Under rules the Texas Education Agency proposed on Aug. 28, an open-enrollment charter school could require a child to attend school through a computer screen, and a school district could not.
The provision sits in proposed 19 TAC §71.1016, part of a 19-section package published in the Aug. 28 issue of the Texas Register, the state’s official journal of agency rulemaking. Two consecutive subsections set the split. “A student enrolled in a school district may not be compelled to enroll in a full-time virtual or full-time hybrid campus,” the proposal reads. “A school district must offer the option for a student’s parent to select in-person instruction for the student.” The next line: “An open-enrollment charter school may require a student to attend a full-time hybrid campus or virtual campus.”
Charter schools are public schools, funded by the state and open to any Texas student who applies. Roughly 400,000 children attend them. Under the proposal, a family enrolled in one would have no state-guaranteed right to a classroom, while a family down the road in a traditional district would.
The rules carry out Senate Bill 569, passed in 2025, which created a new chapter of the Education Code governing virtual and hybrid schooling. The statute directs the commissioner of education to authorize such campuses; the details are being written now, in rule, by the agency.
Public comment opened Aug. 28 and closes Sept. 28. Anyone wanting a public hearing must ask for one within 14 days of publication — by Sept. 11. The commissioner may adopt the rules as early as Sept. 27.
Who may enroll full time online is tightly limited, and here the two campus types diverge again. Under §71.1016(b), a student may attend a full-time virtual campus only if the student attended a Texas public school for at least six weeks in the current or prior year, is entering first grade or below, was not required to attend Texas public school the previous year because of nonresidency, is the dependent of a deployed service member, or has been placed in substitute care. Full-time hybrid campuses, which mix online and in-person days, carry no such restrictions — any eligible Texas student, at any grade.
The agency wrote the eligibility limit to bind regardless of money. A district or charter “may not enroll a student in a full-time virtual campus if the student does not meet the eligibility requirements,” the proposal says, “regardless of whether the district or charter school seeks state funding for that student.”
Funding is calculated in an unusual way. Rather than counting the days a virtual student actually shows up, §71.1002 would multiply the number of full-time-equivalent students enrolled online by the attendance rate of the sponsoring district or charter — that is, by how reliably its in-person students come to school. Campuses would also have to keep students who “attend classes for at least six weeks during the regular school year,” with summer school not counted.
New campuses would generally have to run a pilot first. Districts and charters that already operated online programs as of May 6, 2025 could take an expedited path. In either case the commissioner may authorize a campus only “if the commissioner determines that the authorization of the campus is likely to result in improved student learning opportunities” — and, the proposal adds, “A determination made by the commissioner under this section is final and not subject to appeal.”
Campuses rated needs improvement or unacceptable three years running would lose their authorization, with an appeal available only where revocation closes the campus outright. Teachers get protections of their own: a school could not require the same teacher to deliver online and in-person instruction in the same class period, and “may not directly or indirectly coerce” a teacher hired for in-person work into an online assignment.
The agency’s fiscal note says the package costs nothing. Marian Schutte, associate commissioner for authorizing and policy, “has determined that for the first five-year period the proposal is in effect, there are no additional costs to state or local government, including school districts and open-enrollment charter schools.” The stated public benefit is giving schools “the ability to create virtual and hybrid programs, courses, and campuses.”
Comments go to the agency’s rulemaking office; the contact listed is Cristina De La Fuente-Valadez, director of rulemaking. The clock runs to Sept. 28.