Education bill: The Senate is expected to vote today on the massive education bill, which would create a state scholarship for bullied students, boost the money available for special-needs students that would be funded through a corporate lease tax credit, offer $500 savings accounts for tutoring to low-performing readers in elementary schools, and decertify teachers unions that don’t have 50 percent of their eligible employees as dues-paying members, among other things. If approved, the bill goes back to the House for a vote. Tampa Bay Times. redefinED. News Service of Florida. State Sen. Tom Lee, R-Thonotasassa, calls the Senate’s leadership “third world” after his failed attempt to amend the provision that could decertify teachers unions. Tampa Bay Times. Politico Florida. As the Legislature enters its final week, it still has to pass the education bill, the school safety bill, and a budget that includes a small hike for K-12 schools and a boost for Bright Futures scholarships, among other things. Associated Press. Tampa Bay Times.
School safety bill: The Florida Senate, in a rare Saturday session, finalizes a school safety bill that allows teachers to carry guns in schools but does not ban assault weapons. The amendment banning assault weapons passed in a voice vote, but was then rejected in a roll call vote. The proposed bill would require a three-day waiting period to buy all firearms, boost the legal age to buy a rifle or a shotgun from 18 to 21, ban bump stocks, put an armed police officer in every school, and boost funding for mental health care. Here are the amendments that passed, and those that failed. The Senate is expected to take a final vote today. News Service of Florida. Associated Press. Tampa Bay Times. Orlando Sentinel. Palm Beach Post. Politico Florida. If the Legislature passes a school safety bill that includes a provision that allows teachers to be armed, it’s unclear if Gov. Rick Scott could veto it. He opposes having teachers carrying guns. Palm Beach Post. During Saturday’s debate, Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, says thoughts and prayers are the only thing that can stop the evil behind mass shootings. Miami Herald. A review of school shootings seems to indicate that any one preventative measure being proposed could have stopped at least one of the assaults, but not all of them. Miami Herald. Experts say the legislation not only won’t stop the next Nikolas Cruz, but it creates a parallel mental health system that duplicates services. Politico Florida. Leon County officials work to improve security at schools while waiting to see what comes out of the Legislature. Tallahassee Democrat.
Teacher removed for podcast: A social studies teacher at Crystal River Middle who has been hosting a white nationalist podcast under a different name and boasting that she’s pushing her views to her students has been removed from the classroom while the Citrus County School District investigates. On her podcast Unapologetic, under the pseudonym Tiana Dalichov, 25-year-old Dayanna Volitich has promoted the idea that some races are smarter than others, that terrorism won’t end until all Muslims are “eradicated,” and praised the work of anti-Semitic authors and white supremacists. Volitich says her statements were political satire. Huffington Post. Citrus County Chronicle. WFLA.School shooting: The union representing Broward County sheriff’s deputies is calling for the release of all surveillance videos, audio recordings and dispatch logs that detail the department’s response to the shooting. “Our deputies are being called cowards in public, even if they had nothing to do with [the shooting response],” says union president Jeff Bell. Miami Herald. Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland had never been through an active shooter drill. Teachers had received training for the so-called Code Red situations, and a drill for students was scheduled this month. Sun-Sentinel. Experts say the Broward County School District could have done more to help Nikolas Cruz. Sun-Sentinel. A Stoneman Douglas teacher who said he was following protocol by locking his door during the shooting is called a coward by a student who was left with a dozen other students in the hallway outside the room. Sun-Sentinel. Cruz left 180 rounds of ammunition inside magazines with swastika symbols when he fled the shooting scene. Sun-Sentinel. A deputy at an elementary school about a mile from Stoneman Douglas has been reassigned. A sheriff’s official says the reassignment was not related to the shootings. Sun-Sentinel.
Home-schooling bill: The Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously passes a bill easing the requirements for home-schooling registration, which includes an amendment to expand access to personalized learning programs. The House has already approved both. redefinED.
Carvalho’s future: Alberto Carvalho’s dramatic change of heart on the New York City school chancellor’s job seems to commit him to Miami, but perhaps not as the Miami-Dade County School District superintendent. Miami Herald. The New York tabloids have fun with the Carvalho story. Miami Herald.
Superintendent search: There is no clear front-runner to replace Palm Beach County School Superintendent Robert Avossa, and the school board appears to be split among the three finalists. The board is expected to make its choice Wednesday. The finalists are deputy superintendent David Christiansen, chief operating officer Donald Fennoy and chief academic officer Keith Oswald. Christiansen’s bid is complicated by the disclosure of an arrest in 1990 as a 22-year-old teacher for the “abetting” of prostitution. He was never prosecuted. Palm Beach Post.
