May 5, 2025
Overtime! Late Friday night, the House and Senate chambers announced an agreement to extend the 2025 Legislative Session until Friday, June 6, at 11:59 pm for the budget, conforming and implementing bills and the Rural Renaissance package, which is a priority of President. Albritton. The chambers also announced that the framework of a budget deal had been agreed upon including a tax package. While allocations are still being worked out, the Legislature expects to be back next week (May 12-16) for budget conferencing.
Our team at GrayRobinson is once again providing us with our bill tracker. All of the bills we are tracking are listed on the report in numerical order. Bills that align to our platform are highlighted in yellow. A few of the bills to highlight:
- SB 296 Middle School & High School Start Times by Sen. Bradley would repeal the required implementation of 8 am start for middle school and 8:30 am for high school by July 1, 2026 was heard in its first committee. It was amended to include that if a district sends a report to DOE stating the ways in which it considered late start times and all of the implications that led to not adopting last start times, the district would be considered in compliance with the law. The bill unanimously passed the House and now awaits the governor’s signature.
- SB 1470 School Safety by Sen. Burgess works to address the concerns from the implementation of last year’s HB 1473 School Safety bill including providing some flexibility regarding the keeping of some doors/gates unlocked. The bill also would create and maintain a list of approved exemptions. Additionally, the bill expands coverage of the guardian program to include child care facilities and mandates sheriffs to establish these programs when school boards vote to implement them. The bill passed on Friday and awaits the governor’s signature.
- HB 443 Charter Schools by Rep. Snyder revises statutes relating to charter schools by prohibiting sponsors from imposing certain administrative deadlines on charter schools and setting enrollment limits below facility capacity. The bill also grants charter schools the right to develop their own student conduct codes and specifies new guidelines for the disposal of school district real property by ensuring charter schools have the right of first refusal. The bill was amended to clarify that boards could move forward with a proposal after a consideration of a charter school proposal. The bill was amended to clarify that charter schools are public schools when considering concurrency while also removing the right of first refusal provision when a district wants to sell real property. The bill passed and now awaits the governor’s signature
- HB 1255 Education by Rep. Trabulsy would revise recruitment and membership provisions in Florida’s K-12 and teacher-related statutes. The bill would restrict expenditures to certain organizations, modify academic instruction standards, and update accountability requirements for schools and staff. The bill would also require the Auditor General to conduct annual financial audits on small rural districts. The bill passed and awaits the Governor’s signature.
- HB 875 Educator Preparation by Reps. Rizzo and Snyder makes changes to teacher preparation, certification, and professional development requirements by establishing the Coaching for Educator Readiness and Teaching Certification (CERT) Program and replacing certain existing certification exams and programs. The bill also includes establishing a center for teacher preparation at Miami-Dade College in collaboration with USF. The bill awaits the Governor’s signature.
- HB 1105 Education by Rep. Kincart Jonsson was amended significantly in the waning hours of Friday to include the following provisions: requires schools districts to share local surtax revenues with charter schools, clarified trespass laws on school property, revises charter school laws including creating job engine charter schools & updating the process of conversion (language from SB 140), eliminates the certificate of completion (HB 1111), and revises the cell phone restrictions on school campuses to mandate a complete prohibition of cell phones in grades K-8 (HB 949) with a pilot program to study this say restriction for grades 9-12. The bill awaits the Governor’s signature.
