Relating to the inclusion of chronically absent and truant students as students at risk of dropping out of school and the collection and reporting of data regarding those students.
Summary
SB 991 expands Texas’s definition of a “student at risk of dropping out of school” to expressly include two attendance-related categories: chronically absent students and students who miss 10 or more unexcused days or parts of days within a six-month period in the same school year. By doing so, the bill places these students within the state’s existing dropout-prevention framework, which can affect how districts identify students for intervention and support services.
The bill also broadens statewide data collection and reporting requirements. It directs the Texas Education Agency to require school districts and open-enrollment charter schools to report, through PEIMS, campus-level information on chronic absenteeism and truancy, along with other student-support indicators already tracked under current law. TEA must then annually aggregate and publicly release campus- and district-level data on truancy and chronic absenteeism. The bill takes effect September 1, 2025.
Impact
The bill amends Sections 29.081 and 48.009 of the Education Code. It adds chronic absenteeism and certain truancy patterns to the statutory list of students at risk of dropping out, which may make more students eligible for dropout-prevention and instructional support services under existing law. It also requires districts and charter schools to report chronic absenteeism and truancy data in PEIMS, and requires TEA to publish aggregated data, increasing transparency and potentially affecting district accountability, intervention planning, and public reporting practices.
Sentiment
The bill appears to have received generally favorable legislative support, passing the Senate unanimously and the House by a substantial margin. The vote history suggests broad agreement on the need to address absenteeism and truancy as dropout-risk factors and to improve data collection on these issues. The absence of committee transcript material limits insight into detailed debate, but the recorded votes indicate overall bipartisan or cross-aisle support.
Contention
The main policy issue is the expansion of the at-risk student category to include chronic absenteeism and unexcused truancy, which could increase the number of students districts must monitor and support. Another possible point of concern is the new reporting burden on school districts and charter schools, since they must track and submit additional attendance-related data. Any disagreement likely centered on whether the added identification and reporting requirements would improve intervention and transparency enough to justify the administrative impact.
Very Similar
Relating to the inclusion of chronically absent students as students at risk of dropping out of school and the collection and reporting of data regarding those students.