Senate passes school discipline bill

The Texas Senate passed SB 1871 by Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock) on April 10. The bill is one of several Perry filed that aims to strengthen school discipline laws to help teachers maintain order in their classrooms and receive support from administration to do so. 

Perry has filed similar legislation around school discipline in previous sessions, but none of them made it out of committee. TCTA has worked very closely with Perry's staff in the past and continued those efforts this session, providing language to improve the bill and testifying in support of it in the Senate K-16 Education Committee.

On the floor, Perry described the increasing frequency of severe behavior incidents in classrooms and the difficulty experienced by teachers who want dangerous and disruptive students removed. While some teachers have supportive administrators in these situations, many others send these students to the office only to see them return minutes later. Other senators asked about some details in the bill and offered minor amendments, most of which were acceptable to the author. 

The bill passed 30-0 and will next move to the House for committee consideration.