Florida lawmakers are looking at ways to take some regulations off the books for public schools.
The Senate Education Pre-K-12 Committee and the House Education Quality Subcommittee held workshops this week on the issue, after a deregulation effort was included in a law (HB 1) passed in March that massively expanded the state’s school-voucher programs.
Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, has championed the effort to do away with what she calls “burdensome” regulations on schools.
“Because traditional public schools should always be a strong option for Florida’s families, a huge component of implementing HB 1 is our effort to reduce outdated, unnecessary, and quite frankly, burdensome regulations public schools have to abide by,” Passidomo said in a Nov. 3 memo to senators.
The law directed the State Board of Education to identify potential repeals and revisions in the state’s education code. The law also required the board to solicit input from people such as teachers, superintendents, administrators and school boards.
More than 4,000 suggestions came in from across the state, with most coming from parents of public-school students and educators. The law required the education board to submit recommendations to the Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis by Nov. 1.
A Department of Education presentation given to the House and Senate panels said recommendations were aimed at “increasing efficiencies and reducing redundancies,” “removing outdated and unnecessary reporting requirements,” “providing additional flexibility in the area of transportation while ensuring safety” and “providing additional financial flexibility.”
“In terms of efficiency, we had a number of recommendations that would allow districts to leverage technology to increase efficiency. One of them is to remove some requirements around publishing notices in the local newspaper,” Adam Miller, a senior chancellor with the Department of Education, said during the House presentation Wednesday.
Instead, districts would be allowed to use digital communications to distribute the information. Miller said the board looked at research that suggested people are more likely to get information from digital media.
The Legislature is slated to consider the recommendations during the 2024 legislative session, which will start in January. The Senate Education PreK-12 Committee on Wednesday will begin considering three deregulation bills, though details had not been released as of Friday morning.
The recommendations presented this week to the panels also included such things as changing a requirement that certified mechanics inspect school buses every 30 days, extending that time period to every 90 days.
“It’s important to understand that required daily inspection still exists. So, bus drivers have to do visual inspections of their buses every day before they drive them,” Miller said.
Other recommendations were aimed at providing financial flexibility to schools. For example, one proposal would involve raising the threshold at which districts are required to obtain the services of registered architects for renovation projects. That threshold is $50,000.
Miller told the House panel that the financial flexibility suggestions could particularly help districts.
“Especially with some of the … inflationary pressures that districts are dealing with, to let them manage their finances with a little more flexibility,” Miller said.
Sen. Corey Simon, chairman of the Senate education panel, said the regulations that could be removed were added over time and were “well-intended.” But he said proposed changes are designed to make sure time and money are used more wisely.
“What we’re really shooting for is to get back to making sure that our teachers and our students take advantage of the time that they have in the classroom. We don’t want a lot of wasted time and a lot of wasted money by our school districts, by our state,” Simon told The News Service of Florida.
TJ Bugos, a Seminole County teacher who heads the Seminole Education Association, spoke in support of the deregulation effort during Tuesday’s Senate panel meeting.
“Back to local control. Republicans are famous for wanting local control. Government is best when it’s closest to the people. And where is it any closer than public schools?” Bugos told the News Service.
–Ryan Dailey, News Service of Florida
Atwp says
Bus inspection from every 30 days to every 90 days. Is this a wise decision? If the driver note a brake problem will the lead mechanic down the bus? It looks like the buses are pretty safe decreasing inspections will probably increase the chance of accidents. Please make wise decisions for our school children and bus drivers. I don’t like Republicans please think about the safety of our school children. If bus crashes start to happen, I hope that isn’t the case, the Repubs will blame Biden and the Democrats.
Nancy N. says
Maybe if the state wants to reduce “regulation” on public schools it could start with removing the rules that are causing a ridiculous amount of resources to have to be devoted to reviewing books and what honorifics teachers use. Just an idea.
Michael Cocchiola says
Be afraid when a Republican lawmaker wants to reduce “burdensome” regulations in public schools. Like regulations against combining academics and religion? Like gun-free school zones? How about teachers having expertise in the subjects they teach? Oops… already gone.
Be very afraid…
Endless dark money says
The only thing people need to do is remove the republicons from office and you won’t have these sort of ignorant problems. Bus driver should pretrip bus each day pretty standard in dot. Facist repubs want to destroy schools. Hence defunding, banning books, dismantling teachers union, prosecuting teachers for teaching what they don’t like. This way there are more ignorant people to believe their lies and misinformation and lack critical thinking so see through it. Will probably take a decade or more to just fix racist rons disaster agenda from the last year. Good luck kids.
Laurel says
“…Republicans are famous for wanting local control” Um, not so much: https://www.homerulefl.com/
Fiscal responsibility? How about letting taxpayers check off where their taxes go when paying them?
Public schools
Private schools
Private religious schools
Home schooling
Which would you check when you write your check?
Leila says
Remove the requirement that schools must accept dangerous children and disruptive children. They are not there to babysit.
Bartholomew says
90 days is half of the school year.You are right that is too long.
TR says
You have it completely backwards. It’s the Dems not the Repubs. But it’s exactly what the Dems what everyone to believe. Push the blame on Repubs for what they are doing that is bad, and not just in the schools.
TR says
The drivers will still be responsible to do their daily inspections and if there is a problem with a particular bus, the bus will be taken off the road and the repairs will be made. Moving the certified inspection of the busses are not going to cause any more accidents with school busses, being the driver has to inspect the bus daily and if any problem comes up they are not going to wait 90 days to fix the problem.
I don’t like people who try to always blame a problem on someone because of their political affiliation. It has nothing to do with it. Besides it really doesn’t matter what leaders are in any political office. When someone of the opposite party doesn’t like the idea. They just blame the opposite party without any proof that it will be bad. Diversity at it’s best.
Nancy N. says
The dismantling of public schools in favor of “school choice” – private and religious schools – is literally part of the national GOP party policy planks. When Trump was president, he chose for his education secretary a woman whose entire mission is dismantling public schools. DeSantis has instituted in FL the country’s largest school voucher program. So please explain how these facts fit with the GOP not wanting to dismantle public schools?
Come on! says
It’s the Dems? What planet r u from? Ron’s rules, he’s Republican. When was the last time we were able to vote on Amy of these changes?! Schools shouldn’t take disruptive or dangerous kids? They a have an IEP…gives triggers/ soothes- our teachers are professionals trained for success with students. Pay them more & give them the space to do their jobs. Yes, some students fall through the cracks but you’d be amazed at the staggering number of successes! Every one on this thread is so off!