Dennis Mope’s dream of running a network of military-themed charter schools for at-risk students ended quickly and with little warning this month in Jacksonville and Orlando. Two of Mope’s Acclaim Academy charter schools closed abruptly, displacing hundreds of students just three weeks before the end of the school year. A third school in Kissimmee was…
DetailsLeon County Deputy Jon “Bubba” Etheridge has been walking the halls of Tallahassee schools for more than a decade. His goal, like that of the other 21 School Resource Deputies assigned to cover 45 schools, is to help kids and their families address drug and alcohol problems before they result in life-altering problems. They want…
DetailsOne young lady was diagnosed with Stage IV pediatric cancer and created a support group for teenage cancer patients. Another took a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich and turned it into 3,000 to feed the homeless. And a young man whose little brother has autism started a school club that’s raised $70,000 to help…
DetailsBUNNELL — As they wait for state lawmakers to approve a budget, local officials cheered a call from the state Board of Education to increase school funding to its highest levels. Flagler County officials and employees attended the state board meeting Wednesday at the Government Services Building in Bunnell. Board members unanimously passed a resolution…
DetailsThis week brought news of more trouble with Florida’s school testing system. It’s been a familiar refrain this spring: Students across the state sit down to take a computerized test mandated by law, and they can’t log on. Or they can, but then they get logged off. Or something else goes wrong and the tests…
DetailsEmpowered by a new state law, education leaders in Miami-Dade and Broward counties announced Tuesday they won’t use the results of the new Florida Standards Assessment to hold students back — one of the most polarizing issues when it comes to how Florida uses tests in high-stakes decisions. “We will not allow the results of…
Details
SPECIAL SESSION UPDATE Last Friday, Senate President Andy Gardiner and House Speaker Steve Crisafulli issued a Joint Proclamation setting the time frame and agenda for the Special Session. As expected, the Special Session will begin June 1 and end no later than June 20. This aligns with the Florida Constitution that limits the duration of a Special Session…
DetailsTALLAHASSEE — If the state government shuts down July 1, street lights will go dark, teachers will go unpaid and the state will stop monitoring privately owned prisons. At the request of Gov. Rick Scott, state agency heads spelled out some of the ways Floridians would be affected if lawmakers can’t agree on a budget…
DetailsFlorida school districts that planned not to count state end-of-course algebra and geometry exams as 30 percent of students’ grades turned out to be prescient. Department of Education K-12 Chancellor Herschel Lyons informed districts on Monday that the results won’t be available in time, anyway. In a memo to superintendents, Lyons wrote that the state…
DetailsCircuit Judge George S. Reynolds III on Monday dismissed with prejudice the case that the Florida Education Association and others had brought against the state’s tax credit scholarship program. The plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case, Reynolds stated in his order. “In this case, Plaintiffs object to tax credits extended to third…
Details