School districts, charters, sheriffs. Who decides if teachers can be armed?

The Florida Senate didn’t have a formal vote on the bill that would allow classroom teachers to be armed on Wednesday, but they did adopt a major amendment that could settle one of the biggest lingering questions of the debate: who gets to decide if teachers in a school can be armed? Read More

FSBA Session Summary — April 17, 2019

Today’s agenda includes both House and Senate floor sessions followed by a Senate committee meeting. Of particular interest, during the Senate Session, the Senate will consider its school safety bill (which has now been renamed “Implementation of Legislative Recommendations of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Public Safety Commission”) – on 2nd Reading.  Several amendments have…

Florida School Boards join state leaders in Tallahassee

Over 150 school board members from across the state recently convened in Tallahassee to participate in leadership development training, legislative briefings, and advocacy sessions to prepare for visits to the Capitol.To kick off the week, over 45 school board members elected in 2018 attended the second installment of New School Board Member Academy. They were…

Stoneman Douglas commission reviews how school districts are doing at keeping kids safe

embers of the state commission investigating the Parkland school shooting on Tuesday debated the pros and cons of rating school districts on how well they are implementing policies to keep children safe.  The discussion was part of the commission’s first hearing in more than three months, which began with reports of progress in making schools…

FSBA Session Spotlight — March 26, 2019

As we near the mid-point of the Session, time is growing short for bills that haven’t been heard in their committees/subcommittees of reference so today we see a flurry of activity to consider bills that have been waiting for first hearings while others are completing work in their committees/subcommittees of reference and soon will be…

FSBA Session Spotlight — March 12, 2019

The second week of the Legislative Session is underway with several bills of interest scheduled to be considered today, including bills relating to health and safety, government accountability, exceptional students, curriculum, personnel, and term limits for school board members. Today’s schedule is posted in the file below and is updated throughout the day to show…

Florida Supreme Court approves DeSantis’ ask for grand jury on school safety

The Florida Supreme Court justices unanimously agreed to impanel a statewide grand jury to broadly investigate school safety, in an order issued Monday. The decision came after Gov. Ron DeSantis filed a petition on Feb. 13 to ask for the grand jury, which he said should have sweeping powers to oversee both the government failures…

FSBA Session Spotlight — February 22, 2019

This was the last round of Legislative Interim Committee Meetings prior to the start of the 2019 Legislative Session. The schedule of committee/subcommittee meetings was relatively light this week, with bills and presentations addressing a wide variety of topics including, among others, school board member term limits, school choice, and impact fees. In related news,…

School board term limits moves through second House committee

A proposal to let Florida voters decide whether to impose term limits on school board members (HJR 229) cleared another hurdle in the Florida House on Wednesday, but reservations over the details began to emerge.  Unlike its first stop, where the measure won unanimous bipartisan backing, the bill hit some speed bumps in the Oversight,…