The House Education Appropriations Subcommittee voted 8-4 to introduce the measure, which would bind together a program aimed at students with disabilities and the voucher expansion. Senate leaders last week pulled their counterpart to the House voucher bill, but the measure for students with disabilities remains alive.
Schools
The Problem With “Step Up for Students,” Florida’s Voucher Jockey
Step Up For Children CEO Doug Tuthill is shameless about the way his organization–the administrative agent for Florida’s school voucher program–spends lavishly on political races, which may explain why a Senate proposal to vastly expand the voucher program this year foundered.
Bill Vastly Expanding School Vouchers Dies As Questions About Accountability Mounted
The decision represents a defeat for the GOP’s Will Weatherford, who was home schooled as a child and strongly pushed the expansion of the system, which gives companies tax credits for donating to scholarship funds that help children attend private schools. Under the bills, retailers would have been allowed to divert sales-tax payments to the system.
In-State Tuition For Undocumented Immigrants Passes House, 81-33, as GOP Opposition Thins
The measure allows undocumented immigrants to pay cheaper, in-state tuition rates if they attend Florida middle and high schools for at least four straight years before going to college.
As Flagler District Prepare to Offer Voluntary Pre-K at all 5 Elementary Schools, Board Questions Raising $60 Fee
The half-day VPK programs are free, but many parents opt to leave their children for longer hours that coincide with extended-day care before and after school, at a cost of $60 a week. District administrators are looking to raise that fee to accommodate the expansion of VPK.
Common Core and FCAT Replacement Test Leads “Florida Standards” To $220-Million Contract With AIR
The $220 million contract with American Institutes for Research, which has been providing tests for just seven years, will be cheaper than it would have been to go forward with a test developed by a multi-state consortium that Gov. Rick Scott ordered Stewart to back away from last year, according to the Department of Education.
6-Year-Old Girl Is Baker Acted From Old Kings Elementary; Palm Coast Man Accused of Rape
The 6 year old’s Baker Act is the second time in two weeks that a young child was Baker Acted from an elementary school in Flagler. Separately, Andrew J. Vasquez, a 23-year-old resident of 56 Filbert Lane in Palm Coast, was arrested on March 9 and charged with rape.
NRA-Backed Measure to Let Armed Vets and Ex-Cops In Schools Triggers Controversy
Under the bill, opposed by the state School Board Association, principals and school superintendents could appoint staff members or volunteers who are military veterans with honorable discharges, active military or retired law enforcement officials as gun-toting “designees.”
Girl, 15, Uses School-Issued Macbook to Record Alleged Sex Assault by 22-Year-Old Man
Keith Foreman III, an R-Section resident, is in jail this morning on $11,000 bond, on charges of lewd and lascivious battery and marijuana possession following an incident his alleged 15-year-old victim video-recorded on the Macbook Air issued by the Flagler County School District.
A 7-Year-Old Girl Is Baker Acted at Belle Terre Elementary; It’s Not Punishment, District Says
The Baker Acting of a 7-year-old girl at Belle Terre Elementary last week, following a report of her allegedly lacerating the dean of students with thumb tacks, is one of three or four Baker Acts of students in the district every month, though they’re usually older. The district defends the Baker Acts as a necessary last resort that addresses underlying issues, and that must not be seen as retribution or punishment.