School property tax: If Sarasota and Manatee voters approve a boost in the property tax to help schools, the districts will receive millions of dollars a year and lengthen the school day by 30 minutes. For a student entering kindergarten, that increase would amount to the equivalent of an extra year in school by graduation. Both elections are March 20. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
School upgrade: A long-requested upgrade to Rickards High School in Tallahassee will begin this summer. In the first phase, which will cost about $30 million, five buildings will be torn down to make way for a two-story, 20,000-square-foot classroom building to be built in the summer of 2019 at a cost of $11.1 million. Tallahassee Democrat.
Closed meetings: The Lake County School Board is increasingly holding closed meetings to discuss public business. Today, it’s about school security. Daily Commercial.
School names: Audubon Park School in Orlando is getting a name change, becoming Baldwin Park Elementary School to reflect the neighborhood it’s in. The name Audubon Park School will be used for a new K-8 school that opens in August just to the west of Baldwin Park. Orlando Sentinel.
School board elections: Justin Dean, a dean at Bartow High School, joins four other candidates in the race for the District 3 seat on the Polk County School Board. The seat is held by Hazel Sellers, who is not running for re-election. Lakeland Ledger.
District sued: A special-needs student who says he was raped by a classmate at New Smyrna Beach High School almost a decade ago is suing the Flagler County School District and James Tager, who was the principal then and is now the district’s superintendent. The student says Tager and other school officials had been warned that the attacker had sexually assaulted another student. Daytona Beach News-Journal.
Student and threats: An Orange County student is arrested for threatening to shoot students who participate in the National Walkout on March 14 to protest the mass shootings at Parkland. It’s the first arrest under a new, broadened disorderly conduct ordinance that covers threats that were later found to be hoaxes. Orlando Sentinel. A middle school student at Lake Highland Preparatory School is expelled for making “threatening remarks” that were overheard by classmates, school officials say. Orlando Sentinel.
Opinions on schools: If Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel is the amazing leader he claims to be, he should have no problem releasing videos showing the actions of his deputies during the Parkland shooting. Miami Herald. State Sen. Bill Galvano’s claim that there are 1,500 school resource officers for the state’s 3,800 schools is half-true because his numbers are off. But his larger point — that many schools lack school resource officers — appears to be on point. PolitiFact Florida. At the very least, our schools should each have an armed police officer and a fenced perimeter that allows the general public only one way in and one way out. Brad Rogers, Ocala Star-Banner. Reasonable people do not want teachers carrying concealed weapons while standing before a roomful of students. They do not want teachers to become armed combatants. Bill Maxwell, Tampa Bay Times. Is Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight’s proposal to utilize armed, retired law enforcement officers on certain school campuses a good idea? I don’t know, but I do know it’s one heckuva better idea than arming teachers. Tom Tryon, Sarasota Herald-Tribune. The last thing a low-tax state such as Florida with so many unmet needs should do is steer millions more from its primary source of revenue — the state sales tax — to private schools. Tampa Bay Times. Finish has a new meaning in this final week for the Florida Legislature. Finish now means staying in the capital until the pleas of students and families of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are met with an effective response. Naples Daily News. The school safety legislation is a good first step, but is not a final solution. Citrus County Chronicle. Secret Lake County School Board meetings are not a matter of necessity. They are a matter of convenience for a board that simply prefers discussing public business in private. They need to stop. Now. Daily Commercial. Thankfully for Florida, Alberto Carvalho decided to stay in Miami. Unfortunately for the rest of the country, his sweeping vision for dramatically expanding educational choice won’t get a chance to shine on America’s biggest stage. John Kirtley, The 74 (note: Kirtley is chairman of Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog). The ACT/SAT test score-driven component of the statewide teacher bonus program does not seem to be improving recruiting of strong college students into teaching careers. Paul Cottle, Bridge to Tomorrow.
Student enrichment: Dhyana Mishra, a 7th-grader at Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy in Melbourne, wins the Brevard County Spelling Bee to advance to the regional competition March 21 in Orlando. Florida Today. Osceola Magnet School in Indian River County is named as a national magnet school of distinction by Magnet Schools of America. TCPalm. Students at Indian Trails Middle School in Palm Coast launch a project to help classmates sort through career options and develop plans to fulfill their choices. Daytona Beach News-Journal.
