Florida School Boards Association
It was a so-so legislative season for early education in Florida. A bill that would have raised health and safety standards for voluntary pre-kindergarten and school-readiness programs failed for the second year in a row. State leaders added no new money to voluntary pre-K, which serves 170,000 4-year-olds — while per-student spending remains well below…
Information the Florida Department of Education recently sent to school district superintendents indicates that the state will distribute $60 million in Digital Classrooms improvement funds despite Gov. Rick Scott’s veto of a “gap analysis” that lawmakers had requested occur before the money is delivered. At least one lawmaker questioned whether the veto negatively affected the…
Not every high school student wants to or even needs to go to college, but graduating students without a college degree may have a hard time gaining entry or experience at companies hiring for high paying, high skilled jobs. A local program is trying to bring that experience to graduating students. Seven years in the…
Pointing to choices made by parents, a state judge has ruled that a Southeast Florida school district cannot require a charter school to provide bus transportation to students. Administrative Law Judge Darren Schwartz, in a 45-page order issued last week, sided with Renaissance Charter School at Tradition in a long-running dispute with the St. Lucie…
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Board of Directors of the Florida School Boards Association (FSBA) has chosen Andrea Messina to serve as the Executive Director of the Association. Messina, a former member of the Charlotte County School Board, had served as FSBA’s Director of Professional Development prior to being promoted to the Executive Director position. The…
A recently released state audit shows that 76 of 615 Florida charter schools ended 2013-14 with a financial deficit, while 31 charters had material weaknesses with their internal financial controls. Broward County had the highest prevalence of troubled charters, with 25 percent. But it’s not the only district with struggling schools. The audit listed six…
About two years ago, state Rep. Erik Fresen picked up Amanda Ripley’s The Smartest Kids in the World to read on the plane. The Miami Republican had no inkling at the time that the book, an investigation into student performance, would end up driving a controversial $44 million line item in Florida’s 2015-16 budget. But as…
A $3 million veto by Gov. Rick Scott might become a $63 million budget cut that affects one of the governor’s celebrated priorities — improved technology for Florida’s schools. “We’re in a little bit of a pickle here,” said state Senate Education Committee Chairman John Legg, R-Trinity. “I have requested a definite clarification.” Legg has concerns…
The first time some students learn about finances is during a high school economics class. Others learn by trial and error, but one program in the Tampa Bay area already has a history of helping students get an early start on making sense of their finances. Here in central Pinellas County, just like any community…
Florida school districts received another round of state test results on Friday, even as an independent contractor reviews the validity of the exams. The state Department of Education publicly released the passing rates for two tests that stand as graduation requirements — Algebra I and 10th-grade language arts — along with individual student information to…