Today is the final day of the 87th Regular Legislative Session.

Sine die is Latin for "without day" and the Texas Legislature today finds themselves without a day to meet again (until the special session that we all know is coming in October, if not sooner), so they will adjourn sine die. Last night, the Texas House also found themselves without a quorum.

Don't miss out! Register for our Post-Legislative Workshop on Wednesday, June 9, in Dallas. You can register via the link below to attend and also find the info you need.

If you are not able to join us in person, but still want to participate, please click on the button below to register and attend virtually via Zoom.

Last night, as the House was working through the remaining bills that required House action to adopt conference committee reports to pass, the House lost a quorum and was forced to adjourn without finishing the remaining business. To be clear, the lack of quorum was a political action taken by a minority party to block passage of a controversial bill on elections.

House Bill 1468 (Bell, Keith/Taylor) which was needed to pass in order for schools to be able to continue to provide remote instruction in the next school year became collateral damage, as it failed to pass before the House was forced to adjourn with over an hour remaining on the clock with which to pass bills. It was adopted by the Senate, but adoption is required by both bodies in order for a bill to pass.

Hopefully we will learn more in the coming days about what tools and waivers the Commissioner may be able to use in his broad degree of authority to help students and schools overcome this hurdle which is clearly not their fault.

The Conference Committee Report (CCR) for the school finance/clean-up bill

HB 1525 (Huberty/Taylor) was adopted by both chambers before either chamber adjourned, and it is therefore headed to the Governor's desk.

Here are some resources to help you get up on all do that:

We will be providing info regarding the per-district impact of the Foundation School Program portions of this bill soon. Some of the other non-FSP aspects are a little more difficult to project, but we will do our best to provide info on those as well. Stay tuned.

Here is a quick status report on the bills we're watching closely. The only was the status of any of these bills may change now is by action of the Governor. The only thing legislators may do on Monday is adopt technical corrections, give long-winded speeches, and adjourn sine die.

SB 1 (Nelson/Bonnen), The General Appropriations Act

SB 1365 (Bettencourt/Huberty), school district accountability/sanctions

HB 1525 (Huberty/Taylor), HB 3 Clean-up/school finance bill

HB 4545 (Dutton/Taylor), accelerated instruction requirements for districts

HB 547 (Frank/Paxton) - allows home-schooled students to participate in UIL activities; House concurred with Senate amendments and the bill is on its way to the Governor.

HB 3979 (Toth/Creighton), civics curriculum bill dubbed the "anti-critical race theory bill"

SB 204 (Schwertner/Huberty) allows a district to provide transportation to enrolled students, even if the student does not reside within the geographic boundaries of the district (if the district meets certain criteria, similar to what was required for waivers)

HB 1468 (Bell, Keith/Taylor), ADA for remote instruction provided by local districts

HB 4242 (Meyer/Birdwell), extension of Chapter 313