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Andrew Gillum

Florida schools roundup: Hurricane, teacher pay, A/C problems and more

Compiled by redefinED staff October 12, 2018

Hurricane Michael: Hurricane Michael has claimed at least seven lives in the United States, and the first daylight look at areas hit show “unimaginable destruction,” according to Gov. Rick Scott. Mexico Beach and Panama City in Bay County were among the hardest hit. “So many lives have been changed forever,” says Scott. “So many families have lost everything.” Schools in at least nine Florida counties are closed again today. Bay County School Superintendent Bill Husfelt tweeted that he had little access to communications, but that “we will assess the damage & come up with a plan for reopening school soon.” Associated Press. News Service of Florida. Reuters. Florida Department of Education. Tallahassee Democrat. USA Today. Panama City News Herald. Associated Press. Tampa Bay Times. Miami Herald. Palm Beach Post. WFSU. WLRN. Education Week. Past disasters offer lessons for schools to get back online quickly. Education Week.

Contract impasse: The Volusia County School District declares an impasse in contract negotiations with the teachers union. It’s the third time in the past four years that an impasse has been declared. The two biggest issues are pay and the length of the elementary school day. The district was willing to offer 2.5 percent raises for each of the next three years, and the union agreed to extend the school day next year. But the raises depend on state funding, and approval of the length of the day hinges on the pay raises. A resolution now falls to the school board. Daytona Beach News-Journal.

October 12, 2018 0 comment

Florida Schools Roundup

Florida schools roundup: Hurricane, hair policies, opioids, security and more

Compiled by redefinED staff October 11, 2018

Compiled by redefinED staff

Hurricane Michael: Hurricane Michael blasted ashore near Mexico Beach on Wednesday as a Category 4 storm with 155 mph winds, making it the strongest hurricane to hit the United States in nearly 50 years and the most powerful to hit the Panhandle since records have been kept. Schools in 21 Florida counties are closed again today while officials assess the damage, and five of those districts will be closed again Friday. Associated Press. News Service of Florida. GateHouse Media. Panama City News Herald. Pensacola News Journal. Northwest Florida Daily News. Citrus County Chronicle. Florida Department of Education. Tallahassee Democrat. Miami Herald. Tampa Bay Times. Orlando Sentinel. Palm Beach Post. WJCT. The Sarasota County School District cancels a digital town hall meeting because of the hurricane. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Hair policies protested: The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is asking the Florida Department of Education to review what it calls “racist” hair policies at private schools that receive money from state scholarship programs. Several students have been banned from schools recently for wearing dreadlocks, braids and other traditionally African-American hairstyles. “The forms of racial discrimination most commonly seen in education have evolved. It is now rare to find a policy that explicitly excludes potential students based on skin color,” says the letter. “However, subtle rules and restrictions based on racial stereotypes and proxies have the same force and effect.” Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, helps administer four state scholarship programs. Huffington Post.

October 11, 2018 0 comment

Florida Schools Roundup

Florida schools roundup: Schools closed, high ranking for Florida and more

Compiled by redefinED staff October 10, 2018

Compiled by redefinED staff

Closing for storm: Schools in 28 of Florida’s 67 counties are shuttered today as Hurricane Michael moves closer to making landfall somewhere in the Panhandle. State officials say it could be the worst storm to ever hit that area of the state. Associated Press. Florida Department of Education. Panama City News Herald. Pensacola News Journal. Tallahassee Democrat. Education Week. Gainesville Sun. Bradenton Herald. Sarasota Herald-Tribune. WFSU. Tampa Bay Times. Miami Herald. Orlando Sentinel. Daytona Beach News-Journal. WLRN. WTSP.

High ranking for Florida schools: Florida is ranked third among the states in K-12 educational quality and No. 1 in educational efficiency, according to rankings by Reason magazine. The rankings are based on National Assessment of Educational Progress reading, math and science test scores. Reason’s rankings closely mirror those by Education Week, which recently ranked Florida fourth among U.S. states for K-12 achievement. “Overall, our results demonstrate that existing state education rankings aren’t to be trusted. When those scores are corrected, the conventional narrative is turned on its head,” say study authors Stan Liebowitz and Matthew L. Kelly. redefinED.

October 10, 2018 0 comment

Florida Schools Roundup

Florida schools roundup: Huge raises, A/C crisis, retaliation report and more

Compiled by redefinED staff October 1, 2018

Compiled by redefinED staff

Big raises for administrators: Eleven Broward County School District administrators received pay raises during the 2017-2018 school year ranging from 7 percent to 21 percent — far above the average 2.2 percent that most of the district’s 27,000 employees received. Six of the 11 raises were given after the massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, when the district was complaining it didn’t have enough money for resource officers and teachers. Superintendent Robert Runcie defends the raises as correcting pay inequities, though he has adjusted one downward. Sun-Sentinel.

Creation of a crisis: The crisis of escalating problems with school air-conditioners in Hillsborough County is a creation of declining funding from the state and school officials’ decisions to emphasize teaching positions over maintenance during the recession and years of devoting fewer of their funds toward maintenance than any other large district in the state. In the past decade, Hillsborough spent about $122 per student on maintenance, compared to neighboring Pinellas County’s $217 and Orange County’s $179. Now, the district is asking voters to approve adding a half-cent to the sales tax to raise $1.31 billion over the next 10 years to fix the A/C problems and tend to other deferred repair projects. Tampa Bay Times.

