Education funding: The Florida House PreK-12 Appropriations is preparing to take a closer look at how state money is divided among school districts, including hiring a consulting group to make recommendations on adjusting the school-funding formula. That formula, known as the Florida Education Finance Program, uses several factors to decide how the $21 billion-plus is distributed among districts. The focus may begin with the price-level index, which tries to factor in the cost of living differences of districts. Some districts have complained that the current formula shifts money from poorer districts to wealthier, urban ones. News Service of Florida.
Bright Futures boost: The Legislature's Joint Legislative Budget Commission added $25.3 million to the Bright Futures scholarship program on Thursday. Last spring, lawmakers budgeted $520 million for the program, which offers full and partial college scholarships for high-achieving students. But a study in November indicated an increase in students eligible would push the amount needed to about $545 million, prompting the increase approved for the fund. News Service of Florida. (more…)
Superintendent of year: Malcolm Thomas, leader of the Escambia County School District, is selected as Florida's superintendent of the year by the Florida Association of District School Superintendents. "He's a visionary, and above all there's never any question in anybody's mind where is heart is, and that is in the classroom," says State Sen. Bill Montford, executive director of the association. Thomas was first elected superintendent in 2008, then re-elected twice. He's retiring when his term expires in 2020, and the Escambia superintendent position will then become an appointed one. Pensacola News Journal. Gradebook.
H.B. 7069 lawsuit: In a court filing, the state disputes the contention of 11 district school boards that a 2017 education bill is unconstitutional. The boards allege that H.B. 7069 illegally takes authority from local boards to approve charter schools, and exempts some charter schools, called "schools of hope," from regulations public schools must follow. The law was upheld by a circuit judge last spring, which prompted appeals from boards in Alachua, Bay, Broward, Hamilton, Lee, Orange, Pinellas, Polk, St. Lucie and Volusia counties, and a separate appeal from the Collier County board. News Service of Florida. (more…)
Stoneman officials reassigned: Four administrators at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have been reassigned in connection with the school shooting Feb. 14 in which 17 people died and 17 others were wounded. Security specialist Kelvin Greenleaf and assistant principals Jeff Morford, Winfred Porter and Denise Reed are being reassigned to other, undisclosed Broward County School District administrative locations, according to district officials. Sun-Sentinel. Miami Herald. WLRN. A long-awaited FBI report to the panel investigating the shooting doesn't mention what the agency did after receiving tips about suspect Nikolas Cruz before the massacre. Instead, it focuses on improvements to its public hotline. Sun-Sentinel. Politico Florida. WLRN.
Senate education leaders: Two longtime legislators with educational backgrounds and interests are appointed as leaders of the Florida Senate Education Policy Committee. Newly elected Sen. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah, will chair the committee, and Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, will be the vice chair. Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, is named chair of the Senate subcommittee on education appropriations, with Diaz as the vice chair. Gradebook. News Service of Florida. WFSU. (more…)
Death penalty proposed: Broward County prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty against accused Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz. Cruz, 19, is accused of murdering 17 people at the school on Feb. 14, and wounding 17 others. Cruz's public defender says he will not contest guilt, but will focus on his troubled past to try to convince jurors to spare his life. Miami Herald. Associated Press. Palm Beach Post. CNN. An attorney for Stoneman Douglas High student Anthony Borges, who was gravely wounded in the shooting, wants both the prosecutors and public defenders off the Cruz case because they endorsed a program in 2016 to “eliminate the school to prison pipeline.” Sun-Sentinel.
National School Walkout: Students at about 3,000 U.S. schools are expected to join the National School Walkout today to protest gun violence. The protest comes one month after the shootings at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Time. Associated Press. The 74. Education Week. Vox. Students around the state plan to participate in the walkout, and schools are deciding how they will deal with it. Palm Beach Post. Orlando Weekly. Tampa Bay Times. Pensacola News Journal. Florida Today. Fort Myers News-Press. WLRN. WFTV. WJAX. WFLA. The Florida ACLU is urging superintendents not to interfere with students or punish them if they participate in the walkout. Gradebook. How young is too young to participate in today's walkout? New York Times. A Lake County School Board member apologizes for calling a Stoneman Douglas student a "crisis actor." Daily Commercial.
