Florida School Boards Association
Teacher pay and school security topped the list of concerns for Florida Board of Education members Wednesday as they kicked off their annual legislative budget request process. Though they wondered where they might find the money for any added expenses, board members stressed the need to increase teacher salaries to keep them in the schools and…
State economists on Monday found millions of extra dollars for the state’s public schools, but also a $29 million shortfall in takings from tobacco taxes and a landmark legal settlement with the tobacco companies. The Revenue Estimating Conference projected that $128.4 million would remain unspent at the end of this fiscal year within the Educational…
It’s not the kind of news you’d want emblazoned on that “Welcome to Florida” sign. Coming in at No. 15, between Tennessee (14) and South Carolina (16), the Sunshine State ranks among the 20 states with the highest rates of underprivileged children, according to a study from personal finance website WalletHub. Mississippi landed at No. 1, with New Jersey…
For years, Republican lawmakers in Tallahassee have boasted about Florida’s charms as a low-tax state, and according to a recent report, Sunshine State residents do have the lowest tax burden in the continental United States (trailing only Alaska nationwide.) But with more than 21 million people in the state and hundreds more coming by the day,…
The Sunshine State’s education system ranked right in the middle of the nation, according to a new WalletHub study. Florida came in at No. 26 — between South Dakota and Ohio. To determine which states had the best — and worst — education systems, WalletHub analyzed 25 key factors of a state’s education system including…
As part of their efforts to prevent school shootings, Florida lawmakers mandated the creation of a centralized database that will combine individual-level records from the state’s law-enforcement and social-services agencies with information from people’s personal social media accounts. The provision, tucked within the 105-page law passed in March following the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas…
In the rushed, traumatic days following the February shootings at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, lawmakers scrambled to approve broad gun reforms and new laws to make schools safe. But quick legislation doesn’t always equate to good legislation, says Kenneth Trump, a well-known school security expert and consultant who has testified before Congress. Read…
Florida’s newest voucher program is to begin this fall, with parents who say their children are bullied in public schools able to apply for private-school scholarships that could pay tuition for part of the 2018-19 school year.The State Board of Education on Wednesday approved the rules for the new Hope Scholarship program, which was created…
A school-safety commission examining the mass shooting at a Parkland high school heard testimony Thursday about Florida’s fractured and overwhelmed mental health system. As part of a three-day hearing in Broward County, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission turned its focus to the role the mental health system may have played in…
Students—especially those from vulnerable populations and children in remote areas—aren’t getting nearly enough access to mental health services. That’s according to a slew of experts who testified before the federal school safety commission Wednesday. The panel has been charged with making recommendations for combatting mass school shootings in the wake of the February 14 massacre at Marjory…