Crimes in schools: School districts around Florida are failing to report crimes, even murder, rape and gun possession, as required on K-12 campuses, according to reports districts have filed in the past 10 years to the state Department of Education. An investigation also shows that more than 600 schools reported no crimes at all, some schools file false information to protect their reputations, and some fail to report crimes that aren't committed by students. Sun-Sentinel. A 7th-grader at Sleepy Hill Middle School in Lakeland was beaten so badly at school last month that he was hospitalized. The attacker was charged by police but never suspended by Polk County school officials. Lakeland Ledger. This year has been the worst on record for gun violence in schools, according to research by the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security that goes back to 1970. Ninety-four incidents were recorded, an increase of 60 percent over the previous record of 59 in 2006. The Guardian.
Teacher pay: Salaries for 20-year teaching veterans in the Palm Beach County School District are about $3,000 a year less today than they were for a teacher with the same experience in 2008, according to an analysis of district salary records. A 25-year veteran earns about $2,100 less, and a 15-year veteran about $1,000 a year less. The anomalies were created in 2010 and 2011 when the district dropped a salary schedule that rewarded teachers with seniority and bumped up salaries for younger teachers, including a 14 percent boost in starting salaries. Palm Beach Post.
Corcoran chosen: Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis has officially nominated former House Speaker Richard Corcoran for the job of education commissioner. Corcoran is a staunch supporter of school choice, vouchers and charter schools, and former Senate president Don Gaetz says Corcoran could become the "most disruptive education reformer in our state's history." Politically liberal groups and traditional public schools advocates are reacting negatively. “Richard Corcoran has a terrible track record of putting private interests over the needs of Florida’s children,” says Scott McCoy, senior policy counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center. The State Board of Education will have to approve the appointment. Associated Press. News Service of Florida. Orlando Sentinel. Tampa Bay Times. Politico Florida. WUSF. Florida Times-Union. Tallahassee Democrat. Florida Politics. WJXT. Florida Phoenix. DeSantis' 41-person education transition committee includes, among others, state Board of Education chairwoman Marva Johnson, Florida State University president John Thrasher, former Brevard superintendent Desmond Blackburn and John Kirtley, founder and chairman of Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog and helps administer several state K-12 scholarship programs. Sunshine State News. Florida Politics. Gradebook.
Spending on schools: Spending on K-12 schools across the United States increased for the third consecutive year, according to a report released Thursday by the National Center for Education Statistics. Across the country, $678.4 billion was collected and $596.1 billion was spent in the 2016 fiscal year. The average spent per student was $11,841, but the totals varied widely. The District of Columbia, for example, spent $27,067 per student, and New York spent $24,717, while Idaho spent $8,258 and Utah $8,408. Florida spent $9,176, which was almost identical to the two previous years and ranks 43rd among the states and D.C. Education Week.
Big raises for administrators: Eleven Broward County School District administrators received pay raises during the 2017-2018 school year ranging from 7 percent to 21 percent -- far above the average 2.2 percent that most of the district's 27,000 employees received. Six of the 11 raises were given after the massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, when the district was complaining it didn't have enough money for resource officers and teachers. Superintendent Robert Runcie defends the raises as correcting pay inequities, though he has adjusted one downward. Sun-Sentinel.
Creation of a crisis: The crisis of escalating problems with school air-conditioners in Hillsborough County is a creation of declining funding from the state and school officials' decisions to emphasize teaching positions over maintenance during the recession and years of devoting fewer of their funds toward maintenance than any other large district in the state. In the past decade, Hillsborough spent about $122 per student on maintenance, compared to neighboring Pinellas County's $217 and Orange County's $179. Now, the district is asking voters to approve adding a half-cent to the sales tax to raise $1.31 billion over the next 10 years to fix the A/C problems and tend to other deferred repair projects. Tampa Bay Times. (more…)
Safety panel: Florida schools are underreporting crimes by students, painting a false picture of school safety, and skimped on security tests before the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, according to members of the state commission appointed to investigate the shootings. The panel suggests penalizing schools for underreporting crimes in their annual reports. The security assessments, which were optional until this year, were rarely performed. Stoneman Douglas never did one, and in 2017 only 16 of the state's 3,900 public schools did. Sun-Sentinel. Associated Press. WFOR. Former Brevard County School Superintendent Desmond Blackburn isn't able to convince his peers on the state panel that a sworn police officer belongs on every school campus, including at elementary schools. Florida Today.
