Texas Family Code - FAM § 65.003. Truant Conduct

(a) A child engages in truant conduct if the child is required to attend school under Section 25.085, Education Code, and fails to attend school on 10 or more days or parts of days within a six-month period in the same school year.

(b) Truant conduct may be prosecuted only as a civil case in a truancy court.

(c) It is an affirmative defense to an allegation of truant conduct that one or more of the absences required to be proven:

(d) The affirmative defense provided by Subsection (c) is not available if, after deducting the absences described by that subsection, there remains a sufficient number of absences to constitute truant conduct.

(e) In asserting an affirmative defense described by Subsection (c), the burden is on the child to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the absence:

(f) A decision by the court to excuse an absence for purposes of an affirmative defense under Subsection (c) does not affect the ability of the school district to determine whether to excuse the absence for another purpose.