The rule action presented in this item will be filed as adopted with the Texas Register under the commissioner's rulemaking authority. The adopted amendment to 19 TAC Chapter 129, Student Attendance, Subchapter AA, Commissioner's Rules, §129.1025, Adoption By Reference: Student Attendance Accounting Handbook, adopts by reference the student attendance accounting handbook for the 2010-2011 school year. The handbook provides student attendance accounting rules for school districts and charter schools.

STATUTORY AUTHORITY:

Texas Education Code, §42.004, and 19 TAC §129.21.

EFFECTIVE DATE:

December 28, 2010.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND SIGNIFICANT ISSUES:

Legal counsel with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) has recommended that the procedures contained in each annual student attendance accounting handbook be adopted as part of the Texas Administrative Code. This decision was made in 2000 as a result of a court decision challenging state agency decision making via administrative letters and publications. Given the statewide application of the attendance accounting rules and the existence of sufficient statutory authority for the commissioner of education to adopt by reference the student attendance accounting handbook, staff proceeded with formal adoption of rules in this area. The intention is to annually update the rule to refer to the most recently published student attendance accounting handbook. Data from previous school years will continue to be subject to the student attendance accounting handbook as the handbook existed in those years.

Each annual student attendance accounting handbook provides school districts and charter schools with the Foundation School Program (FSP) eligibility requirements of all students, prescribes the minimum requirements of all student attendance accounting systems, lists the documentation requirements for attendance audit purposes, specifies the minimum standards for systems that are entirely functional without the use of paper, and details the responsibilities of all district personnel involved in student attendance accounting. The TEA distributes FSP resources under the procedures specified in each current student attendance accounting handbook. The final version of the student attendance accounting handbook is published on the TEA website each July or August. A supplement, if necessary, is also published on the TEA website.

The adopted amendment to 19 TAC §129.1025 adopts by reference the student attendance accounting handbook for the 2010-2011 school year. The release of a second version of the handbook, 2010-2011 Student Attendance Accounting Handbook Version 2, was necessary to incorporate changes made in reponse to public comment. Section 129.1025 was modified at adoption to reference the correct version of the student attendance accounting handbook.

Significant changes to the 2010-2011 Student Attendance Accounting Handbook Version 2 from the 2009-2010 Student Attendance Accounting Handbook Version 2 include the following.

Throughout the Handbook

In sections 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 10, references to students transferring have been replaced with references to students moving where appropriate, to preserve use of the word transfer only for circumstances in which a student is legally transferred into a district as described in subsection 3.2.1.4.

In sections 3, 5, and 10, requirements from which charter schools are exempt have been explicitly identified.

Section 1

An explanation that web addresses are subject to change and of how to find the most current TEA web addresses has been added.

Section 2

Clarification that documentation other than documentation related to student attendance may need to be kept longer than five years has been added.

An explanation that, for certain alternative attendance programs, eligible minutes of attendance instead of eligible days of attendance should be reported has been added.

Section 3

Specific references to aliens, foreign exchange students, and students who attend a regional day school program for the deaf have been deleted from the subsection on average daily attendance (ADA) eligibility codes.

Information on special minimum eligible age requirements applicable to children of military families has been added.

Clarifications that special education students who are returning to school under 19 TAC §89.1070, Graduation Requirements, are eligible for funding have been added.

In subsection 3.2.3.2, a sentence identifying types of students who are eligible to graduate but who may continue their education and be eligible for funding has been corrected to indicate that two exceptions, and not just one, are being described.

Information on student absences for the purpose of auditing classes at a charter school has been added.

A subsection on a limited exception to the requirement that a district serve a student residing in the district has been added.

Information on which district employees are eligible to take attendance and an explanation that using a "sign-in" sheet to record attendance is not acceptable have been added.

A subsection on the attendance-taking protocol to be used when the start of the school day is delayed has been added.

A subsection on the permissibility of having alternate attendance-taking times for certain students has also been added.

A clarification of which absences are considered absences for required court appearances has been added, as has a clarification that temporary absences for health care appointments must be for face-to-face appointments to be excused for funding purposes.

A subsection on excused absences for academic purposes has been added.

An explanation that a student who is exempt from taking exams and attends school on exam day only to "sign in" has not met minimum instructional time requirements for funding purposes has been added.

Multiple changes have been made in the subsection on the General Education Homebound (GEH) program. An explanation that, over the period of confinement, a student must be provided instruction in all his or her courses has been added. A clarification that a student entering the program retains the same ADA eligibility code as before entering the program has been added. The GEH funding chart has been expanded to clarify how eligible days present are earned, and information on calculating eligible days present has been added. A subsection on test administration and the GEH program has been added. Clarification on transitioning out of (and back into) the program and the calculation of attendance has been added.

