Whistleblowers intimidated? Two students who complained about having unqualified substitutes for geometry class all year are being harassed and intimidated by the school's principal and the area superintendent, two teachers tell Palm Beach School Superintendent Robert Avossa. They say the principal, Cheryl McKeever, told the geometry students they don’t have a teacher because they ran off the job candidate. In a statement, McKeever says she was addressing the students as young adults. Palm Beach Post.

Teacher bonuses: Incoming House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O'Lakes, says he wants to expand the teacher bonuses program in the next legislative session. He says more money will be added, especially for teachers in low-income schools, and the program will be made permanent instead of proceeding on a year-to-year basis. Tampa Bay Times. Rep. Corcoran issues a survey to the 5,200 state teachers who qualified for the teacher bonuses, asking them how to improve the program. Gradebook. The Best and Brightest teacher bonuses are distributed in Miami-Dade. Each teacher who qualified receives $8,256.27 minus payroll and income tax. Miami Herald.

Pyrotechnics probe: Palm Beach County school officials will investigate who approved hiring a fire-breather for a pep rally Thursday at Atlantic High School. The act misfired and the performer's face caught fire. “When you put fire in a building, this is a problem,” says Superintendent Robert Avossa. Palm Beach Post. This was at least the third time fire-breather Ricky Charles has performed in Palm Beach schools in the past three years. Palm Beach Post. A new type of fuel and a lack of practice led to the accident, says Ricky Charles. Sun-Sentinel. Palm Beach Post.

Education bill: What was in the massive education bill that passed on the final day of the Legislature? Miami Herald. One thing not in the bill is money for City Year, a branch of AmeriCorps that places young adults in schools to help students one-on-one. Orlando Sentinel.

Money = results? Big donations to legislators didn't necessarily translate into big returns for the industries making the donations. But charter school supporters were among the winners. Miami Herald. (more…)

Teaching Trump: A presidential election year provides civics teachers with plenty of instructional material. This year, the rise of Donald Trump as a Republican front-runner is both a bonanza and a challenge. Tampa Bay Times.

About that incomplete: When Florida school grades were issued Friday, 118 schools got "I" for incomplete. Department of Education officials say there are two reasons for a school to get an incomplete: Either it didn't have 95 percent of eligible students take the test, or there was some sort of testing impropriety. Gradebook.

Personalized learning: Lake County schools are experimenting with a personalized learning program that could expand around the state. Six districts nationally, including Lake and Pinellas counties in Florida, are involved in the pilot program. Orlando Sentinel.

Duval divisions: One Duval County School Board member is calling for another to resign over disparaging text messages made about Superintendent Nikolai Vitti. Jason Fischer says Constance Hall also insulted people with disabilities. Florida Times-Union.

Transgenders and bathrooms: The Sarasota County School Board will discuss whether to create a district policy on bathroom use by transgender students or allow schools to draft their own policies. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

School culture: Duval County teachers give the school district higher marks for the system's culture, training for standardized testing and teacher evaluations. The surveys are taken twice a year. Florida Times-Union. (more…)

Education budget: A Senate subcommittee approves a bill that would require the state to pay at least half of the proposed increase in K-12 spending. Gov. Rick Scott's budget calls for a spending increase of $507 million in K-12 spending, but with $427 million coming through local property taxes. Politico Florida. Tampa Bay Times. Palm Beach Post. News Service of Florida.

Recess bill dies: The Senate will not take up the issue of mandatory daily recess in elementary schools. The Senate Education Committee chairman, Sen. John Legg, R-Trinity, says the idea should be handled on the local level. Gradebook.

Charter construction: Charter schools that serve low-income or disabled students would get a higher priority for capital funding under a bill passed by a Senate subcommittee. The House version of the bill provides capital money to charter schools with no such stipulations. Politico Florida. Miami Herald. Residents of Golden Gates Estates in Naples want more say about charter school locations. Naples Daily News.

Choice support: The Pinellas County School District ranks seventh in the United States in offering school choice, according to rankings by the Brookings Institution. Other Florida districts in the top 100 are Broward (15th), Lee and Seminole (tied for 16th), Dade and Duval (tied for 18th), Pasco (28th), Orange and Brevard (tied for 32nd), Osceola (43rd), Palm Beach (49th), Hillsborough (51st), and Polk and Volusia (tied for 54th). Tampa Bay Times. (more…)

School recess: Supporters of daily recess for elementary students are worried that the bill they support still isn't getting a hearing in the Senate. They blame Sen. John Legg, R-Lutz, for the inactivity. Legg, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, says other issues have a higher priority. Gradebook.

Charters and construction: Today, the House Appropriations Committee will consider a bill that would place limits on the money school districts can spend on construction and share local capital projects tax revenue with charter schools. Gradebook. WFSU.

Elected commissioner: A website has been launched to help lobby for an elected education commissioner who will also be in the Cabinet. Fund Education Now created the page to push for an amendment to be decided by voters. Florida Politics.

New SAT concerns: Some experts worry that the new SAT, with its longer and harder reading passages and more words in math problems, will cause problems for some students. Testing begins in March. New York Times. New Boston Post. Should you take the new SAT or the ACT? Huffington Post.