Amendment 8: The Florida Supreme Court will announce its decision today on whether proposed constitutional Amendment 8 will stay on the Nov. 6 ballot. The amendment, put forward by the Constitution Revision Commission, would create an entity other than local school boards that can approve charter and public schools, set term limits for school board members and require civics education in schools. The League of Women Voters is objecting to the charter school provision, and is asking the amendment be removed from the ballot because it’s “misleading.” Tampa Bay Times.
Hope Scholarship delays: While the new state scholarship for bullied students technically begins when school resumes in August, funds for the Hope Scholarships won't be available until after Oct. 1 and possibly not until later in November. The scholarships will be funded through voluntary donations of the $105 from the sales tax that drivers pay for vehicle transactions. The collections do not begin until Oct. 1 and car dealers have 20 days to report their previous month's tax collections, which could delay the money being available until Nov. 20 or later. The scholarships are available on a first-come, first-served basis, and state analysts project a demand of about $27 million in the first year. Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, will help administer the program. News Service of Florida.
Kavanaugh and education: U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has defended then-Gov. Jeb Bush's Florida school vouchers program against a constitutional challenge in 2000, publicly praised attempts to break down the barriers between religious schools participating in programs financed with public funds, and supported the use of public address systems for student-led prayers at public school events in Texas. The 74. Miami Herald. Politico. Sun-Sentinel. Education Week. (more…)
New education laws: More than 100 new state laws go into effect Sunday, including several related to education. H.B. 7055 will allow public school students who are bullied or harassed to be eligible for state scholarships to go to private schools. The Hope Scholarship will be funded by motorists who agree to contribute the sales taxes they would normal pay for vehicle transactions to the scholarships. The bill also boosts funds for Gardiner scholarships for students with disabilities. Other new laws set a back-to-school sales tax holiday in August, and authorize the placement of a statue of famed black educator Mary McLeod Bethune into the National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. News Service of Florida.
Budget problems: Budgets analysts for the Hillsborough County School District now project a $70 million gap between revenues and expenses for the 2019-2020 school year. The district will get $41 million extra from the state, but about $36 million of that goes for growth and state mandates. The extra $5 million is swallowed by higher expenses for school security, insurance and employee raises. Tampa Bay Times. Pasco County school officials are projecting a $1 million deficit in next year's budget, but are reluctant to ask voters for additional revenue. "It sounds great," says Superintendent Kurt Browning about the $28 million a year a 1-mill property tax hike could raise. "But when people get accustomed to having that additional money in their paychecks, and the voters don't approve it again, that just stops. I am very hesitant." Gradebook.
