
contracts, teacher records and reports, campus performance
objectives, teacher appraisal, facility standards, length of
school year and school day, textbook selection, military
instruction, organizations and clubs and other matters not
specifically required.
Limits
A home-rule district may operate under a charter free
of state education code rules except for those regarding
criminal offenses, limitations on liability, educator
certification, criminal history records, student admissions,
school attendance, interdistrict and intercounty transfers of
students, high school graduation requirements, special
education requirements, bilingual education,
prekindergarten programs, transportation safety provisions,
computation and distribution of state aid, extracurricular
activities (no pass-no play), health and safety, public
school accountability, certain school finance and fiscal
provisions and the Public Education Information
Management System (PEIMS), which is a TEA-operated
data collection system.
Home-rule school districts are not required to meet the
requirements for a student-teacher ratio of 22:1 for grades
kindergarten-4 except on campuses determined to be low-
performing by the TEA.
Creation of district
A home-rule charter commission must be appointed by
a school board that receives a petition signed by at least 5
percent of the district's registered voters or if two-thirds
of the board adopts a resolution to set up the commission.
The board then has 30 days to appoint the commission.Page 4
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Texas. Legislature. House of Representatives. Research Organization. Focus Report: Volume 74, Number 14, August 1995, periodical, August 3, 1995; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth640372/m1/4/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.