2025 · Regular session · Senate bill
SB920
SB920 allows school districts, open-enrollment charter schools and private schools to adopt policies permitting employees, including nurses, to give students nonprescription medicine without further authorization or a written pro…
Official caption: Relating to the administration of nonprescription medications to certain public and private school students.
Official report lists Senate author(s): Sparks. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- SB920 allows school districts, open-enrollment charter schools and private schools to adopt policies permitting employees, including nurses, to give students nonprescription medicine without further authorization or a written protocol from the student’s health care provider.
- The act extends section 22.052’s medication-policy protection to charter and private schools and adds protection from administrative disciplinary action to its civil-liability immunity.
- A governing board may also authorize a volunteer licensed physician or registered nurse, covered by school-provided liability insurance, to administer nonprescription medicine or medicine currently prescribed by the student’s health care provider.
What does it do?
SB920 allows school districts, open-enrollment charter schools and private schools to adopt policies permitting employees, including nurses, to give students nonprescription medicine without further authorization or a written protocol from the student’s health care provider. This is permission to adopt a policy, not a requirement that every school provide medicine. The school must have a written request from a parent, legal guardian or other person with legal control; the medicine must be unexpired and in what appears to be its original, properly labeled container; and the dose must follow that label. Section 2, new subsection (a-1).
The act extends section 22.052’s medication-policy protection to charter and private schools and adds protection from administrative disciplinary action to its civil-liability immunity. The statutory conditions include a written parental/legal request and, for prescription medicine, an apparently original properly labeled container or a properly labeled unit-dose container filled from it by a registered nurse or another employee qualified under school policy. The existing subsection (c) still says the section does not grant civil-liability immunity for injuries resulting from gross negligence. This is not unconditional protection for every medication error. Amended immunity provision; Full pre-act section, including retained subsection (c).
A governing board may also authorize a volunteer licensed physician or registered nurse, covered by school-provided liability insurance, to administer nonprescription medicine or medicine currently prescribed by the student’s health care provider. The act makes the Nursing Board’s authority to decide what constitutes nursing subject to section 22.052. Signed May 30, 2025, it took effect September 1, 2025. Sections 2–4; History.
What changed along the way?
The introduced bill put charter/private-school protection in a proposed separate section 22.0521 and did not contain the final explicit nonprescription-medicine permission and safeguards. The Senate committee substitute instead folded those schools into existing section 22.052, added the nonprescription provision, changed “personal physician” to “health care provider” for volunteer-administered prescriptions, and revised the Nursing Board cross-reference. The proposed separate section’s express exception for both civil and administrative action in gross-negligence cases did not become law; the existing section’s civil-liability exception remains. The substitute, engrossed, House-report and enrolled operative texts match. The amendment index lists no floor amendments. All versions.
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
Families may avoid obtaining a separate provider authorization for an over-the-counter dose that meets these conditions, where the school adopts a permitting policy. Schools and staff gain clearer authority and conditional protection, while parents still must make the written request. The law does not authorize expired medicine or off-label dosing through this new permission, guarantee staffing or supplies, or prove that medication errors will fall. Permission and safeguards.
The March 17 introduced, March 26 substitute and May 7 engrossed fiscal notes all anticipate no state or local fiscal implication. They do not quantify families’ avoided appointment costs, school workload or health outcomes.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.
