Around the state:  Gov. RonDeSantis signed a ban on kids using social media, a high school in Tampa is revealing new renovations, Manatee commissioners approved plans for new schools and Bethune-Cookman University received a grant. Here are details about those stories and other developments from the state’s districts, private schools, and colleges and universities:

Social media ban: Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a bill blocking most kids from social media sites. HB 3, passed by lawmakers this month, forbids kids 13 and younger from creating social media accounts and requires platforms to seek out and remove their profiles. Florida is following a handful of other states that have placed similar limits on the social media usage of children. It's unclear which media platforms would be affected by Florida’s legislation, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2025. "Being buried in those devices all day is not the best way to grow up. It's not the best way to get a good education," DeSantis said during a news conference in Jacksonville. Tampa Bay Times. Axios. Politico. WPTV.

Hillsborough: After two years of construction, a high school in Tampa is revealing new renovations. A rededication ceremony was held at Robinson High to celebrate the Knights' new home. WFLA.

Manatee: Commissioners in this county approved plans for two new schools and a high school expansion in the Lakewood Ranch and Parrish communities. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Leon: The 2024-25 staffing plan proposed by Leon County Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna is about $17 million more than the current year's budget. Even so, the district is facing staff cuts. The most dramatic consequence: The academic interventionist positions will be cut from middle and high school campuses and reduced to two positions at each elementary school. All schools will maintain a social worker and an extra guidance counselor based on school population. Tallahassee Democrat.

Indian River: The school district here is considering transforming one of its elementary schools into a new educational model magnet school. WPTV.

Work hours: Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed a measure that will ease decades-old regulations on the hours that 16 and 17-year-old Floridians can work. The bill drew heavy debate early in the legislative session. Bill Herrle, president of the National Federation of Independent Business-Florida, said the bill will give parents control over the hours worked by teens. “No one wants young people to work longer hours or work under unsafe conditions,” Herrle said in a statement. “House Bill 49 simply gives parents and guardians the right to decide what’s right for their teens and helps Florida’s small businesses find workers.” News Service of Florida. WLRN.

Colleges and universities: A Florida Gulf Coast University grad and masters program participant has won a $5,000 grant to help continue marine research linked to the environment. Susannah Cogburn recently found that she was one of eight recipients of the research stipend via the Guy Harvey Fellowship in partnership with the fellowship and Florida Sea Grant. Cogburn is a master’s student from Winter Garden, studying environmental science, with a focus on marine ecotoxicology at FCGU. WGCU. A Florida State alum named Mike Ortoll is working to prevent substance abuse on college campuses. WXTL. Bethune-Cookman University has received an over $1 million grant to renovate buildings on campus. The funds will be used to renovate an academic building and football complex on campus. In a press release, BCU said these buildings will be used to provide “academic support, meeting and office space, recruiting, athletic locker rooms and other similar purposes to support student athletes.” The campus was hit hard by Hurricane Ian in 2022. WUSF.  Florida Polytechnic University announced that its presidential search committee has named five finalists for the school's top job. The candidates each come from academic institutions, a departure from recent Florida university president searches that have resulted in the hiring of leaders from various professions. The new leader will replace the university’s first president, Randy Avent. Tampa Bay Times. University of Florida forestry students compete in annual skills contests. Main Street Daily News.

Opinions on schools: If there had been no Florida A&M University, the city of Tallahassee, the state of Florida and the nation would have been a poorer place in many ways. Because over the course of its 125 years, FAMU has been one of the nation's leading producers of opportunity for Black citizens — which has benefited us all.  Gerald Ensley, Tallahassee Democrat.

Book review process: The school board in Brevard spent nearly two weeks debating their public comment policy, prompted by concerns that parents may disregard the book review process to fast-track getting a book off school library shelves through a loophole created by a new law. No changes were made to the policy at Tuesday's meeting, but board members discovered that some challenged books had been banned due to the loophole. House Bill 1069, which dictates what can and cannot be taught in schools, says that parents must be allowed to read from challenged books. If a school board member stops them because the content is sexually explicit, the book must come out of all schools within five days. Florida Today. In Volusia, A total of 89 books were challenged in Volusia County Schools in the 2022-2023 school year, according to data released by the Florida Department of Education. Palm Coast Observer.

