Around the state: A circuit judge has ruled that the Broward school district can’t be held liable for not warning students and staff about the potential danger from the accused Parkland shooter, south Florida high schools are virtual “ghost towns” because of the pandemic, the Palm Beach district has already spent about $80 million to address the pandemic, the state’s public radio and TV stations have launched a series of reports on how the pandemic has affected vulnerable students, the teacher of the year has been named in St. Lucie County, and the state may rely on smaller companies to fulfill a contract to create a “panic button” cell phone app. Here are details about those stories and other developments from the state’s districts and private schools, and colleges and universities:
Broward, south Florida: The Broward County School District had no responsibility to warn students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School about the potential danger posed by the accused shooter in the months before the 2018 shooting at the school, a circuit judge ruled on Monday. Seventeen people died, and families of the students and employees were suing the district for not intervening earlier with the man charged in the shootings. Judge Englander Henning said the plaintiffs were relying on a series of “what-ifs” to build a claim for damages, and dismissed that part of the suit. An attorney for a surviving student was critical of the decision. “That ruling puts every child in danger,” said Alex Arreaza. “To think that the school board has no obligation to warn us of anyone else like (the accused shooter) in the system should give all parents a deep concern.” Sun Sentinel. WPLG. WSVN. WFOR. WTVJ. WPEC. One of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic has been to turn south Florida high schools into virtual ghost towns. In Broward, just 16 percent of high school students are attending classes in schools. In Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, it’s about 33 percent. “I keep hoping it would get better, but it doesn’t seem to,” Alexa Starikov, a 10th-grader at Stoneman Douglas High, said of the on-campus experience. “Most of my friends are doing the remote thing. They don’t want to go to school and do the same thing they could do at home. It’s not real face-to-face teaching.” Sun Sentinel.
Pinellas: A 12-year-old Seminole Middle School student has been arrested and accused of making shooting threats against the school on social media. The boy told deputies he was upset about a recent breakup and didn’t mean it, and his parents said he had no access to weapons. Tampa Bay Times.
Palm Beach: The school district has spent about $80 million on coronavirus-related expenses since last spring, according to administrators, and more bills are expected at least through the end of the school year. Almost $30 million will have been spent by this summer on personal protection equipment, filters to clean the air, cleaning supplies, plexiglass shields and more. Computers and network connections have accounted for more than $26 million of the spending, and training, extra pay and overtime have totaled millions more. The district has received about $35 million in federal aid. Palm Beach Post. WPEC.
Osceola: School officials have launched before- and after-school programs as well as Saturday sessions to try to address the learning losses created by the coronavirus pandemic. “Really and truly, we’re looking at students being three to six months behind where they ordinarily would’ve been,” said Superintendent Debra Pace. “When you talk about that, it’s a half a year of learning that has a long-term potential impact if we don’t fix the problem now.” WKMG.
Collier: County students as young as 16 are getting practical experience building homes through the Immokalee Foundation and its partnerships with Immokalee Technical College, BCB Homes and Collier Enterprises. Eighteen homes are planned for a subdivision in Immokalee, to be completed within the next five years. Seven students are working on a house now, one day a week for three hours as paid interns. Naples Daily News.
Lake: A statewide group, the Florida Student Power Network, rallied Monday outside school board headquarters to call for the removal of police officers from schools and for the state attorney to drop the charges against a Eustis High School student who was shot with a stun gun two weeks ago by an officer. The officer’s actions were later ruled to be justified, and the girl has since apologized to the officer for her behavior. WKMG. Daily Commercial. WOFL.
St. Lucie: Lauren Kappler, a civics teacher at the West Gate K-8 School, has been chosen as the St. Lucie County School District’s teacher of the year. Jewel Edwards, a U.S. history teacher from the Creative Arts Academy of St. Lucie, was named the outstanding first-year teacher, and Mildred Brown, who teaches criminal-justice teacher at Ft. Pierce Westwood Academy, was selected as the distinguished minority educator of the year. Maria Carley, a school-assessment clerk at St. Lucie Elementary, was the choice for school-related employee of the year. TCPalm.
Bay: A state audit is critical of the school district for not following the active-shooter and fire emergency drills required by state law between August 2019 and September 2020, for not having security guards at charter schools, and for its record-keeping in tracking sales tax surcharge funds spending and money received that was used for repairs after Hurricane Michael. District officials said some of the issues have already been addressed, and others are being discussed. WMBB. Some parents of students at the Breakfast Point Academy in Panama City Beach are angry after a 3rd-grade teacher showed students a video about how to make a commercial. In the video, a boy “shoots” another with a toy gun to steal his soda. School officials said the video was shown by mistake, and they are investigating. WMBB. WJHG.
Hernando: The school board has agreed to spend $107,800 to train teachers and other employees “how to have conversations about equity, without it leading towards people getting offended or defensive.” The training is scheduled for Friday, when students are out of school. Hernando Sun.
Martin: The county’s Historic Preservation Board is recommending that the county commission nominate the New Monrovia One-Room Schoolhouse for the National Register of Historic Places. The school, which was built in 1930 to education black children, is believed to be the only remaining one-room school on the Treasure Coast. TCPalm.
Charlotte: An after-school program is helping more than 150 students at Lamarque Elementary School in North Port improve their math and science skills. The program is called SAILS, for Students Achieving Individual Literacy Success. It’s two hours a day, two days a week, with more than 20 teachers providing the assistance. Charlotte Sun.
Flagler: An 11-year student at Bunnell Elementary School was arrested and accused of threatening to shoot his teacher after being disciplined for being disruptive. Deputies said the boy pointed his iPad at his teacher, made gun noises and declared, “I am going to shoot you up.” It’s the fourth arrest of a student for making threats in the past two weeks. Daytona Beach News-Journal. Flagler Live. WJXT.
Colleges and universities: Florida State University has the best four-year graduation rate of any public university in the state, according to state data. The four-year graduation rate of 74 percent is also among the top 10 in the United States. WTXL. Billie Jones, a professor in Florida State University’s Department of Movement Science and Physical Education until the 1980s and coached women’s volleyball and softball at Florida State University in the 1970s, has died after having a stroke at a hospital. She was 93. WTXL.
COVID-19 and students: In a special report, state public radio and TV stations collaborated to examine the experiences of vulnerable students during the pandemic in a series entitled “Class of COVID-19.” Among the topics are how the pandemic has affected learning for special education and disabled students, children of migrant workers, minorities and survivors of trauma at school. WLRN. Almost 61,000 coronavirus cases have been reported in schools between Sept. 6 and Jan. 30, according to the Florida Department of Health. Florida Phoenix.
Panic alarm contract: The leading contenders to land an $8 million state contract to provide a panic button app for cell phones are smaller tech companies with little experience working for K-12 schools. Bids from larger companies have been higher than expected, and the state could hire several smaller companies to give districts more options. Politico Florida.
Opinions on schools: We may have lost something very important in actively discriminating against religious schools, and it may stretch well beyond test scores. Government neutrality toward religious groups, neither favoring nor discriminating against them, creates a way forward in which the American people can shape the education space according to their needs and values. Matthew Ladner, redefinED. The pandemic gave us a rare opportunity. It exposed the shortcomings of the existing educational system. Too often it was ineffective and left too many behind, but it also provided a glimpse of another way of doing things. It provided us a chance to ask not just, “Why do we do it this way,” but also, “Why don’t we do it better? Skylar Zander, Miami Herald. Two strong bits of data support the idea that Florida’s school choice policies could be a magnet for attracting new residents to the Sunshine State. William Mattox, Florida Politics.
