Florida School Boards Association
It’s not a secret: Florida’s school districts are struggling to find enough money to place armed security on each campus, as now required by law. What is new lately is many local governments have begun saying they will not help out with their law enforcement departments. In the past few days, both the Pinellas and…
U.S. News & World Report, the global authority in education rankings and civic journalism, today released the 2018 edition of Best High Schools. The rankings evaluate more than 20,500 public high schools nationwide to identify schools that best serve all of their students – including historically underserved populations – and assess the degree to which…
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos today announced the 54th class of U.S. Presidential Scholars, recognizing 161 high school seniors for their accomplishments in academics, the arts and career and technical education fields. “I want to congratulate this year’s class of Presidential Scholars on their achievement and also thank their parents, teachers and other academic…
Unwilling to turn school staff into gun-packing “guardians,” some officials across Florida are turning to a controversial alternative to meet the demands of a state law approved after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.The Duval County School Board has became the second in two weeks to approve hiring and training dozens of new,…
Nobody cares more about civics education and involvement than former Florida Governor Bob Graham does. He’s the author of a book on the subject and the founder of a center for public service at the University of Florida. He knows it’s an important issue that needs more attention in our schools. Abundant studies show that…
A longtime Florida Department of Law Enforcement officer has been named the director of the newly created Office of Safe Schools, the state announced Tuesday evening. Damien Kelly has been an FDLE officer since 2005, most recently as a public corruption inspector, during which Kelly “became an expert in firearms certification and proficiency,” according to…
Nearly a decade after some Florida parents first argued the state Legislature does not adequately fund public education as the constitution requires, the Florida Supreme Court has agreed to take up the question. In a 4-1 ruling issued late Monday, the court accepted jurisdiction of the Citizens for Strong Schools case. It gave the plaintiffs until May…
In the aftermath of the Parkland shooting and the state’s new law that requires armed security on every campus, some superintendents worry districts will now be competing for the same personnel. For the 2016-2017 school year, Florida’s Department of Education counted about 1,500 officers. But there’s more than twice as many public schools — about…
Forty-seven cents. That amount — less than the cost of a postage stamp — is how much Florida lawmakers increased general education funding per student for the coming year. School district officials instantly declared the budget a crisis, and pleaded with lawmakers (unsuccessfully) for a special session to reshuffle the dollars. Otherwise, they insisted, public…
On the day after the Parkland school shooting, children across Florida were brought to hospitals by police or other authorities to undergo emergency mental health exams — an unusually high number that kept climbing in the days that followed. On Feb. 27, about two weeks after the Valentine’s Day massacre, 195 children across Florida were…