On this episode, Step Up For Students President Doug Tuthill and Legislative Affairs Manager Alexis Laroe discuss the changes coming to education choice programs in Florida following the 2022 legislative session in Tallahassee. The education budget passed by the legislature this year is the largest in the history of the Sunshine State.

While education choice programs did not greatly expand as in prior years, many smaller changes did occur. The two discuss those changes and the impact they will have on Florida’s choice families.

They also discuss the heated debate that took place this year surrounding parental rights in education, and the role public education has historically played in the social engineering of society.

"I believe public education was really tremendously funded this session for everybody … If you look around, there are really a lot of great things to celebrate."

EPISODE DETAILS:

• The largest education budget in Florida history, and increases in scholarship amounts for Florida’s private choice students
• Fixing technical issues that prevented families from receiving funding and how those issues will work moving forward
• Addressing the waiting list for the FES Unique Abilities scholarship to serve thousands more of those families this year
• Changes to reading and transportation scholarship programs
• The historical context of public education’s role in social engineering, and what role the education choice movement plays in that

The 2022 Florida legislative session drew to a close Monday with lawmakers passing a record $112.1 billion budget for the fiscal year that will start July 1.

Many education-related items were included in bills tied to the budget, including changes related to state school choice scholarship programs:

• Removal of the requirement for Family Empowerment Scholarship students to be cross-checked with public school district lists before initial funding is released; the cross-checks still will be done, but at a later date
• Additional state funding to increase the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities cap to 26,500 students
• Allowing the transportation scholarship to be more than $750 if the school district expenditure per student riding a school bus is greater
• Allowing the scholarship funding organizations to use administrative funds to develop rideshare programs for transportation scholarship students
• Renaming of the Reading Scholarship Accounts program to the New Worlds Reading Scholarship Accounts Program
• Expanding eligibility for the Reading Scholarship to include public school students in grades K-5 who have a substantial reading deficiency
• Allowing school district teachers to provide services for the Reading program on the public school’s campus outside of regular work hours
• Removal of the proposed dual enrollment language that would have required private schools to pay tuition for courses during school day

HB 3, related to law enforcement, also passed both chambers and is headed, along with the budget, to Gov. Ron DeSantis for his approval.

This bill will allow the dependents of law enforcement officers to qualify for Family Empowerment Scholarships for Educational Options and to be excluded from the caps for both that scholarship and the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities.

A bill that would streamline the approval process for K-12 state school choice scholarships got the green light on Wednesday in House Appropriations Committee.

House Bill 5101 passed with little debate, with Democrats Anika Omphroy of Sunrise, Nicholas X. Duran of Miami, and Patricia Williams of Fort Lauderdale joining the Republicans to vote in favor of the bill.

Though the bill deals primarily with virtual learning, it also addresses the issue of cross-checking names of scholarship students to ensure they are not enrolled in district schools. Under the bill, the cross-check would be done after the scholarship money is distributed as opposed to before, which had resulted in payment delays for schools.

The bill also would remove the four deadline dates by which scholarship funding organizations must approve Family Empowerment Scholarship applications and the Florida Department of Education must verify that students are not prohibited from receiving the scholarships. Instead, the Department would transfer scholarship funds once it receives student documentation from the scholarship funding organizations.

A similar bill, Senate Bill 1348, currently is in the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education. Members of the Senate Education Committee approved it on a 6-3 vote along party lines last month.

The bill, which the committee amended, would make technical fixes to HB 7045, which the Legislature passed last year. That bill, described as the largest expansion of education choice in the nation, extended scholarship eligibility to more Florida students, including children from military families, and folded the Gardiner Scholarship Program for students with unique abilities into the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program.

In August, the McKay Scholarship program for students with certain special needs will be merged with the Family Empowerment for Unique Abilities.

SB 1348 addresses challenges that resulted from such a large expansion and smooths the process for families and participating schools. The bill still requires the Florida Department of Education to cross check the list of participating students against public school enrollments. Additionally, it removes a requirement that cross checks be completed before funds are awarded, eliminating a delay in payments to families.

According to a staff analysis, the bill also requires the Department to adjust scholarship payments to school choice scholarship funding organizations; recalculate the state allocation for school districts upon completion of cross checks; and transfer scholarship funds to the scholarship funding organization upon receipt of necessary documentation from the organization to verify the student’s participation.