All information on waivers has been placed under the same subsection. Clarification about when a missed instructional day waiver may be applied for has been added, as has information on early-release days. Information on documenting waiver approval and on attendance accounting for missed instructional days or low-attendance days has been added.

Dates for submission and resubmission of attendance data by districts operating year-round programs have been updated.

In response to public comment, subsections 3.2.1.1 and 3.2.2.2 were modified at adoption to reflect a recent agency policy change allowing students who have met course requirements for graduation but have not passed the required state assessment and are attending school to participate in a review program to retake the assessment to be eligible to generate state funding for this attendance.

Also in response to public comment, subsection 3.2.1.4 was modified at adoption to align handbook information with the information in the September 30, 2010, TEA "To the Administrator Addressed" letter with the subject line "Order in Civil Action 5281." This letter explains that, because of a recent court order, it is no longer necessary for all Texas school districts to report transfers of students. The compliance statement at the end of the handbook was also modified at adoption to reflect the change in policy.

Section 4

Special education eligibility requirements have been clarified.

In applicable subsections throughout the section, explanations have been added that, for the mainstream instructional setting/arrangement code to be used for a three- or four-year-old student, the majority of the student's class must be made up of students who are not receiving special education services.

Minor clarifications and a correction have been made in the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) coding charts that appear in subsection 4.2.10. Information applicable to prekindergarten students who do not have disabilities has been removed and added to a chart in section 7.

A subsection on transfer of records and special education students has been added.

A statement that a student's admission, review, and dismissal (ARD) committee must review the student's individualized education program at least annually has been added.

Clarification about when to use the code for no instructional arrangement/setting has been added.

Multiple changes have been made in the subsection on the homebound instructional arrangement/setting. Eligibility criteria have been clarified. An explanation that a student's ARD committee determines the amount of services to be provided to the student over the period of confinement has been added. A clarification that a student being served in this setting retains the same ADA eligibility code as before being served in this setting has been added. The homebound funding chart has been expanded to clarify how eligible days present are earned, and information on calculating eligible days present has been added. Clarification on transitioning out of (and back into) this setting and the calculation of attendance has been added.

The term state school has been replaced with state supported living center.

In subsection 4.6.6, the first column of the table, which provides information on the coding to use for students in certain residential facilities, has been revised for clarity.

Clarification about when to use code 42, one of the codes for the resource room/services instructional arrangement/setting, for a 3- or 4-year-old student has been added, as has clarification about the speech therapy indicator code to use for students in this setting who are pulled out of the general education classroom for speech therapy and other services.

Clarification that the code for the vocational adjustment class instructional arrangement/setting applies only to a student in paid employment has been added.

Language describing requirements related to the mainstream instructional arrangement/setting code has been made consistent in all subsections in which the requirements appear.

Statements that students served at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and the Texas School for the Deaf should be reported with ADA eligibility codes of 0 have been removed.

At adoption, a technical edit was made to correct the number of minutes of general education instruction specified in Example 3 of subsection 4.14.4.

Section 5

Requirements related to teacher qualifications and to required documentation have been modified.

A statement that students below Grade 9 are not eligible for career and technical education (CTE) contact hours even if they take a high school course has been removed.

Requirements related to course funding eligibility, specifically to course program intent codes and to PEIMS reporting, have been modified.

Information on career preparation courses has been revised to specify that these courses are for only paid experience, and information on CTE practicum courses has been added. Information on requirements for both of these types of courses has been added, along with an explanation of the differences between them.

Requirements related to paid CTE learning experiences have been modified.

The term independent study course has been replaced with Problems and Solutions course.

Section 6

Enrollment procedures have been modified to specify that personnel testing students for English proficiency must be trained.

The bilingual/English as a Second Language (ESL) program exit criteria and procedures have been updated to reflect 2010-2011 school year testing information and to reference current documents.

Certification requirements for teachers of certain bilingual/ESL high school courses have been modified.

Writing samples have been added to the list of documentation that must be kept in a student's permanent record.

At adoption, a technical edit was made to update the web links in footnotes 123 and 125 to link to current-year documents.

Section 7

Information on documentation requirements related to prekindergarten eligibility based on a parent's membership in the armed forces has been revised.

Information on letters verifying prekindergarten eligibility that are provided by the Department of Family and Protective Services and Child Protective Services has been updated.

The table in the subsection on prekindergarten eligible days present has been revised.

Additional information and requirements related to the prekindergarten Early Start Grant Program have been added.

Section 8

The subsection on documentation has been revised to state that the gifted/talented program should be included in the district improvement plan as well as in the campus improvement plan.

