Florida roundup: Charter schools, NAACP, accountability and more

florida-roundup-logoAccountability. Florida officials prepare for the new federal law, which gives states more flexibility. Politico Florida. Palm Beach Post.

Charter schools. Audits of Florida charter schools show signs of financial stress. Florida Times-Union. A Bay County charter school may have to trim its budget. Panama City News Herald.

Funding. School districts are being advised to tighten their belts, since major K-12 funding increases likely won’t be in the offing. Pensacola News-Journal.

NAACP. The civil rights organization should stop fighting a scholarship program in court, a parent argues in Capital Outlook. (Step Up For Students, which publishes this blog, helps administer the tax credit scholarship program.)

Credit recovery. Bay County emulates a Leon County program that allows students to earn out-of-state diplomas while bypassing Florida testing requirements. Panama City News Herald.

Elections. Charter schools, Common Core and other issues come up in a debate between Jacksonville statehouse candidates. Florida Politics. A Brevard school board candidate is set to appear in court after a disruption at a May school board meeting. Florida Today.

Facilities. The good news? More money for Pasco school construction. The bad news? Officials say it’s still not enough. Gradebook.

School grades. When will school grades come out? It’s still not clear. Gradebook.

Recognized. Flagler County high schools make the Washington Post’s list of America’s most challenging high schools. Palm Coast Observer.

Arts. Vero Beach High School’s orchestra is raising funds for a trip to Austria. TC Palm.


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BY Travis Pillow

Travis Pillow is Director of Thought Leadership at Step Up For Students and editor of NextSteps. He lives in Sanford, Fla. with his wife and two children. A former Tallahassee statehouse reporter, he most recently worked at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research organization at Arizona State University, where he studied community-led learning innovation and school systems' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. He can be reached at tpillow (at) sufs.org.