Editor’s note: Throughout the week, the Florida Department of Education is recognizing the 14^th annual Celebrate Literacy Week, Florida! Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, joined Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran at a news conference at a Wakulla County elementary school to highlight the New Worlds Reading Initiative, a statewide book delivery system that sends one free book each month to students in kindergarten through fifth grade. More than 81,000 students have signed up for the $200 million program approved during the 2021 legislative session.  Here are excerpts from Sprowls’ remarks. To see the news conference, click here.

The power of getting a new book and getting a child excited about reading, excited about learning about the characters inside the pages they are going to discover, is the reason the Florida House came up with the New Worlds Reading Initiative at the beginning of the last legislative session … Our principals and our teachers and our schools like this one have done such an amazing job in making sure our children are learning to read.

We’re proud to be fourth in the nation in fourth grade reading and making sure that we’re making those strides, but what really makes a state like Florida not just good, but great, is about our ability to acknowledge when we can be even better. And I think that’s what this initiative is all about.

When Education Commissioner Corcoran and the governor and I and others sat down and looked at the statistics in reading across our state, we found some alarming things. We realized that 88 percent of individuals who didn’t graduate from high school were struggling readers in third grade. We realized that 43 percent of kindergarteners were not reading at proficiency when they started in elementary school.

We realized that even though we’re doing better than so many of our national peers, it’d be 250 years if we kept on current trends to get to where we needed to be in reading proficiency in the state of Florida. And none of us thought that was good enough. Which is where you get the New Worlds Reading Initiative. It’s all designed because, if a child can read, they can learn. If they can learn, then anything is possible.

What we are doing in the state of Florida no other state has undertaken. No other state is taking a moon shot like the New Worlds Reading Initiative. And prioritizing the fact that we believe that every child has the opportunity to learn, to be successful, and to be on a pathway to prosperity.

Editor’s note: The Florida Legislature began its 60-day session today with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ state of the state address and opening speeches from the Senate president and the speaker of the House of Representatives. Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Spring Hill, cited passage of the nation’s largest education choice expansion in 2021 as a top accomplishment from the last session. Here are his remarks.

We expanded school choice. One of the cornerstones to breaking generational poverty is to ensure that we have a strong, school choice options so that parents can direct their children's education.

I am proud to say that Florida continues to lead the nation in school choice. One out of every four children in America that is enrolled in a school choice program lives right here in Florida. We are the promised land for education-minded families.

And senators, I am especially proud that we continued to prioritize students with unique abilities, children from low-income families, children in foster care, children from military families, and siblings of children already in these scholarship programs.

You’ve heard me say, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” School choice is the tide that allows every single child, regardless of where they come from, to rise.

The Florida Legislature’s annual session begins today and runs through March 11.

Unlike last year, when state lawmakers passed the nation’s largest expansion of education choice, this year is expected to be marked by more modest changes aimed mainly at improving efficiency for schools and families.

Here is an overview of education choice-related bills that have been filed so far.

BILL NO: SB 1348

TITLE: Educational Choice Scholarships

SPONSOR: Sen. Manny Diaz – Hialeah Gardens

WHAT IT WOULD DO:

• Eliminate program caps, and because the increase in income threshold is tied to the program cap, automatically increase the income threshold by 25 percentage points every year.
• Remove the requirement that the Florida Dept. of Education (“DOE”) cross-check the list of participating students with public school enrollment prior to distributing funds, which will help to eliminate the delay in payments to families that we saw this year. The DOE will distribute funds once scholarship funding organizations submit verified documentation that students are participating in a scholarship program.
• Align the attendance verification process between FES-EO and FES-UA. Student attendance will be verified by parents approving payments to the school their student(s) attend.

For more information, click here.

BILL NO: SB 1294

TITLE: Individual Education Plan Meetings

SPONSOR: Sen. Joe Gruters, R – Sarasota

WHAT IT WOULD DO:

• Add to ss. 1002.20 and 1014.04, F.S. the right for parents of public school students who receive individual education plans (“IEPs”) to audio or video record any meeting with their child’s IEP team, provided they give the school district written notice of their intent to do so at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting.
• These rights would still be subject to the protections provided in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (20 U.S.C. a. 1232g) and ss. 1002.22 and 1002.225, F.S.