Book removed: Seminole County school officials remove a book from three elementary school libraries after a parent's complaint. Mariko Tamaki's This One Summer contains sexual references and obscenities. WFTV. (more…)

A top Florida lawmaker for education issues is convening a group of educators, elected officials and tech industry representatives in Tampa Thursday morning.

One of the goals: Find ways to close the technology gap between schools and other institutions.

Thanks to the proliferation of smart-phones and affordable tablets, students, like adults, are becoming accustomed to having pocket-sized computers at their disposal. That often changes when they get to school.

"What we expect our kids to do is basically power down when they come into the classroom," said state Sen. John Legg, R-Trinity, adding: "Schools tend to be lagging the rest of our culture in terms of technology."

It's not that educators aren't open to taking advantage of new tools, Legg said. A former teacher and current charter school administrator, he said he understands how hard it can be to bring technology into schools and make sure it's used in meaningful ways.

He said he hopes the half-day Digital Classroom Initiative Symposium, happening at Tampa’s Museum of Science and Industry, will help educators find ways to use technology more effectively. People from universities and the technology industry, as well as incoming Senate President Andy Gardiner and state Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, are expected to participate.

Earlier this year, Legg sponsored of legislation requiring school districts to spell out their digital learning plans and tie them to efforts to raise student achievement. In the coming years, the Digital Classrooms Plans will be used to guide state funding for school technology.

"We're not trying to revolutionize education here," he said. "It's simply trying to make sure our schools are keeping up with the times."

Career and technical education is attracting a lot of attention from Florida lawmakers this year, and an effort to expand it in the upcoming session appears to have bipartisan support.

CTE is the centerpiece of proposed legislation that builds on the state’s Career and Professional Education Act, which created industry-certification programs at the high school level.

Senate Bill 1076, filed last week by Sen. John Legg, R-Lutz, would add more partnerships with business and community leaders to develop similar initiatives in middle and elementary schools. It also would elevate industry certifications to a level that can satisfy certain high school requirements.

Senate President Don Gaetz, a Republican from Destin, told redefinED this week that passage of the legislation would result in historic changes that, ultimately, would make education in the Sunshine State more relevant. He said lawmakers should be able to back it no matter their party affiliations.

“All of us … want our graduates to walk across the stage and get a degree in their hands that results in a job,’’ Gaetz said. “It’s a sea change in educational delivery.''

Sen. Bill Montford, a ranking Democrat from Tallahassee, said he endorses the bill and the sentiment behind it.

“We need a different pathway for a lot of our students,” said the former Leon County schools superintendent, who heads the state superintendents association. “This is not a dumbing down of our curriculum. It’s not a retreat. This is what is best for our children in these schools.’’

Freshman lawmaker Shevrin Jones agreed. The Democratic representative from West Park has co-sponsored a bill that calls for more focus on career education.

“Not everyone is going to college,’’ said the former high school educator, who taught Advanced Placement Biology until his election to the House last year. “What this will do is allow us to make sure that our students are prepared to go into the workforce.’’

But expanding career education doesn’t shut the door on a college degree, Montford said. “Most college students work,” he said. “This is a good fit.’’

Legg’s bill is at the forefront of this overhaul, serving as the cornerstone of another bill the lawmaker filed last month that ties education to economic development.

The so-call STEM zone bill would create hubs that invite colleges and universities - as well as K-12 district schools, private schools and charters - to help develop a pipeline of highly-skilled workers for careers in science, technology, engineering and math fields.

Florida industry leaders like what they’re hearing.

“It’s very difficult to connect skilled workers to jobs,’’ Ron Avery, chairman of the St. Augustine-based Ronco Group, which includes industrial, engineering and manufacturing businesses, told lawmakers at a committee hearing last month. “There are 4,000 manufacturing jobs open in Florida. We need to figure out today how to fill these.’’ (more…)

In the wake of the school shooting tragedy in Newtown, Conn., traditional public schools aren’t the only ones having serious discussions about how to beef up safety. In Florida, charter schools and private schools are also making sure they’re maximizing protection for students, parents and staff.

But as district officials and state lawmakers debate next steps – and how to pay for them – there is the potential for tensions to surface between different education sectors.

In Broward County, for example, Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, is proposing a new property tax that could raise $55 million to pay for police officers in every public school operated by the district. It wouldn’t apply to private schools, and Sobel, a former school board member, said she was uncertain if charters would be included, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel recently reported.

Some charter school supporters, meanwhile, are worried about the costs of new safety measures, especially if lawmakers mandate them. That could become a financial burden for charters, which already receive less in per-student funding than districts, and little in the way of capital outlay dollars, said Lynn Norman-Teck of the Florida Consortium of Public Charter Schools.

“It’s going to hurt,’’ Norman-Teck said, and it’s really not right. If lawmakers are going to look at ways to make schools safer, including allocating more dollars to public school districts, she said, they need to “bring charter schools to the table. They need to look at them [charters] as public schools because they are public schools.’’ (more…)