Another year for Stewart: The Florida Board of Education extends the contract of Education Commissioner Pam Stewart by a year to “help ensure Florida remains on this positive trajectory" of rising high school graduation rates, improved school grades and gains on national math and reading tests. She had been scheduled to leave the office she's held since 2013 on Jan. 7, Rick Scott's final day as governor. “Serving as education commissioner has been a highlight of my career, and I am honored to accept the state Board of Education’s invitation," Stewart said. News Service of Florida. Gradebook. Politico Florida. Capital Soup. The board selects 14 struggling schools as "Schools of Hope." Each receives an extra $2,000 per student to help improve student performance. Gradebook. Gary Chartrand concludes an eight-term term on the Florida Board of Education by praising the state's emphasis on parental choice of schools. "Choice is important," he said. "The more choice we have, the more freedom we have.” redefinED.
Evaluating evaluations: School principals say changes in teacher evaluations have overburdened them with work and hurt their relationships with teachers, according to a new study that focused on Hillsborough County and five other large U.S. school districts that underwent significant changes in the evaluation process. The biggest concern of principals is the time required for the evaluations. “I mean, honest to God. I just can’t do it by myself,” said one principal. “If I’m running my school, something’s going to lose out, either academics or your school because you’re just one person.” Another principal said just walking in a teacher's room creates tension. “I feel like every time I walk in, a teacher’s like automatically on pins and needles thinking I’m there in an evaluative capacity,” said the principal. Chalkbeat. (more…)
Schools and the storm: School officials across north Florida are scrambling to get students back in school, but the devastation of Hurricane Michael is posing problems most of them have never faced before. Five school districts - Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden, Jackson - are closed until further notice because of widespread power outages, closed and unsafe roadways, damaged schools and the need to continue using schools that aren't too damaged as emergency shelters, according to the governor's office. School administrators in Bay County, which was hardest hit by the storm, say it could be months before schools are reopened. Several other districts remain closed today but hope to open tomorrow. CNN. Washington Post. USA Today. Associated Press. WJHG. Panama City News Herald. Pensacola News Journal. Escambia, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa school officials say they can take in students whose schools aren't open. WKRG. Though Gadsden schools are closed, all teachers and staff are required to report to work today, according to a tweet from the district. Gadsden County School District. All Leon County schools reopen today and will have power. Tallahassee Democrat. WTXL. Experts say students need as much normalcy as possible and a sense of security after the trauma of an event such as Hurricane Michael. Naples Daily News.
New leaders at FEA: Joanne McCall is ousted after one term as president of the Florida Education Association, the state's largest teachers union. She lost a weekend election to Fed Ingram, a Miami-Dade County union official and FEA vice president. Also elected were Andrew Spar of Volusia County as vice president and Carole Gauronskas of St. Johns County as treasurer. "This organization, especially for the last three years in the legislative session, has been reactive instead of proactive," says Pasco teachers union official Don Peace. "You can't get big wins when you always arrive to the game late." Gradebook. Florida Politics. (more…)
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.
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. (more…)
Fixing fire alarms: Broward County school officials are asking the state for an exemption to fire alarm tests at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for the rest of the school year as a way avoid false alarms that students say are causing trauma to students. At least 10 alarms have gone off at Stoneman Douglas since school started, and only three were planned. “In the case of Stoneman Douglas, you’re causing trauma every time you have an alarm, and we don’t want to do that,” says Superintendent Robert Runcie. The district also wants to upgrade the alarm systems, with some incorporating a delay mechanism that would allow school officials to decide if a fire alarm is valid before triggering a schoolwide alarm. Sun-Sentinel.
No-zero grading policy: A St. Lucie County teacher says she was fired for handing out zeroes to students who didn't turn in their assignments. Diane Tirado, an 8th-grade history teacher at West Gate K-8 School in Port St. Lucie, says she refused to follow the school handbook that states "No zeroes - lowest possible grade is 50%" and was let go. Tirado was still in her probationary period, and no cause for her dismissal was listed in the letter from the principal. Tirado left a message on the classroom whiteboard when she left that read: "Bye Kids, Mrs. Tirado loves you and wishes you the best in life! I have been fired for refusing to give you a 50% for not handing anything in. ???? Mrs. Tirado." District officials say there is no policy prohibiting teachers from giving a grade of zero. Associated Press. WPTV. (more…)
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. (more…)
ESSA questions: Florida's latest plan to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act is drawing questions from the U.S. Education Department. Specifically, federal officials want more details on how the state calculates math achievement and proficiency, how schools that need support for improvement are identified by the state, how schools can get out of the turnaround program, and how schools with a single D grade fit in the requirements for improvement. The state has until Oct. 4 to respond. Florida is the only state whose ESSA plan has not been approved. Gradebook.