For more information, click here.

BILL NO: HB 911

TITLE: Early Learning Scholarship Program

SPONSOR: Rep. Rick Roth, R — Palm Beach Gardens

WHAT IT WOULD DO:

• Allow children who are or were in foster or out-of-home care who have not yet begun kindergarten or turned 6 years old to receive scholarships to attend early learning programs through eligible providers.
• The scholarship covers the total cost of the private providers’ pay rate or the difference between a child’s school readiness voucher and the providers pay rate subject to appropriation.

For more information, click here.

BILL NO: SB 980

TITLE: Virtual Instruction Programs

SPONSOR: Sen. Manny Diaz Jr., R — Hialeah Gardens

WHAT IT WOULD DO:

• Make it easier for out-of-state virtual schools to offer services in Florida by removing requirements that providers must have an administrative office in Florida, that their administrators are Florida residents and that their instructors are Florida-certified teachers.
• If passed, the bill would take effect in July 2022.

For more information, click here.

BILL NO: SB 956

TITLE: Public Schools

SPONSOR: Sen. Dennis Baxley, R — Lady Lake

WHAT IT WOULD DO:

• Allow public schools to enroll students part time and would allow the Family Empowerment Scholarship program to pay for contracted services, including classes, with scholarship recipients not being classified as enrolled in a public school for scholarship eligibility purposes.
• If passed, the bill would take effect in July 2022.

For more information, click here.

BILL NO: HB 225

TITLE: Charter School Charters

SPONSOR: State Rep. Fred Hawkins, R — St. Cloud

WHAT IT WOULD DO:

• Require charter school sponsors to make decisions on requests for charter school consolidation within 60 days of submission. Sponsors that deny consolidation requests must notify the charter school’s governing board and provide specific reasons for the denial.
• Require sponsors to notify charter school leaders in writing at least 90 days before the end of the school year of proposed actions to renew, terminate or not renew the charter.
• A companion bill, SB 892, has been filed and is sponsored by state Sen. Danny Burgess, R — Zephyrhills.

For more information about both bills, click here and here.

BILL NO: HB 487

TITLE: State Scholarship Programs — 2022

SPONSOR: State Rep. James Bush III, D — Opa Locka

WHAT IT WOULD DO: 

• Rename Florida’s five state K-12 scholarship programs — Opportunity Scholarship, Family Empowerment Scholarship, Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, Reading Scholarship Account and Hope Scholarship — in honor of Mary McLeod Bethune, an educator and civil rights activist who founded what is now called Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida.
• Keep the original scholarship names but add Bethune’s last name to the beginning of each.

For more information, click here.

BILL NO: SB 622

TITLE: Florida Institute for Charter School Innovation

SPONSOR: Sen. Manny Diaz Jr., R-Hialeah

WHAT IT WOULD DO:

• Establish the Florida Institute for Charter School Innovation to improve charter school authorizations in the state.
• The institute, based at Miami Dade College, would receive a $1 million appropriation and would be able to apply for federal, state and local grants to conduct research and training and determine best practices for sponsoring charter schools.

For more information, click here.

BILL NO: SB 506

TITLE: Hope Scholarship Program

SPONSOR: Sen. Manny Diaz Jr., R-Hialeah

WHAT IT WOULD DO:

• Expand the state’s Hope Scholarship program, currently for students who experience bullying, to students who attend public school in districts that are subject to ongoing action initiated by the Florida Department of Education.
• Students who meet the criteria would be allowed to transfer to another public school outside the district or accept a scholarship in the form of an education savings account.
• Funds could be used for tuition, fees, curriculum, devices and instructional material, or transportation for those students who transfer to other public schools.

For more information click, here.

BILL NO: SB 488

TITLE: Education Recovery Scholarship Accounts

SPONSOR: Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Lake Mary

WHAT IT WOULD DO:

• Establish education recovery scholarship accounts to mitigate learning loss by providing options for students who attend a public school that has been closed to in-person instruction because of an emergency.
• Accounts would be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis to students in grades 3-5 and score below a 3 on the Grade 3 or Grade 5 standardized English Language Arts or math assessment in the current or prior school year or who have been identified as needing extra help by school leadership.

For more information click here.