Senators soften student discipline bill, giving Texas schools more flexibility

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The Texas Senate, in an about-face, approved a sweeping rewrite of the state’s student discipline laws that provides schools with more flexibility to manage student behavior.

The final legislation, which included many amendments, moderated portions of the bill the Senate had previously sought to harden.

The House must concur before it goes to the governor.

“Disruptions are impeding both the ability of teachers to teach and the ability of students to learn,” said state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, who shepherded the bill in the Senate. “We have attempted to draft a bill that achieves the goals of both the House and the Senate.”

The latest version of House Bill 6 would allow schools to place students in in-school suspensions for as long as they see appropriate, so long as principals review the placement every 10 days. Students facing in-school suspension still complete schoolwork in a different classroom on school grounds. The bill clarifies that those students must be under the supervision of faculty.

The legislation also amends current law that requires schools to send students who are caught vaping to alternative education settings, a strict environment that often leans on computer-based work and is in a different building. The House wanted to repeal the law altogether. The Senate’s version gives schools flexibility to hand students caught with a vape less severe consequences if it is their first offense.

And because the bill would allow schools to use out-of-school suspensions to discipline all students when they engage in “repeated and significant” classroom disruption or threaten the health and safety of other children, it would make it easier for schools to discipline homeless students and the state's youngest students. That's because the bill would reverse state laws from 2017 and 2019 that put limitations on when and how those students could be disciplined.

Senators on Thursday acknowledged the challenges the youngest students face behaving in the classroom. An amendment Thursday would require schools to provide documentation of disruptive behavior before they doled out an out-of-school suspension to students in kindergarten through third grade.

When schools consider removing students with disabilities, they must involve professionals who are knowledgeable about how disabilities manifest. That person may be a special education teacher, a social worker or a school psychologist.

Perry on Thursday said the legislation was six years in the making.

“We've reached a crisis point where there's just some kids that absolutely are such a deterrent to the overall learning process that we have to find a better way,” Perry said. “With that, HB 6 found that balance. I like where we landed.”

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

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