Florida School Boards Association
Before a friendly hometown crowd at the Boys & Girls Club of Marion County on Friday, state Education Commissioner Pam Stewart talked about the success and progress Florida public schools have seen in recent years. She talked about improving graduation rates, top 10 national rankings and the importance of mentoring programs. What she did not…
Florida Gov. Rick Scott is seeking money to create a paid summer residency program for teachers in science, technology, engineering and math. Scott is expected on Monday to ask for $1 million in proposed funding for the program. The governor asked the Florida Legislature for the money earlier this year but legislators did not grant…
On the evening of April 29th last year, in the southern Minnesota town of Waseca, a woman was doing the dishes when she looked out her kitchen window and saw a young man walking through her back yard. He was wearing a backpack and carrying a fast-food bag and was headed in the direction of…
Despite a bumpy and contentious year, the Republican-led Florida Legislature returns to the state Capitol on Monday with the goal of trying to draw up new maps for 40 state Senate districts. This marks the third special session of the year for legislators, and also marks the third time that lawmakers have altered the boundaries…
SARASOTA – More than 20,700 state exams in 2015 were not graded because students did not fill out enough answers, compared with about 5,600 similarly ungraded exams in 2014. While 20,700 incomplete exams seem like a lot, it accounts for only 0.6 percent of the more than 3.3 million tests taken in 2015. The Florida…
The Collier County school district will now explicitly protect students and employees who are harassed or discriminated against based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Read full article
Nicole Hockley lost her 6-year old son in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting almost three years ago. So she started the Sandy Hook Promise, an organization that works to protect children from gun violence. On Wednesday, Hockley is scheduled to speak at the Miami-Dade County School Board to encourage Florida’s largest school system to…
TALLAHASSEE — Rejected by Florida lawmakers last spring, Gov. Rick Scott is barnstorming for public support for education programs he wants to revive in next year’s state budget. He’s not alone. Legislators are making their own priority lists of projects that died in 2015 because Scott vetoed them. Scott paid visits Monday to high school…
On the heels of a confession by a phony South Florida doctor that he had provided performance-enhancing drugs to high school athletes, Miami-Dade County Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho ordered up a random drug testing program. More than a year after the highly publicized announcement, the program has yet to get off the ground. “We’ve just…
Floridians long have criticized schools’ use of restraint and seclusion in handling out-of-control students with disabilities. Rule changes have been discussed since 2009, to limited effect despite clear intentions. State Sen. Anitere Flores, a Miami Republican, is ready to try again. Flores has filed SB 452 this week with very direct goals: It would ban all student seclusion,…