Florida Department of Education targets prekindergarten improvements

Florida education department officials are taking steps to bolster the state-funded Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) program and turn it into the “truly really desired option” for early education, just two months after Gov. Ron DeSantis decried low readiness levels of children emerging from the system. Read More

Highlands County citrus grower becomes Florida Board of Education chairman

The Florida Board of Education has its first new chairman in four years, with the appointment of Highlands County citrus farmer Andy Tuck.  Tuck, appointed to a second term on the board in early 2018, replaces Marva Johnson of Winter Garden, who held the post since 2015 and was barred from continuing as chair. Read…

Florida continues computer science push, hoping to train more teachers, enroll more high school students

The field of computer science offers plenty of well-paying jobs, but less than 1 percent of the undergraduates enrolled in Florida’s universities earned degrees in that major last year.  State leaders hope a new $10 million investment to train more computer science teachers — the largest in the nation — and new flexibility in course…

FBI warns of rise in cyberattacks against schools as they embrace digital learning

Over six weeks, the vandals kept coming, knocking the school system’s network offline several times a day.There was no breach of sensitive data files, but the attacks in which somebody deliberately overwhelmed the Avon Public Schools system in Connecticut still proved costly. Classroom lesson plans built around access to the internet had come to a…

School grades send ripple effect through state

Real estate agents, teachers’ spouses, homebuilders and parents joined educators this week in perusing the school grades released by the Florida Department of Education.  The annual grading of schools sends ripple effects throughout the state, impacting home values, teacher bonuses, the value of land and where parents opt to send their children to school. Read…

Hard-Hit Florida School District Awarded More Than $1.25 Million for Hurricane Michael Recovery Efforts

Following the major devastation caused by Hurricane Michael across the Florida Panhandle, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced today a $1.25 million Project School Emergency Response to Violence (SERV) grant award for Bay District Schools. According to local school officials, the funding will be used to provide students with much needed mental health services.…

Secretary DeVos: Final “Supplement, not Supplant” Guidance Helps Promote Effective Spending, Flexibility

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos released final non-regulatory guidance to support school districts’ compliance with the requirement that federal funds supplement, and do not supplant, state and local funds, under section 1118 of Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).…