October 1, 2018 0 comment

Florida Schools Roundup

Florida schools roundup: Teacher bonuses suit, school security and more

Compiled by redefinED staff September 25, 2018

Compiled by redefinED staff

Teacher bonuses: A legal challenge to the state’s Best & Brightest teacher bonuses program is scheduled for a mediation session Nov. 13 in Tallahassee. Teachers and a teachers union sued the Florida Department of Education over the program, claiming it discriminates against teachers by age and race in part because it relies on college entry exam scores, which many teachers don’t have. If no settlement can be reached after mediation, the case could go to trial in early February. Gradebook.

School security: Schools in Florida are bolstering security with a mixture of new technology and old-school personal relationships. School resource officers chat with students and give fist bumps, rattle door handles to make sure they’re locked and mentor struggling students, but also use apps to follow leads about threats and monitor social media. Orlando Sentinel. Charlotte Sun. Alan Hall, a charter high school principal in Jacksonville, is one of the first school employees to graduate from the Duval County sheriff’s guardian training program and is now carrying a gun in the halls of San Jose Academy & Preparatory High School. “I’ve always worried, ‘Oh my gosh, what would happen?’ How am I going to put myself in those principals’ shoes that have actually had to live this? And I say, now, I at least have a chance to do something about it,” Hall says. WJAX.

September 25, 2018 0 comment

Florida Schools Roundup

Florida schools roundup: Mental services deal, private schools and more

Compiled by redefinED staff September 21, 2018

Compiled by redefinED staff

Mental health services: The mental health provider that determined accused Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz shouldn’t be Baker Acted in 2016 has been hired by the Florida Consortium of Public Charter Schools to provide mental health services for students at their schools. Henderson Behavioral Health will provide assessments, diagnoses, interventions, treatment and recovery services for students in the 500 state charter schools that belong to the consortium. Henderson has been criticized for recommendation to not hospitalize Cruz after a suicide assessment, and is being sued for wrongful death by the parent of a student who was killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14. Miami Herald.

Private school safety: Private schools are safer for students than public schools, according to a report published recently in the Journal of School Choice. Researchers Danish Shakeel and Corey DeAngelis say students at private schools were 8 percent more likely to have never experienced physical conflicts, 28 percent more likely to have never experienced another student possessing a weapon on campus, and 13 percent more likely to have never experienced racial tension between students. redefinED.

September 21, 2018 0 comment

Florida Schools Roundup

Florida schools roundup: Charter schools, prayer case, budgets and more

Compiled by redefinED staff September 20, 2018

Compiled by redefinED staff

Charter schools: Included in the Florida Board of Education’s budget wish list for the Legislature is a request for an extra $10 million for charter school construction. If it’s approved, it would boost the amount available for charter schools to $155 million. The money comes from Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO), whose collection is expected to total $1.18 billion this year. But money is still tight because that total has to cover debt payments on bonds issued by public school districts and universities, universities have already requested an extra $64 million, and there are unfinished projects totaling $732 million. redefinED. A group of Okaloosa County parents are making plans to build a charter high school in Destin. “We are moving full steam ahead right now. We are looking for donations to actually put our money where our mouth is and get this school built,” says Prebble Ramswell, a member of the committee. The anticipated opening is August 2020. WMBB.

Pregame prayer case: A federal appeals court will hear arguments Wednesday about the constitutionality of religious schools broadcasting a prayer on a stadium loudspeaker before playing a football game. Three years ago, before a state championship game between Tampa Cambridge Christian and Jacksonville’s University Christian School, Cambridge asked permission to use the public broadcast system to pray. The Florida High School Athletic Association denied the request, prompting a legal challenge from Cambridge Christian. Last year a federal judge backed the FHSAA, which argued state law did not require or permit the organization to promote a “sectarian prayer through its state-run public-address system.” Cambridge Christian argued the denial was a violation of its free speech rights. News Service of Florida.

September 20, 2018 0 comment

Florida Schools Roundup

Florida schools roundup: Education platforms, achievement gap and more

Compiled by redefinED staff September 19, 2018

Compiled by redefinED staff

Education and politics: Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis unveils his education goals for the state that include more school choice, more support for career and technical training, incentives for teacher retention, an increase in the cap for tax credit scholarships, an end to Common Core, an emphasis on civics education and a requirement that 80 percent of education funding go into the classroom. Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum touts his plan to raise corporate income taxes to increase education spending by $1 billion, including starting salaries of $50,000 for teachers and $100 million for construction, and vows to end “the voucherizing of the education system.” News Service of Florida. Tampa Bay Times. Orlando Sentinel. Florida Politics. GateHouse. Florida Phoenix. Education Week. Associated Press. WFSU. Tallahassee Democrat. Politico Florida. WUSF.

Achievement gap: The Pinellas County School District improves in five of six categories in its plan to close the achievement gap between black and white students by 2027, according to a report from the minority achievement office. Still, no progress was made between the groups in state English and math exams results, with the gap steady at 33 percent. “It’s good; it’s not great,” minority achievement officer Lewis Brinson tells the school board. “But good is acceptable and encouraging that we will become great … if we continue to keep the focus.” Gradebook. Alachua County School Board members approve an equity plan to close the achievement gap between white and black students, over the objections of some community members who say it needs more accountability and inclusion. The plan has been developed over the past year by Valerie Freeman, director of equity for the school system, who says commitment to the plan is necessary even as changes can be made later. Gainesville Sun.

September 19, 2018 0 comment