Unpaid school vouchers: Florida families are saying school vouchers have been unpaid. The first disbursements in the newly-expanded program were due on Sept. 1. Lawmakers lifted the eligibility requirements for the system, which led to a doubling of participation this fall to more than 400,000 children. The disruption appears to have affected thousands of students, leaving parents and school officials unable to get answers from those in charge of the voucher system.“This year it’s been the worst,” said Maria Preston, who runs Fort Lauderdale's Diverse Abilities Center. Tampa Bay Times.

Palm Beach: School Superintendent Mike Burke spoke about issues the school district is facing and priorities for the year in front of the League of Women Voters. Palm Beach County mother Monica Baber says knowing what’s going on with her children’s education is a big priority. That’s why she came to Mounts Botanical Garden to hear Burke talk Wednesday. “I want to know that they are getting taught to tackle further challenges that will come along in higher education, and I want to make sure they're going to be well rounded," said Baber. WPEC.

Brevard: The county school board moved toward a settlement in a lawsuit over a student with Down syndrome who came home with a mask tied to her face during a school mask mandate two years ago. The board prevailed earlier this year in a $100 million federal lawsuit filed by the family of then 7-year-old Sofia Bezerra, a special needs student at Ocean Breeze Elementary in Indian Harbour Beach. Florida Today.

Seminole: Moms for Liberty, the conservative group founded in Florida, aimed to get books pulled from Seminole County Public Schools libraries by reading aloud at a school board meeting this week passages they said amounted to pornography. The Seminole County School Board on Tuesday night listened without interruption as Moms for Liberty members and supporters read short book excerpts, in almost all cases without naming the book or the author. Orlando Sentinel.

Alachua: The school board here acknowledged at its meeting earlier this week that it is investigating a student club at Gainesville High School that limits participation to Black male students. Superintendent Shane Andrew disclosed that a parent of one of the students who attended the club submitted a complaint to the school district's human resources department. The parent's issue was with the information presented to students. WUFT. Gainesville Sun.

Veterans program: Over a year after the Florida Department of Education amended its teaching requirements to give military vets an easier pathway to become certified teachers, state figures show veteran participation hasn't been stellar. “It seems like there was a lot of fanfare around this program being a huge solution to a problem. Clearly, that's not the case,” said Andrew Spar, head of the Florida Education Association (FEA), the state’s largest teacher’s union. At the start of the school year, the FEA issued a press release saying the number of teacher vacancies in the state reached nearly 7,000, "the worst in state history." ABC Action News.

Advocacy for students: A small group of parents, students and residents voiced support for LBGTQ+ students earlier this week at a Hillsborough County School Board meeting. The message: Marginalized groups deserve respect and protection. A new program launched this year by Equality Florida called "Fall into Action" helped them share the message. Spokesperson Carlos Guillermo Smith said the initiative's goal is to give people the tools needed to sign up and speak out at local school board meetings in every district in the state. WUSF.

University and college news: Florida State University College of Medicine's Orlando regional campus is celebrating its 20th graduating class. WESH. Florida Atlantic University faculty want their interim president to become permanent amid a stalled search for president as the state investigates what it called "anomalies" in the search process. The hope is that interim President Dr. Stacy Volnick, who has been serving in the role since late last year, become's the university's permanent leader. WPTV. Ben Sasse, the new president at University of Florida, talked about ideas for changing campus culture and a possible tuition hike as he made the rounds on campus recently. Tampa Bay Times. Student and dads from Florida State University schools are participating in the Walking School Bus. WXTL.

