Legislative Priorities for 81st Legislative Session

Education

• Create Transparency in Graduation/Drop Out Rates
  
• Amend/strengthen policies for teachers regarding disciplinary behavior management.
• Kindergarten for all age appropriate children

Human Trafficking

• Mandate training on human trafficking for law enforcement
  
• Mandate sign posting in sexually oriented businesses
  
• Create a state-wide Human Trafficking Task Force
  
• Revise Compelling Prostitution statute to make commercial aspect consistent with human trafficking
  
• Remove Force/Fraud/Coercion language in case of minors
  
• Remove "Knowing" language regarding a child's age in case of human trafficking
  
• Separate Sex Trafficking and labor trafficking in statute
  
• Study alternatives to the juvenile justice system for human trafficking victims
  
• Increase protection against underage human trafficking victims

Children's Mental Health

• Appropriate and maximize funding for Juvenile Mental Health Dockets
• Appropriate funding to expand mental health community based services to divert juvenile justice-involved youths from detention

Childhood Obesity

• Create oversight of the school health requirements
• Include BMI measurements when assessing body composition in schools
• Strengthen policies that promote healthy children and decrease childhood obesity

Juvenile Justice

• Require the Texas Youth Commission to Respond to Ombudsman Reports
• Require Texas Youth Commission to create disciplinary consequences for those who do not provide accurate information in an ombudsman investigation

Certification of Juveniles as Adults 

• Extend the time in which the defense attorney has to review the juvenile’s file before the certification petition hearing from one day to five days.  Allow the prosecutor five days to review the file as well.