Florida School Boards Association
Families from Puerto Rico who were displaced by Hurricane Maria won’t have to worry about having transcripts or immunization records if they enroll their children in Florida’s public schools this month, state education officials announced Friday. But for county school districts taking in the new arrivals, there is no guarantee the state will provide financial…
Crisis, what crisis? Just a year after dire predictions that the state’s economy was in peril due to rising insurance costs, Florida businesses could see an average 9.3 percent reduction in workers’ compensation premiums in the coming year under a rate filing Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier will consider later this month. If approved, manufacturing businesses…
After Hurricane Irma kept Florida children out of classes for a week of September or longer, school district officials had a math problem to solve. If primary students had to receive at least 720 hours of classroom instruction over the year, and secondary students 900 hours, how much time would they need to make up?…
A Constitution Revision Commission panel tasked with reviewing proposed amendments to the first article of the Florida Constitution is using a deluge of public proposals to narrow its scope for future meetings. The commission meets every 20 years to propose constitutional changes, which must then receive 60 percent support from voters. The CRC’s Declaration of…
As Florida communities prepare to take in Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria, five lawmakers are asking the state’s top education official to grant flexibility to public schools so they can accommodate additional students in the coming months. In a letter to state Education Commissioner Pam Stewart on Monday, the lawmakers formally asked the state…
From schools to shelters, Florida is readying for an influx of people struggling for food, water and power in hurricane-damaged Puerto Rico. Gov. Rick Scott said Florida doesn’t know how many people will make the trip from Puerto Rico. Also, Scott said it is unknown how many will decide to remain permanently in Florida or…
The legal war has officially begun over a highly controversial, charter school-friendly education law Republican state lawmakers pushed through last spring. Palm Beach County School Board members filed a lawsuit this week challenging the constitutionality of one part of House Bill 7069. Another, potentially more far-reaching lawsuit with the backing of at least 14 other school…
A new study supports what many local educators have long suspected: Florida is one of the worst places to be a teacher. Florida ranks fifth from the bottom out of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., according to a study from the personal finance website WalletHub, which analyzed data on a variety of factors including…
As part of its ongoing work to aid hurricane relief efforts, today the Department of Education released new non-regulatory guidance to help Department grantees and program participants remove barriers to restoring teaching and learning environments and to expediting the recovery process for all those impacted by the recent hurricanes. Read More
The Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, along with seven Florida teachers are suing the state, the Florida Department of Education and all 67 public school districts. That includes university lab schools, Florida Virtual School and the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind. At issue: whether the state’s “Best and Brightest” teacher…