[TxHam] ==> Amateur Radio Now Legal in all Texas Public Schools

[David Johnson KB5YLG]

>From the ARRL Letter:


==> Amateur Radio Now Legal in all Texas Public Schools 

In what can only be termed a huge victory for the future of Amateur
Radio in Texas, Governor Rick Perry signed Senate Bill 11 (SB11) into
law in June. Among many disaster response specifications, the new law
contains two important Amateur Radio-related provisions: State
 employees
who are ham radio operators may to take up to 10 days of paid leave
while participating in a disaster response or training exercise, and
Amateur Radio is now allowed in all Texas public schools. 

A single sentence in Article 2 of SB11 modifies the legal definition of
a banned paging device by adding the following ham radio exception:
 "The
term does not include an Amateur Radio under the control of an operator
who holds an Amateur Radio Station License issued by the Federal
Communications Commission." 

Texas is the first state to enact such a sweeping change allowing
school-based ham radio programs statewide. It is hoped that similar
measures will be enacted in other states. Local clubs in Texas are
 urged
to contact their school boards and encourage them to bring school
policies regarding student possession of RF devices into compliance
 with
the new law. 

A decades-old provision in the Texas Education Code (Section 37.082)
long ago granted Texas schools blanket authority to ban student
possession of all RF devices, including ham radios. The old law was
originally enacted with the best of intentions, but had unintended
negative consequences both for student safety and for the cause of
Amateur Radio. More than 20 years ago Texas -- like many states at the
time -- passed a law granting schools sweeping authority to ban student
possession of "paging devices." The original intent of the law was to
prevent on-campus drug dealers from communicating with one another
 using
now-obsolete numeric pagers. Cut off their communication, the logic
went, and drugs on campus would be seriously curtailed. 

The old law broadly defined a prohibited "paging device" as any RF
device which had the ability to vibrate, emit a sound, display a
message, or in any way convey a communication to the possessor. There
was no exception for school-based Amateur Radio programs or clubs.
Practically all Texas schools immediately exercised their newly granted
right by banning all RF devices to the maximum extent allowed by law --
and sometimes to a greater extent than the law allowed. 

The result of the old law was that in most Texas schools, starting a
 ham
radio club was simply out of the question. Existing ham radio programs
were even removed from some San Antonio area schools as a direct result
of the old law. 

Although schools can still have basic rules of classroom decorum to
insure that ham radio activities do not disturb academic instruction,
 SB
11 effectively puts ham radio programs on the same legal footing with
all other student-initiated clubs and activities. Texas school teachers
are now free to start ham radio programs. Students are now free to form
school-based ham radio clubs. Individual students who have a ham
 license
are even legally allowed to possess ham radios at school regardless of
whether a club exists yet. SB11 takes effect on September 1. -- James
Alderman, KF5WT