| With their property tax referendums for teacher raises behind them, officials in the Hillsborough and Pasco county school districts signaled that their teacher hiring shortfalls might not be as much of an emergency as they initially thought. Their statements elicited a chorus of cynicism, and also a round of complaints from educators who said the problem remains — and it's being placed squarely on their shoulders with added work and larger class sizes. Maybe they shouldn't be surprised.
— Jeffrey S. Solochek, jsolochek@tampabay.com |
| On Florida class size history, school board elections and book challenges |
| How will they count the students? Back in 2002, as Florida considered imposing class size limits on K-12 schools, then governor Jeb Bush warned that the price tag of the initiative could "block out the sun."
Voters backed the idea anyway, and from that point on lawmakers and schools have grappled with getting core courses down to 18 children in K-3, 22 in grades 4-8 and 25 in high schools. Over time, opponents of strict caps fought to blunt the full force of the constitutional amendment, pushing for averages and removing courses from the calculation whenever possible.
In Pasco County, officials argued it was cheaper to pay the fine than meet the mandate. They then stumbled upon a loophole in the law allowing for averaging class sizes in "schools of choice," and quickly gave all district schools that label. Before long, additional districts followed suit.
Hillsborough County held out longer than most, but facing budget concerns, then superintendent Jeff Eakins relented in 2015. John Legg, then chairman of the state Senate Education Committee, tried to cut off the end-run on the voter mandate, but found little support for any change. Strict classroom counts never came. Even with the liberal rules intact, school districts saw violations rise as teaching positions in critical needs areas went unfilled — and that was before the struggles districts are experiencing now. The notion of schools eliminating teacher allocations amid declining enrollment, while pledging to adhere to the state's lax rule, falls in line with the two-decade history of skirting the voter-led amendment. And teachers facing more students than ever don't like it. |
| About that Broward County School Board ... Floridians are talking about Gov. Ron DeSantis' decision to remove four Broward County board members who were in office at the time of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High shooting in 2018. A grand jury recommended the action, calling the board members malfeasant, and DeSantis didn't hesitate. Two of the members already had chosen not to seek reelection, while a third won't be up for another term until 2024. A fourth — Donna Korn — appeared on the Aug. 23 ballot. Korn didn't win a majority. She did advance to the November runoff against challenger Allen Zeman days before DeSantis acted. Which leads to the question, what if Broward voters decide to reelect her anyway? Zeman held a press conference to urge voters not to give the governor another chance to remove a board member and appoint his own choice. Korn told the Miami Herald she expected the governor to respect the democratic process. |
| [GUILLERMO ARIAS |Associated Press] |
| If at first you don't succeed ... A conservative Polk County group has agitated for months to have several books removed from public school libraries, including frequently challenged titles by prize-winning author Toni Morrison (above). Having failed to convince the School Board to take out the books, which the group considers pornographic, some members turned to local law enforcement for relief. They accused school employees of violating state law on obscene materials, and called for criminal citations. They contend the items carry no literary, artistic, political or scientific value to minors, something the law considers when defining obscenity. But is determining a book's literary merit the role of the police, or educators? When this happened in Flagler County last year, the sheriff there criticized the School Board's policies, but told WESH it was the board's place to decide on books, not his. Things might be headed the same way in Polk. Top law enforcement officials told Lakeland Now they had received complaints and did not anticipate overriding the board. Keep an eye open for this debate in your county, too. |
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