FSBA Session Spotlight — February 13-17, 2017

There were several meetings of particular interest this week.  Among them, the House Public Integrity & Ethics Committee discussed a strike-all amendment to a Proposed Committee Bill (PCB) — PCB PIEC-3 – relating to Local Government Ethics Reform.  The bill makes numerous changes to Florida’s Code of Ethics for Public Officers and Employees (Code) as…

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$250 million for teacher incentives? Florida lawmakers crafting plan to do it

How much Florida spends to recruit and keep quality teachers for its K-12 public schools could potentially quadruple next year — and maybe even reach as high as a quarter of a billion dollars — under tentative plans being crafted in private by Republican House and Senate leaders ahead of the 2017 session. Read More

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Florida Constitution Revision Commission membership to include state education leaders

The membership of Florida’s Constitution Revision Commission continued to shape up Wednesday, as Senate President Joe Negron announced his nine appointments to the panel.  Among his choices were two people with strong influence in state K-12 education matters over the past several years, Patricia Levesque and Don Gaetz. Read More

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Appeals court to decide on students’ rights to opt out of standardized tests

The 1st District Court of Appeal is considering a case that will determine several school boards’ obligations to students who wish to opt out of standardized tests. According to a Feb. 9 report by the News Service of Florida on TheLedger.com, parents of students who had been denied promotion to the fourth grade for their failure…

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FSBA Session Spotlight — February 6-10, 2017

Among the key meetings this week, the Senate PreK-12 Education Appropriations Subcommittee held a Workshop on Public School Fixed Capital Outlay.  The meeting included a presentation by DOE on the current funding and policies relating to capital outlay projects for traditional public schools and charter schools.  This was followed by two separate panel discussions with…

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Florida education funding high; schools still recovering from recession cuts

Florida is spending more than ever on education, yet the amount of money dedicated to each student is barely higher than in 2007.  The state would have to spend an additional $1.86 billion over the next three years to offset inflation and cuts that have ravaged education funding since the Great Recession, according to the…

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