New rules: The Florida Board of Education approved several amendments during a meeting on Wednesday that will impact LBGTQ students. Three amendments and one new rule lay out guidelines to align with recently passed legislation regarding the usage of bathrooms, classroom instruction and admission of minors to adult performances. Two amendments address educators specifically, while two others detail guidelines for how districts must treat LBGTQ students who wish to go by a different name or use a bathroom that differs from their sex assigned at birth. Meanwhile, new academic standards were approved involving instruction about African American history after teachers statewide objected to the changes and asked the board to put the proposal on hold. Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. pushed back on assertions by some groups that the standards “omit or rewrite key historical facts about the Black experience” and ignore state law about required instruction. State Rep. Anna Eskamani said the new standards were "inaccurate and a scary standard for us to establish.” Also, TikTok was formally banned in Florida schools.  Florida Today. WUFT. Axios. WBBH. ABC Action News.

Palm Beach: The school district here will have to revisit its Baker Act policy after a federal court judgment. In a statement released by the Southern Poverty Law Center, it says the school district will consider the proposed revisions specifically for students who have disabilities. WPBF. Meanwhile, school leaders here decided to keep the Bible on public shelves. The discussion arose after Barry Silver, a civil rights advocate from Boynton Beach, formally objected in April to the Bible being on library shelves at Olympic Heights High in Boca Raton, where his son was a senior in the spring. The Palm Beach Post.

Manatee: As the first day of school approaches, the Bradenton Police Department will be hiring part-time crossing guards for the 2023-24 school year. Crossing guards will work two shifts daily with pay at $24 per hour. Requirements include frequent standing and walking, a valid Florida driver's license and passing a background investigation. Bay News 9.

Leon: A hearing officer picked by the county school district to make a recommendation on how to proceed with a challenge to the book "I am Billie Jean King" is telling school board members they should keep it on elementary school shelves. "It is my opinion that removing ‘I am Billie Jean King’ from elementary schools infringes on the rights of parents who want their children to learn about Ms. King and the many contributions she has made to our country," wrote that official, retired principal D.J. Wright, in her recommendation. The decision now goes to the school board, which will discuss the book challenge at its Monday meeting and vote on a decision Tuesday. The Florida Times-Union.

Flagler: The school board here gathered on Tuesday for a special meeting with members of the Florida School Board Association to discuss what it's looking for in a new superintendent. In April, the board chose not to renew former Superintendent Cathy Mittelstadt's contract in a 3-2 vote. Since then, the board has partnered with the FSBA to begin its search for the vacant position. The Daytona Beach News-Journal. 

University and college news: State Sen. Randy Fine once floated the idea of a "shutdown" of University of Central Florida. But his next job might be as new president of Florida Atlantic University. Why Fine, who already announced a run for state Senate next year, would want to take the FAU president job is unclear. Orlando Sentinel. Eric Stewart, a Florida State University research professor of criminology, has been fired after an investigation into ongoing, questionable research allegations from the past four years. The decision was effective on July 13 and stated in a five-page termination letter to Stewart from James Clark, FSU's provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. Stewart held the position since 2007. “You demonstrated extreme negligence in basic data management, resulting in an unprecedented number of articles retracted, numerous other articles now in question, with the presence of no backup of the data for the publications in question,” Clark stated in the termination letter. Tallahassee Democrat.

Opinions on schools: Despite nearly $200 billion in emergency federal spending on K-12 schooling, students are doing worse than a decade ago, and lower-performing students are today less capable of doing math than they were 35 years ago. David Steiner, the 74th.

Pasco: VU Tampa Bay is a state-of-the-art virtual production studio in Tampa's University Mall that has used Hollywood-level technology to assist brands like Mercedes and John Deere. Recently, the entire solar system was unveiled on a 100-foot LED screen for middle-schoolers at Dayspring Academy in Pasco. VU was tasked with the planetary display by Scholar Education, a local educational technology startup that piloted a Space Camp program for students at the school. ABC Action News.

