The Legislature raised funding by 47 cents per student. Here’s how Florida schools are coping

Forty-seven cents.   That amount — less than the cost of a postage stamp — is how much Florida lawmakers increased general education funding per student for the coming year. School district officials instantly declared the budget a crisis, and pleaded with lawmakers (unsuccessfully) for a special session to reshuffle the dollars.  Otherwise, they insisted, public…

After Parkland, numbers of children hospitalized for mental health care jumped

On the day after the Parkland school shooting, children across Florida were brought to hospitals by police or other authorities to undergo emergency mental health exams — an unusually high number that kept climbing in the days that followed.  On Feb. 27, about two weeks after the Valentine’s Day massacre, 195 children across Florida were…