1. (a) For a student only enrolled in a High School Equivalency Program (HSEP), the following funding rules apply.

   1. (1) A student is counted as in attendance based on the actual number of hours each school day the student receives instruction in the HSEP and/or traditional classes toward graduation requirements.
   2. (2) A student must receive instruction in the HSEP (or HSEP in combination with traditional coursework) at least two hours on a given day in order for instructional contact time to be recorded. If actual instructional contact time in HSEP (or HSEP in combination with traditional coursework) does not at least equal two hours, the district shall record zero hours of instructional contact time for that day.
   3. (3) A log of program instructional contact time must be separately maintained for each student participating in the HSEP.
   4. (4) Instructional contact time is to be recorded in increments of 30 minutes (i.e., two hours and thirty minutes will equate to 2.5 instructional contact hours, two hours and 29 minutes will equate to 2.0 instructional contact hours).
   5. (5) During the time a student receives instruction in the HSEP, any time in attendance in courses that may be counted toward graduation credit will also be measured as instructional contact time, but must be separately recorded.
   6. (6) School districts may designate students who receive instruction in HSEPs as either full-day eligible or half-day eligible for purposes of determining the number of days absent and the related attendance rate for accountability purposes. The maximum number of instructional contact hours allowed each school day, including any instructional time accounted for in traditional courses toward graduation requirements, shall be six hours for students designated as full-day eligible and three hours for students designated as half-day eligible.
   7. (7) To determine attendance for Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) reporting and Foundation School Program (FSP) funding purposes, instructional contact time recorded for the HSEP will be summed with attendance time in courses toward graduation each six-week reporting period. The sum will be divided by six and rounded down to determine the number of days to be reported as present for that reporting period for students that are designated as full-day eligible. For a student reported as full-day eligible, the number of days absent shall be reported as the difference between the days of instruction and the number of days of attendance that will be reported as described in this paragraph. For students reported as half-day eligible, the sum of instructional contact time recorded for the HSEP program and attendance time in courses toward graduation shall be divided by six and rounded down to the nearest number evenly divisible by 0.5 to determine the number of days present. For a student reported as half-day eligible, the number of days absent shall be reported as the difference between half the number of days of instruction and the number of days of attendance that will be reported as described in this paragraph.
   8. (8) Instructional contact time is funded at the same rate under the FSP formulas as attendance for a full-time equivalent student. A full-time equivalent student is expected to have 1,080 contact hours per year.
2. (b) Attendance in an HSEP that is not authorized or does not meet the requirements of Texas Education Code, §29.087, or this subchapter is not eligible for state funding.

Source Note:The provisions of this §89.1413 adopted to be effective November 27, 2001, 26 TexReg 9620.