Mayoral resolutions: Some mayors in the state of Florida are taking a stance against efforts to diminish LBGTQ+ student rights in schools by signing resolutions and proclamations against the direction lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis have taken in areas that include lessons on gender identity and pronoun usage. Tampa Bay Times. K-12 Dive.

License lost: A Palm Beach county middle school teacher surrendered his teaching license after being accused of touching three 11-year-old girls. Russell Vacherlon chose to surrender his license instead of fight the discipline efforts from the Education Practices Commission. The investigation into the allegations began on Nov. 1, 2018 after several students met with the principal to report the allegations. WPEC. South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Presidential search: In the midst of a pause in the search for a new president at Florida Atlantic University, leaders of a First Amendment group and a national higher education association are pointing to a new law that shields presidential candidates identities as harmful to academic freedom and public trust. "They (potential candidates) may not apply, just because they don’t want their current employer to know they were applying,” said former state Sen. Jeff Brandes, who helped sponsor the bill. News Service of Florida.

University and college news: New College of Florida is shifting returning students into housing in buildings with mold issues identified by an outside consultant to make room for student-athletes and other incoming freshmen. Weeks before the beginning of the fall semester, officials emailed returning students to tell them their housing assignments had been altered to accommodate the influx. Zoe Fountain, a 20-year-old psychology and gender studies student involved in student government, said "We are being treated as inconveniences that they need to move around."   Sarasota Herald-Tribune.  While on a boat off the coast of Cedar Key with his class, Dean Grubbs expected his students to see a lot of sharks. The associate director of research at Florida State University's Coastal and Marine Laboratory said he instead hauled in a 13-foot smalltooth sawfish, something not seen in north Florida for decades. “It's like they’re from another world. They’re like aliens,” Grubbs said. He caught and tagged the endangered adult female fish about a week ago with Gavin Naylor, director of the state's museum of natural history's shark research program during a shark field course held each summer with FSU and University of Florida students. Tallahassee Democrat. President Aysegul Timur is officially on the job at Florida Gulf Coast University. Timur was previously university vice president  and vice provost for strategy and program innovation. She is the first woman to lead the university after being approved by the Florida Board of Governors on June 22. "For the past 25 years, Southwest Florida has been my home and I love being a member of the Southwest Florida community," said Timur. She will earn $500,000 annually with her three-year contract.  Ft. Myers News-Press.

Opinions on schools: Legacy admissions give wealthy people a leg-up in ensuring that generational wealth, privilege and power remain in the family. And the origins of the practice lie in antisemitism. Sonali Kolhatkar, Flagler Live. When the school board in Hillsborough county voted in May to close Just Elementary, it wasn't a surprise. Just is the only school in the state to receive an "F" from the state Department of Education, and less than 11% of its students can read at grade level.  The closure should have been good news for families whose children attend Just since there's a great public school, Gorrie Elementary, about 2 miles away. Tim DeRoche, the 74th.

Around the state: A job fair will be held in Okaloosa, lobsters were donated by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for research by schools in the Keys and a doctoral student at Florida State University started a company to help solve a research problem.  Here are details about those stories and other developments from the state’s districts, private schools, and colleges and universities:

Broward: Schools Superintendent Peter Licata has taken the helm of the school district here after the Board approved a three-year contract. Licata's philosophy is student-centered, teacher-supported and principal-led. Licata, a Broward native who has been a longtime educator, recently took on the role of the country's sixth-largest school district. “We are a very good district. There are some things that people want to talk about way too long about the past,” Licata said. CBS Miami.  WPLG. A Broward County Sheriff's Office deputy named Christopher Krickovich who was arrested in 2019 and later fired after being accused of slamming a high school student's head into pavement during an arrest is being allowed to return to work with full back pay. WSVN.

Palm Beach: Whether students will be able to check out the Bible at Palm Beach County school libraries will be decided next week when school board members weigh in on a local rabbi's challenge should succeed. Civil rights advocate Barry Silver filed an objection in April to the Bible's availability at Olympic Heights High School in Boca Raton, where his son was a senior. Silver attached a petition for its removal that was signed by about 50 people, arguing that a Charles Darwin book should replace the Bible on school shelves. The Palm Beach Post.

