With a controversial and wide-ranging education bill now on his desk, Gov. Rick Scott faces intense pressure from both sides as he weighs whether to sign or veto the legislation. Rumors have begun floating that Scott will sign HB 7069 later this week, but officially the governor maintains that he hasn’t made a final decision. …
In a flurry of last minute deal-making, legislators were able to patch together compromises to allow them to wrap up their work and finish the Special Session on time. The issue of greatest interest to school boards was increasing funding to the FEFP by $215 million in order to provide an increase of $100 per…
Facing a 6 p.m. deadline, Florida legislative leaders struck a last-minute agreement with the governor to resolve their differences and avoid an embarrassing override of the governor’s budget vetoes Friday. House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, and Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, agreed to the Senate’s call to restore $60 million of the $114 million cut from…
Florida senators wanting a second crack at stopping a contentious $419 million education reform bill that narrowly passed the Legislature last month were unsuccessful on Thursday in defunding it to redirect the dollars to general K-12 public school spending. Broward County Democratic Sen. Gary Farmer led the charge to undo HB 7069, after Senate Pre-K-12…
Today, legislators made some progress in resolving the differences between the House and Senate versions of the FEFP funding bills . As we reported yesterday, the only significant difference between the House and Senate versions of their funding bills was the source of funds used to increase total FEFP funding by $215 million — the…
Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature, which has been wracked by feuds among its top leaders for the last several years, is in danger of ending a three-day special session without restoring billions in money that public schools use to pay for day-to-day operations. The session is scheduled to end Friday, but after two days there remained a…
Lawmakers on Thursday morning inched closer to agreeing on how to boost state funding to K-12 public schools starting on July 1, even as a few senators still have plans to revive a debate over a controversial education reform bill, which could wrinkle any compromise. In amending legislation to add money to the K-12 budget…
The Department of Education today announced that scores on the 2017 statewide, standardized assessments are on the rise and that students narrowed the achievement gap across multiple subjects and grades. Governor Rick Scott said, “Today’s announcement is great news for Florida’s students and demonstrates that Florida’s dedicated teachers coupled with our continued focus on education…
As had been requested by FSBA and other education groups, Governor Scott vetoed the FEFP portion of the state budget and called on legislators to increase total FEFP funding per student by $100 over the current year (2016-2017) level. Florida’s Legislature convened in Special Session 2017-A on Wednesday to address this K-12 funding issue as…
Hialeah Republican Sen. René García told Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, in a letter today that he’s “not comfortable supporting any compromise” on increasing K-12 funding for 2017-18 that does not also address a controversial education policy bill that awaits Gov. Rick Scott‘s approval. García was one of three Senate Republicans to vote against HB 7069…