Like other Florida elected officials, school board members face strict guidelines about taking gifts from vendors and lobbyists that do business with their districts. But what if the board member is dating a vendor? Can she accept presents worth more than $100 from him? In a recent advisory opinion, the Florida Commission on Ethics says…
DetailsA handful of education policies were among the nearly six dozen bills Republican Gov. Rick Scottsigned into law today — including one that will test competency-based education in four Florida counties and another desired by the Miami-Dade school district to ensure tax revenue gets to public schools faster. HB 1365 sets up a five-year pilot program in certain Florida counties with the goal…
DetailsAs expected, Gov. Rick Scott on Monday named Kim McDougal as his new chief of staff, effective April 2. McDougal, 53, most recently served as Scott’s legislative affairs director and education policy coordinator. She has been in state government for nearly three decades and has spent much of that time in the Department of Education.…
DetailsGov. Rick Scott vowed to make steep spending cuts upon taking office in 2011. With an assist from state lawmakers, he’s done just that in the past six years. More than 13,000 state positions have been eliminated, which will save $152 million next year. The state has slashed more than $800 million in its mental…
DetailsBy the end of her teaching career, Mulberry High English teacher Katherine Langford was expected to spend just three days teaching ”Moby Dick.” Langford, who retired last school year after 40 years of teaching in Polk, used to design her own curriculum, pacing and lessons. But the Polk County School District has increasingly tightened its…
DetailsWhen Polk residents ask School Board members why the School District is doing something, they often get the same answer: The state mandates it, or, the federal government mandates it. Protesters are vocal about their frustration with ever-increasing mandates that affect public education, especially when it comes to Florida’s standardized testing and accountability policies. Some…
DetailsThis Video Update features FSBA Executive Director Andrea Messina providing a final wrap-up on the 2016 Legislative Session. Ms. Messina discusses some of the key elements in the education portion of the state budget and the related implementing and FRS contribution rate bills. She also provides an overview of HB 7029 — a bill that includes…
Details
1. Florida is closing the achievement gap: http://www.educationequalityindex.org/ 2. A national report card on school funding: http://schoolfundingfairness.org/ 3. Computer coding as a foreign language not a dead issue: http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/college-game-plan/should-computer-coding-be-considered-foreign-language-school-some-say-n543656 4. Let’s do this in Florida. Youth apprenticeship pilot program launched in Maryland: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/state-launches-1st-youth-apprenticeship-pilot-program/2016/03/23/3f791a6c-f0d4-11e5-a2a3-d4e9697917d1_story.html 5. ESSA rulemaking has begun: http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-education/2016/03/writing-rules-for-essa-213320
DetailsTHE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, March 24, 2016……….Ion Sancho has long been one of the most-outspoken elections officials in Florida. But after overseeing this fall’s voting in Leon County, he will step down after nearly three decades as an elections supervisor. A familiar figure to those who have followed Florida’s frequent election controversies, Sancho often was quoted…
DetailsThousands of children of legal immigrants will be closer to obtaining subsidized health insurance this summer, after the Legislature passed a long-debated expansion of the state’s KidCare program. Until this year, children of legal immigrants were technically eligible for KidCare — the low-cost federal-state health insurance program — but had to wait five years to…
Details