HB6

HB6 gives schools more authority to remove disruptive students, broadens several expulsion grounds and changes suspension rules. It also sets conditions for virtual education after expulsion and for school access to the Texas Child Health Access through Telemedicine program (TCHATT). The law applies beginning with the 2025–26 school year. This explains HB6 as enacted, not every other education law passed that year. Final law, all 27 sections; official history.

Classroom removal and suspension

• Teachers can act on a single incident meeting the law’s standards for interference, unruly/disruptive/abusive behavior or bullying. Parents must be notified. The law preserves the limits protecting reasonable classroom discussion and requiring objective, politically unbiased treatment of controversial topics; it is not permission to punish a student merely for expressing a viewpoint. For a discretionary removal, returning the student without the teacher’s written consent requires the placement committee’s best-or-only-alternative determination, a conference within three class days with an opportunity for the teacher to participate, and a return-to-class plan prepared by an employee whose primary duties are not classroom instruction. Separate protections prevent forcing a teacher to accept back a student removed for specified assaults against that teacher without written consent. Students gain a removal appeal to the placement committee, or the threat-assessment team if district policy provides for that route; the family must be told of the appeal right. (Section 8.)
• In-school suspension has no fixed maximum under this provision, replacing the former three-school-day suspension limit. A principal or other appropriate administrator must review continued placement and educational progress at least every 10 school days, documenting a decision to continue. Schools must provide appropriate behavioral support and comparable educational services; students with disabilities must continue receiving their individualized education program services and an opportunity to progress in the general curriculum. Out-of-school suspension remains limited to three school days. (Section 9.)
• For students below third grade, out-of-school suspension may now be used for an immediate threat to classmates’ health and safety or documented repeated/significant classroom disruption, as well as the listed weapons, drug and alcohol conduct. The same restricted categories govern out-of-school suspension of students experiencing homelessness. For the below-third-grade provision, a parent unable to supervise the child may submit a documented written request for in-school suspension instead; approval is discretionary and limited to exceptional circumstances, not a routine substitution. (Section 9.)
• Emergency placement or expulsion may be based on a single incident, but the existing emergency standards, notice, due-process and disability protections remain. (Section 16; Education Code 37.019.)

Alternative placement, vaping and expulsion

A disciplinary alternative education program (DAEP) provides education outside the regular classroom; a juvenile justice alternative education program (JJAEP) is operated under a county juvenile board. Neither term automatically means detention.

• Possessing or using an e-cigarette no longer automatically requires DAEP placement. If a first-time offender is not sent to a DAEP, the law requires at least 10 school days of in-school suspension. Selling, giving or delivering e-cigarettes remains within the mandatory DAEP provision. Student codes must expressly allow discretionary DAEP placement for first-time possession/use of a nicotine-delivery product or e-cigarette. Separate drug rules still matter; this is not a blanket exemption for a vape containing an illegal substance. (Sections 5 and 10.)
• Mandatory DAEP rules expand to criminal harassment or retaliation against school employees or volunteers, on or off school property. Off-campus placement provisions also expand to specified weapons and deadly-conduct offenses. Additional discretionary DAEP grounds reference statutory disruptive activities and disruption of classes: the latter references an offense that excludes students enrolled at that school and retains the under-12 exception, and the loud-noise ground requires intentional, repeated conduct. Those references have specific legal elements; they are not an unlimited new ground for every noisy child. (Section 10; 37.123, 37.124.)
• The main mandatory-expulsion list now reaches conduct on or off school property, rather than generally requiring a school location or school-related activity. It includes the existing serious violent, sexual, weapons and specified felony drug offenses and adds kidnapping, burglary, robbery, bodily-injury assault against a district employee or volunteer, and the specified school-firearm exhibition/use/threat offense. Some listed offenses retain their own location or other elements. The law removes older overlapping retaliation/other-district provisions and updates related references; it does not mean every offense or every threat requires expulsion. (Sections 11, 14, 15 and 21.)
• Important existing limits remain: children under 10 generally may not be expelled, with the separate school-firearm rule; younger-than-six children generally may not be sent to a DAEP, with a firearm-related exception. The approved off-campus shooting-sports exception remains. Required consideration of self-defense, intent, disciplinary history, disability and other statutory factors, expulsion hearings, and special-education protections also remain. (Sections 5, 8 and 11; 37.004, 37.006, 37.007, 37.009.)