Section 9

Multiple changes have been made in the subsections on Pregnancy Related Services (PRS) Compensatory Education Homebound Instruction (CEHI) and on special education and PRS collaborative confinement. The charts on eligible days present earned have been expanded to clarify how the days are earned, and information on calculating eligible days present has been added to the collaborative confinement subsection. Clarifications that a student being served in confinement retains the same ADA eligibility code as before being served in confinement have been added. An explanation that, over the period of confinement, a student must be provided instruction in all her courses has been added to the CEHI subsection.

Section 10

Information on evaluation of disciplinary alternative education programs and juvenile justice alternative education programs (JJAEPs) and accountability has been modified and added.

Clarification of information and requirements related to residential alternative education programs has been added.

Information on reporting attendance of "truant" JJAEP students has been added.

Section 11

Texas Administrative Code information on dual credit course eligibility that was previously referenced in a footnote has been explicitly stated.

Information on reporting dual credit attendance in PEIMS has been modified.

A subsection on Gateway to College and similar programs has been added.

The subsection on the Optional Extended Year Program has been modified to explain that the program will not be funded for the 2010-2011 school year.

Information on an exception to certain Optional Flexible School Day Program requirements has been added.

The subsection on the Optional Flexible Year Program (OFYP) has been modified to add a statement that districts are encouraged to provide additional instructional days for eligible students throughout the school year instead of only at the end of the school year and a statement that an OFYP instructional day may not be scheduled on the same day as an early release day.

In the subsection on the Texas Virtual School Network, information referencing students in Grades 3-9 has been modified to reference students in Grades 3-10. Information on funding and fees has been clarified.

A subsection on the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children has been added.

Section 12

An incorrect funding weight amount has been corrected.

Section 13

Glossary definitions have been updated, and obsolete definitions have been deleted.

FISCAL IMPACT:

The TEA has determined that there are no additional costs to persons or entities required to comply with the rule action. In addition, there is no direct adverse economic impact for small businesses and microbusinesses; therefore, no regulatory flexibility analysis, specified in the Texas Government Code, §2006.002, is required.

PUBLIC AND STUDENT BENEFIT:

The adopted amendment to 19 TAC §129.1025 continues to inform the public of the existence of annual publications specifying attendance accounting procedures for school districts and charter schools.

PROCEDURAL AND REPORTING IMPLICATIONS:

The adopted amendment places the specific procedures contained in the 2010-2011 Student Attendance Accounting Handbook Version 2 in the Texas Administrative Code. The TEA distributes FSP funds according to the procedures specified in each annual student attendance accounting handbook. Data reporting requirements are addressed through the PEIMS.

LOCALLY MAINTAINED PAPERWORK REQUIREMENTS:

The handbook has long stated that school districts and open-enrollment charter schools must keep all student attendance documentation for five years from the end of the school year. Any new student attendance documentation required to be kept corresponds with the student attendance accounting requirement changes described previously.

PUBLIC COMMENTS:

The public comment period on the proposal began October 8, 2010, and ended November 8, 2010. Following is a summary of the public comments received and the corresponding agency responses.

Comment: An employee of a charter school commented that the 2010-2011 Student Attendance Accounting Handbook should be updated to reflect a recent policy change allowing students who have met course requirements for graduation but have not passed the required state assessment and are attending school to participate in a review program to retake the assessment to be eligible to generate state funding for this attendance.

Agency Response: The agency agrees. Subsections 3.2.1.1 and 3.2.2.2 were modified at adoption to reflect the recent policy change. To incorporate this and other changes, an updated version of the handbook, 2010-2011 Student Attendance Accounting Handbook Version 2, has been released.

Comment: An employee of an education service center commented that the information in subsection 3.2.1.4 of the 2010-2011 Student Attendance Accounting Handbook stating that school districts must report student transfers through the Student Transfer System contradicted information in the September 30, 2010, TEA "To the Administrator Addressed" letter with the subject line "Order in Civil Action 5281." This letter explains that, because of a recent court order, it is no longer necessary for all Texas school districts to report transfers of students.

Agency Response: The agency agrees. Subsection 3.2.1.4 and the compliance statement that appears at the end of the handbook have been updated to reflect the information in the September 30, 2010, "To the Administrator Addressed" letter. To incorporate this and other changes, an updated version of the handbook, 2010-2011 Student Attendance Accounting Handbook Version 2, has been released.

ALTERNATIVES:

None.

OTHER COMMENTS AND RELATED ISSUES:

None.

Staff Members Responsible:

Lisa Dawn-Fisher, Deputy Associate Commissioner, School Finance
Belinda Dyer, Director, Forecasting and Fiscal Analysis

For additional information, email rules@tea.state.tx.us.

Page last modified on 8/30/2011.