Okaloosa: The school district here will host a job fair on July 25 for positions that include bus drivers, substitute teachers, food service workers and other jobs. NWF Daily News.

Levy: The school board here recently announced its policy for serving meals to students under the School Breakfast Program and National School Lunch Program for the upcoming school year. The good news: All students will be served free breakfast and lunch at particular sites. Levy Citizen.

House Bill 1: The Florida Department of Education seeks input on House Bill 1, signed earlier this year by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Under HB 1, all students in Florida are now eligible for taxpayer-financed vouchers for up to $8,500 to attend private schools. Suggestions can be submitted until Aug. 15, and will be taken into account when policy recommendations are introduced during the 2024 legislative session.  NWF Daily News.

Lobster donation: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission lobster biologists came up with an educational solution to a unique issue: What to do with dozens of spiny lobsters caught in the waters of the Florida Keys that are used for research by the FWC. To solve the problem, the FWC partnered with local Keys high schools to support lobster research and high school science and culinary courses. Lobsters went to Key West High School and Marathon High School, and were used by both marine science and culinary classes. "The kids really learned a lot," said science teacher Shannon Duffy. "It was amazing. It was a really cool experience for them. The kids were so into it, because it was hands-on." Keys News.

Karate competition: Local teen Kyandra Valle was chosen to join the AAU/USA Karate National Team, which is made up of 125 people from across the country. They are competing in the 11th WUKF World Karate Championships in Scotland this week. Valle has been practicing karate since she was 6 years old. ABC Action News.

Reading report: In the past five years, 30 states around the country have passed laws that require educators to teach young children how to read based on what educators know from science about effective literacy instruction.  The most recent scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that only a third of fourth graders are proficient readers, which is significantly less than before the pandemic. The 74th.

University and college news: Elena Brandt, a doctoral student at Florida State University, has always been shocked at the behavioral science research she sees conducted by American scientists due to the lack of diversity among participants in international experiments and surveys. So, she decided to do something about it by founding Besample, a research firm that provides researchers a quick and cost-efficient way to access diverse research respondents in 42 countries around the world. Brandt is a mother of three who moved to the U.S. six years ago. Tallahassee Democrat.

 

(more…)

On his blog, Bridge to Tomorrow, Florida State University physics professor Paul Cottle laments that students aren’t getting the push they need from parents, guidance counselors and teachers to take tougher math and sciences classes in middle and high school.

The result: fewer students completing degrees in STEM fields, those high-tech, lucrative jobs in science, technology, engineering and math that both presidential candidates in Tuesday night’s debate deemed necessary to get the economy back on its feet and competitive with the rest of the world. So Cottle created what he calls the “antidote’’ - Future Physicists of Florida. And interestingly enough, the launching pad for his new program is built on traditional, magnet and charter schools.

Cottle said he doesn’t favor one type of school over another. The mix is really accidental. Once science teachers heard about the program, they reached out to him.

“We’re trying to find any way we can to get kids to take on these academic programs,’’ Cottle said. “I’m looking for great teachers anywhere.’’

And there are great teachers in all kinds of schools, he said.

Cottle’s program officially begins next month with an induction ceremony in Tallahassee. It will offer middle school students and their parents advice on which high school courses better prepare students for physical sciences and engineering majors in college.

“We know what students need to do to give them the best opportunities in STEM fields,’’ said Cottle, who was among the educators who helped craft Florida’s K-12 science standards.

He cites a 2007 University of South Florida study that found students who take physics in high school are twice as likely to earn a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field as those taking only chemistry. Such a degree will likely translate into a high-paying job upon graduation with some occupations, such as chemical engineering, commanding starting annual salaries of $70,000 or more.

Six public schools, including three charters, are taking part in the Future Physicists program. (more…)