Virtual schooling is a limited option after expulsion, not a general substitute for ordinary discipline. A principal or appropriate administrator may use a district virtual expulsion program for a student expelled under 37.007 or 37.0081 only when the applicable JJAEP rejects or returns the student early, or when the district has neither a county JJAEP nor a contract with another county’s juvenile board for one. The district must ensure suitable computer equipment and internet access, supplying them if necessary, and meet DAEP requirements as far as practicable virtually. Placement must be reviewed at least every 45 school days, including available in-person JJAEP space and a prompt transition plan when appropriate. State attendance funding requires confirmed daily attendance. Teachers need virtual-instruction training and cannot be required to teach the virtual and in-person course simultaneously in the same class period. (Sections 12–13.)

Parents, staff and school administration

• Districts may adopt a parental-involvement policy offering a written behavioral agreement after DAEP placement or expulsion. Compliance can reduce the placement period, but the administrator retains discretion; the reduction does not entitle the child to a different type of placement and may be changed or revoked for noncompliance. The code of conduct must say whether the district adopted this policy. (Sections 5 and 7.)
• For bullying, harassment or hit-list conduct by a student receiving special education, the prior rule requiring a committee meeting before discipline is narrowed to discipline that changes the student’s educational placement. Other state and federal disability protections still apply. Parent crisis-prevention/intervention training is added to the definition of supplemental special-education services. (Sections 4–5.)
• Each campus has one accountable behavior coordinator, who may receive staff help but must personally verify implementation, monitor referrals, and report specified threatening/weapons conduct or concerning violence-risk patterns to the campus threat-assessment team. The coordinator must serve on that team when it serves the campus. When assessing a student receiving special education, the team must include someone knowledgeable about student disabilities and how they manifest; the law lists examples of professionals who may serve. (Sections 6 and 18.)
• Professional district employees receive protection from specified district-employment and educator-certification disciplinary proceedings for reporting Chapter 37 violations and for good-faith classroom removals. This is not blanket immunity from every kind of lawsuit or criminal liability. It applies to conduct before, on or after the effective date, but does not reopen proceedings already finally resolved. (Sections 3 and 24.)
• Districts of innovation cannot exempt themselves from Chapter 37, even under an older innovation plan. TEA cannot withhold state funding or penalize a district simply based on its numbers of disciplinary removals, suspensions, alternative placements or expulsions; federal enforcement concerning significant racial/ethnic disproportionality among students with disabilities is expressly preserved. Charter admission exclusions are tied to specified alternative-placement/expulsion conduct, criminal convictions or juvenile adjudications, replacing the broad documented-history wording; an additional child-care-campus exclusion is permitted for specified convictions. (Sections 1–2, 17 and 23.)

Mental-health services and timing

If TCHATT services are available, a district may, but need not, offer access. Participation cannot be compulsory. For a student under 18, district referral requires parental/guardian consent; mental-health education or screening requires signed written parental/guardian consent obtained by the program; providing mental-health services requires written consent under the existing minor-services law. Sharing student records also requires written consent—by the student, or the parent/guardian if the student is under 18. TCHATT is not treated as a “school official with a legitimate educational interest” for that disclosure exception. Provider-referral lists and vetting procedures must be posted quarterly, and the consortium’s existing biennial report gains treatment, referral, medication, consent and research-information measures. (Sections 19–20; Health and Safety Code 113.0152.)

The law was signed and took effect June 20, 2025, with application beginning in 2025–26. It required TEA’s school-discipline-law report by the first day of that school year and districts to provide it to students and parents. The separate consent transition names Education Code 38.2545(c)(2), (d) and (e)—no compelled participation, services consent and records consent—and requires compliance and updated forms as soon as practicable, no later than December 1, 2025. That is not a blanket postponement of every consent safeguard. TEA’s August 14 implementation letter and parent resources; TEA’s innovation-plan explanation.