School safety plans: School superintendents are lobbying members of Congress to revise the STOP School Violence Act so it won't be extended to private schools. "We support a revision to ensure that any resources made available to non-public school settings be funneled through an ‘equitable services’ provision, already in place through the Every Student Succeeds Act," according to a letter from the American Association of School Administrators. Politico Florida. U.S. House Democrats will hold a forum next week to review ways to prevent violence in schools. Politico Florida. Teachers can already carry guns in 14 states. USA Today. Parents of students murdered at Parkland urge the Constitution Revision Commission to let Florida voters decide on a three-day waiting period and on raising the age limit to buy guns. In Lakeland, the father of another murdered Parkland student asks the Polk County School Board to approve a plan to arm some school employees. Tampa Bay Times. GateHouse. Lakeland Ledger. Members of the public urge the Bay County School Board not to arm school employees. Panama City News Herald. A majority of the St. Johns County School Board members oppose arming school workers. St. Augustine Record. The Citrus County School Board is asking the sheriff to split the cost of adding five resource officers to schools for the rest of the school year. Citrus County Chronicle. Pinellas County School Board members vote to not arm any school workers other than law enforcement officers. Gradebook. (more…)
'Schools of Hope' rules: No charter school companies have yet applied to the Florida Department of Education to become "Schools of Hope." Part of the reason is that no rules have been established for the program, which offers financial incentives for charter schools to move into areas where traditional public schools have struggled persistently. Adam Miller, the director of the state’s school choice office, says the first round of rules is expected to be published in time for the Florida Board of Education to consider at its November meeting. redefinED. The state Board of Education will wait until its next meeting Oct. 18 to announce the public schools that will receive $2,000 more per student under the "Schools of Hope" legislation. The Legislature set aside $51.5 million for up to 25 schools, and 50 applied. Gradebook. No charter school conversions are on the agenda for next week's Florida Board of Education meeting. redefinED.
'Schools of Excellence': Six hundred and forty Florida schools in 44 counties are designated by the Florida Department of Education as "Schools of Excellence." The designation allows the schools to calculate class size by a schoolwide average, set daily start and finish times separate from the district, ignore the state’s minimum reading requirements, earn points toward certification renewal, and gives them greater latitude in hiring and budget decisions for the next three years. Here are the lists for elementary, middle, high and combination schools. Gradebook.
School resegregation: Florida's public schools are resegregating, according to a study by the LeRoy Collins Institute. “Student enrollment trends in Florida over the past decades show growing racial isolation for Hispanic and black students on some measures, with signs of continuous segregation on others,” the study says. About 35 percent of black students and 32 percent of Hispanic students attend "intensely segregated" schools, defined as schools with a nonwhite population at 90 percent or higher. About 20 percent of the state's schools were intensely segregated in the 2014-2015 school year, double the number in the 1994-1995 school year. News Service of Florida. WFSU. WLRN. Politico Florida.
Storm aftermath: Florida schools are bracing for an influx of new students arriving from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria battered the island. Expecting to get the most students are Miami-Dade, Orange and Hillsborough counties, all of which have a substantial number of residents of Puerto Rican descent. Tampa Bay Times. Gradebook. WOFL. NPR. Florida Politics. Several Florida colleges are offering in-state tuition to new students from Puerto Rico. Orlando Sentinel. Miami Herald. Setting up and cleaning up hurricane shelters cost the Duval County School District about $300,000, school officials estimate. They're asking state legislators for the money. WJXT. Monroe County students are beginning to return to schools in the Florida Keys. WLRN. Miami Herald.
Makeup days: Collier County students will make up four of the days lost to Hurricane Irma by attending school on previously scheduled vacation days. In Manatee County, students also have four days to make up. Two early release days will be converted into full days, two days during the Thanksgiving holiday break will now be full days, and 10 minutes will be added to several other days. Students in Palm Beach and Indian River counties will lose three vacation days, and Broward County students will likely have two vacation days converted into school days. Naples Daily News. Bradenton Herald. Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Palm Beach Post. Sun-Sentinel. TCPalm.
High school protests: A 6-year-old Pasco County 1st-grader took a knee during the pledge of allegiance Monday at Wiregrass Elementary School. His teacher instructed him to stand, angering the boy's mother. "She told him right away, based on what he told me, to stand up and to stop it... That's not her right," says Eugenia McDowell. Wednesday, assistant superintendent Kevin Shibley issued a memo that said, in part: "Kneeling or other non-disruptive forms of non-participation should generally be considered as permissible alternatives” to reciting the pledge. WFTS. Gradebook. Palm Beach County school officials announce that students who kneel during the playing of the national anthem won't be punished. Palm Beach Post.