Alarming false alarms: False fire alarms and emergency drills are causing trauma to students who were at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during the shootings Feb. 14 that left 17 dead, they say. “They’re hearing the same sound that brought them all into the hallway where the shooting really started taking place,” says Dr. Nicole Mavrides, director of the child psychiatry program at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. “It can really bring out symptoms of post-traumatic stress.” The Parkland school has had one active shooter drill, two fire drills and five false alarms since school began Aug. 15. Students are responsible for three of the false alarms. Sun-Sentinel. Miami Herald. (more…)
Florida's ESSA plan: Florida has filed its fourth plan to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. The first three were rejected because they didn't meet the standards of the school accountability system. The latest attempt, filed Aug. 24, calls for the continuation of an exemption from grade-level math exams to students in high school who successfully completed the courses in middle school. The state also is declining to give tests in languages other than English, and does not want to change the way it sets proficiency standards for students still learning the language or how it reports the academic performance of demographic subgroups. In Gov. Rick Scott's letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, he writes that "Florida's expectations is that our state is treated fairly and given full flexibility to provide the greatest return to our students." Florida is the only state whose plan has not been approved by the U.S. Department of Education. Gradebook. Education Week.
District's computers hacked: A cyberattack forces the Monroe County School District to shut down its computer systems this week. Officials say the hacker used ransomware called "GandCrab," with the goal of encrypting files in the system and then demanding a payment to unlock them. The district’s Internet security provider, Symantec, took the system down Sunday after the threat was detected and created a patch that was applied Tuesday. But the problems persisted and the system was shut down again. Keynoter. Key West Citizen. WLRN. (more…)
Budgets and tax rates: At its meeting this week to discuss its budget request to the Legislature, the Florida Board of Education will consider supporting local school districts' requests to maintain their tax rates but collect extra tax revenue from rising property values, rather than adjusting those rates downward to keep tax revenue at the same level. The Senate and Gov. Rick Scott supported such a move during this year's legislative session, but the House disagreed, and its position held. Gradebook.
District budgets: Hillsborough County School Board members approve a $3 billion budget with a lower tax rate than last year's. The district also was able to add $5 million to its reserves. Gradebook. The Pinellas County School Board also approves a budget, for $1.5 billion, with a lower tax rate than it had last year. Still, higher property values mean slightly higher tax bills for many residents. Gradebook. Collier County School Board members approve a $1.1 billion budget, up from $1.05 billion last year, that includes a slight increase in taxes for most residents. Naples Daily News. A budget of $874 million is approved by Sarasota County School Board members, which is about $24 million higher than last year's. Sarasota Herald-Tribune. The Leon County School Board approves a $545.8 million budget that includes $14 million more in revenue. Tallahassee Democrat. (more…)
Financial issues: The Duval County School District again spent more than it took in last year, according to an annual report on the state of its finances. That spending - for unexpected expenses, climbing costs, underutilized schools and more - cut into the district's net financial position by 15.7 percent last year, and the general fund balance is now 21 percent less than it was a year ago. Florida Times-Union. The Leon County School Board is expected to vote tonight on a proposed $545.8 million budget that includes raises for teachers and a boost in the minimum wage paid from $9.50 an hour to $11. Tallahassee Democrat.
School overcrowding: Even with about 22,000 open seats in Palm Beach County schools, there's a space crunch at select schools. Schools in more desirable neighborhoods are jammed, and schools in low-income areas have seats to spare. District officials are trying to convince the state to let them build new schools to relieve the overcrowding at the crowded schools, saying moving students from them to half-empty ones would require so much busing that it would be unhealthy for students, unwelcome to their parents and unaffordable for the school system. Palm Beach Post. Here's what one Palm Beach County school is doing to weed out students who falsify addresses to attend. Sun-Sentinel. (more…)