New superintendents: Mark Mullins, the Brevard County School District's chief operating officer, is named superintendent. The school board was scheduled to whittle down a list of 12 candidates and conduct interviews next week. Instead, all five board members selected Mullins as the only candidate everyone wanted as a finalist, and chose to forgo the rest of the process. Mullins, who has worked for the district since 1994, replaces Desmond Blackburn, who is leaving this summer to become chief executive officer of the national education nonprofit New Teacher Center. Florida Today. Space Coast Daily. The Manatee County School Board is negotiating with Cynthia Saunders, deputy superintendent of instructional services, to serve as interim superintendent. She'll take over temporarily for Diana Greene, who leaves July 1 for the same job in Duval County. Bradenton Herald. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Old superintendent: In a 3-2 vote, the Hernando County School Board has fired Superintendent Lori Romano. Board member Beth Narverud initiated the move, saying she was concerned about "a multitude of misinformation, half-truths and urgent, last-minute decisions thrust upon" the board by Romano. Linda Prescott, who cast the deciding vote, says Romano's firing of all 47 teachers at the struggling Moton Elementary School without first notifying the board or teachers union convinced her it was time for a change. Board attorney Dennis Alfonso says the board will explain its reasoning in an official termination letter at its June 26 meeting. Tampa Bay Times. Earlier Tuesday, a lawyer apparently representing Romano threatened legal action against school board members Susan Duval and Narverud for "failing to meet" the requirements of Romano's evaluation. "Several of you have attempted to publicly humiliate and needlessly and irreparably injure the reputation of the superintendent," wrote Kathryn McHale. Gradebook. (more…)
School security: Broward County School Board members express support for the hiring of armed "guardians" to protect schools that don't have sworn resource officers. Board members say they would prefer the guardians to be retired police officers or military veterans. Most would be stationed in elementary schools. Sun-Sentinel. The Lake County School Board approves a security plan that will put a resource officer in every school and arm some school administrators. Daily Commercial. The Volusia County School District has paid 100 percent of the cost for having deputies at middle and high schools since 2008. But with the law now requiring an armed guard in every school, school officials are asking the county for help to hire armed guardians to cover elementary schools. Daytona Beach News-Journal. The Polk County Sheriff's Office has begun training more than 100 applicants to become armed guardians. Training includes handgun and rifle handling, how to engage active shooters and written tests. WFTS. WKMG. Lakeland Ledger. The Manatee County School Board is considering several changes to its student conduct code that are required by new state laws. The proposals revise the situations in which the district can send students to mental health agencies, when it can remove students through the Baker or Marchman acts, would broaden the definition of a threat to any of its schools, and would prohibit firearms from being stored in students' vehicles. Bradenton Herald. Sarasota County school leaders meet with law enforcement officials today to discuss school security and the district's proposal to start its own police force. Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Northwest Florida school and law enforcement officials meet to share ideas on how to provide school security. Panama City News Herald.
Amendments support: Only four of the 13 constitutional amendments that will be on November's ballot have the support needed to pass, according to a poll from the Florida Chamber of Commerce. One of of the four is Amendment 8, which would limit school board members' terms to eight years, require the teaching of civic literacy in public schools and establish an alternative path to approval for public and charter schools that does not involve local school districts. The poll indicated 75 percent support for Amendment 8. Sixty percent is required for passage. News Service of Florida.
School crime reporting: The Broward County School District has failed to report many students' crimes to the state as required by state law, according to records from the Broward Sheriff's Office. For example, the district reported 193 weapons were found in schools during the 2016-2017 school year, but officials acknowledge they no longer were counting such things as ammunition, small knives, throwing blades, nunchucks, BB guns and combustible materials. District spokeswoman Cathleen Brennan says the data sent to the state is meant only to capture “the most serious of incidents, while other incidents are recorded and addressed locally.” Lisa Maxwell, executive director of the Broward Principals and Assistants’ Association, adds, “The state statute is really kind of unclear and open to interpretation, so it leads to subjective decisions.” Sun-Sentinel.
Scholarship oversight: Several legislators say they want to standardize education curriculum for all state schools. Sen. Victor Torres, D-Orlando, was among those calling for the change after a newspaper report detailing some of the materials used by some private schools that enroll students who get scholarships from the state. Among those lessons: people and dinosaurs lived on Earth at the same time, slaves who "knew Christ" were better off than free men who did not, and God intervened to prevent Catholics from controlling North America. The state doesn't track curriculum used by private schools with scholarship students, and bars the Florida Education Department from regulating academics at those schools. Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, helps administer two scholarship programs students use to attend private schools. Orlando Sentinel.
One lawsuit on hold: Leon County Circuit Court Judge James Shelfer rules that the Palm Beach County School Board's challenge of the Legislature's 2017 education law, H.B. 7069, is on hold until an appeal on a broader lawsuit against the law is settled. Palm Beach is challenging only the part of the law that requires the district to share local property tax revenue with charter schools it authorizes. The other lawsuit, brought by several districts, claims the law is unconstitutional because it has "encroached on the authority vested by the Florida Constitution in locally elected district school boards to operate, control, and supervise the local public schools located in their respective jurisdictions." redefinED. (more…)
