Texas State will soon be required to provide additional services to parenting or pregnant students after the 88th Texas Legislature passed new legislation in the Education Code, effective September 2023.
This new legislation includes three sections that require universities and other higher education institutions to provide a liaison officer for assisting student parents, as well as early registration and protections for parenting or pregnant students.
According to Section 51.983 of the Texas Education Code, these protections include restraining the university from requiring students, because of their status as parent or pregnant, to “take a leave of absence or withdraw from the student’s degree or certificate program, limit the student’s studies, participate in an alternative program, change the student’s major, degree or certificate program or refrain from joining or cease participating in any course, activity or program at the institution.”
According to Texas State’s Director of Media Relations Jayme Blaschke, the legislation will most likely be implemented through the Dean of Students Office, which is awaiting guidance from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board before it acts or speaks on university policy.
Jose Zapata, a business administration and management sophomore, has been a student-parent for five months. Zapata works full-time to support his daughter Emilia on top of being a full-time student.
“I really have to manage my things and I can’t be goofing off,” Zapata said. “I have to work certain days, then I go see her and spend my time with her, and the next day, I do the same thing.”
Shalai Cuevas, a psychology senior, has a one-year-old daughter, Ximena, who lives with her grandparents three and a half hours away. Cuevas said being a student-parent away from her daughter can have its ups and downs.
“We FaceTime every day, but it’s not the same as being there in person with her every day doing those little things like feeding her, changing her diaper and just playing with her,” Cuevas said. “A good thing is that it won’t be too much longer until [I graduate].”
Section 51.982 requires professors to allow absences, makeup work, late work and extended due dates regarding emergencies with a student’s child or pregnancy. This also requires professors to “provide the student with access to instructional materials and video recordings of lectures for classes for which the student has an excused absence under this section.”
Zapata said the protections could help him do better on his assignments.
“Five classes are a big workload while maintaining a full-time job, and sometimes I stay up to one or two in the morning just trying to finish schoolwork before it’s due,” Zapata said.
Cuevas said there’s a strong need for this protection of student parents, especially since some don’t have access to the same help she has with her parents.
“There are so many student parents that don’t get the help they should get because there isn’t any leeway for them,” Cuevas said. “Students only get that leeway if they’re terminally ill, have doctor’s notes or things of that nature, but there’s nothing that applies to somebody who is just having to take care of their child.”
Students Who Are Parents is a program with the Dean of Students Office that offers a liaison officer for student parents and provides resources to support pregnant or parenting students, which section 51.9357 of the new legislation requires. Students can also fill out an online request form to meet with university staff about seeking pregnancy-related accommodations.
Through the Dean of Students office, students can fill out a questionnaire to decide accommodations once the office receives guidance from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
For more information, call 512-245-2124 or email [email protected].
