Florida’s 2025 Legislative Session Begins

Senate Proposing Necessary Improvements, House Targeting Local Control

When the Senate Education PreK-12 committee meets on Monday (3/3/25 at 3:30pm), three bills will be heard addressing concerns of public schools, school boards and our local communities.

SB 356 (Berman and others) would require the Governor to annually proclaim January 27th to be “Holocaust Remembrance Day,” allowing the day to be observed in public schools, at the state capital and other locations designated by the Governor.

SB296 (Bradley and others) would overturn 2023’s SB1112 which mandated later high school and middle school start times across the state. Districts have argued that without significant funding increases (for both hiring more drivers and purchasing more buses) such changes were cost prohibitive and SB296 will be supported by superintendents and school boards across the state. A recent op-ed by Scott Maxwell (Orlando Sentinel) emphasized that the science behind the original SB1112 was solid: “Everyone from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the National Sleep Foundation and university researchers agrees that high school shouldn’t start before 8:30 a.m.” The problem with SB1112 is the legislature’s continued unwillingness to provide the funding necessary to facilitate the change.

The final bill, SB166, is Senator Simon’s continuation of what used to be called “deregulation” but now is being called “Administrative Efficiency.” Here is the summary from the Staff Analysis. There is a lot to like. I have bolded my favorite provisions.

SB 166 streamlines administrative processes for school districts by reducing regulations,
increasing flexibility in policymaking, and enhancing financial and facilities management.
Relating to:

• Assessment and accountability, the bill:
  o Expands the assessments that satisfy requirements for fourth grade progression.
  o Provides that students will not be required to pass Algebra 1 and grade 10 English
  Language Arts (ELA) assessments to earn a standard high school diploma, and requires
  that the grade 10 ELA assessment constitute 30 percent of the final course grade.
  o Eliminates certain school district requirements relating to the uniform assessment
  calendar, but requires the calendar to indicate state and district assessments.
  o Authorizes district school superintendents to establish deadlines for extraordinary
  exemptions from certain assessments.
  o Specifies that the value-added model (VAM) may not be the sole determinate in
  recruiting instructional personnel.
  o Requires State Board of Education (SBE) rule to provide a timeline for approving school
  turnaround plans and for the release of Title I funding.
• Instructional personnel, the bill:
  o Authorizes district school boards to determine personnel evaluation components, but
  requires at least half of the evaluation be based on student performance.
  o Expands eligibility requirements for the teacher apprenticeship program.
  o Removes an employment provision for a teacher to receive a CAPE bonus.
  o Clarifies options for an advanced degree that may be used for salary adjustments.
  o Specifies that collective bargaining may not preclude a district from providing salary
  supplements based on statewide or district teacher needs.
  o Creates a three-year instructional multiyear contract.
  o Establishes a 10-year renewable professional certificate.
  o Authorizes school districts or regional consortia to issue temporary educator certificates.
  o Limits the requirement for demonstration of general knowledge to classroom teachers.
• School district operations, the bill:
  o Exempts school boards from Administrative Procedures Act rulemaking requirements,
  but maintains requirements for public input and transparency.
  o Allows school boards to shorten the timeline to address student absenteeism.
  o Eliminates an obsolete requirement for districts exceeding class size limits to submit a
  compliance plan to the Department of Education (DOE) to mitigate a financial penalty.
  o Removes the requirement that certain districts employ an internal auditor, but maintains
  general financial audit requirements.
  o Clarifies that operator or provider requirements to protect student data do not also require
  certain provisions in school district contracts.
  o Authorizes district school board instructional materials purchases to follow the full five-
  year adoption cycle.
• School district facilities, the bill:
  o Removes prescribed 5-year, 10-year, and 20-year school facility work program mandates,
  but maintains requirements for district long-term facility planning.
  o Permanently eliminates cost-per-student-station limits on school construction projects.
  o Modifies the conditions for districts to employ an architect.
  o Repeals life-cycle cost analysis requirements for school construction projects.
  o Expands the use of funds for the sale of school district airspace.
• School district finance and budgets, the bill:
  o Removes the requirement for graphical representation of a district budget.
  o Expands district school board discretion in allocating Title I funding and clarifies that
  charter schools can access services or programs funded by Title I.
  o Expands allowable uses of the 1.5 mill discretionary capital levy proceeds to include
  ancillary and auxiliary facilities and additional vehicles used to transport students.
  o Requires charter schools to directly respond to expenditure questions from the DOE.
  o Expands the scope of capital outlay that district school boards are permitted to fund
  through the issuance of short-term debt instruments.
  o Authorizes district school boards to determine the need to make up days lost because of a bona fide emergency.
• School choice, the bill:
  o Authorizes district school boards to determine controlled open enrollment capacity and
  reduces the frequency from every 12 weeks to twice a year.
  o Modifies the timeline for developing an Individualized Education Program for students
  receiving a Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities.
• Early learning, the bill:
  o Shifts oversight of public school Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) programs from early
  learning coalitions to the school district.
  o Authorizes public VPK programs to verify attendance using existing electronic systems.
• DOE and SBE oversight, the bill:
  o Clarifies that the SBE may adopt rules only within statutory authority.
  o Requires the DOE to provide district school boards with annual guidance on statutory and rule-based requirements.

While the Florida Senate takes actions on issues directly affecting public schools, specifically addressing “Administrative Efficiency” (don’t say de-reg), let’s take a look at what the Florida House Education Administration Subcommittee has planned…

The House Education Administration Subcommittee meets on Tuesday March 4th at 1:30pm. In addition to bills expanding the definition of safe-walking zones (HB85) and authorizing schools’ to stock glucagon for diabetic emergencies, the subcommittee will hear a Committee Substitute for HB123, Rep. Andrade’s bill that strips local control from school districts and micromanages the acquisition and use of public school property, creating a public land giveaway. This the “state-sponsored pilfering” I wrote about in January:

“These bills (HB123 and its senate companion, SB140), once again, represent the “state-sponsored pilfering” of our public schools. School districts, teachers and school advisory are removed from the Charter Conversion process, leaving the decision of what to do with a community’s public school left in the hands of ONLY the parents of students attending at that point in time. As for the acquisition and use of public school property, if a district’s enrollment has declined, Tallahassee will decide what “surplus” properties the district MUST dispose of and how (or to whom) is should be disposed.

No teacher or parent will have a say. Neither will the school board, elected to make such decisions for the community. In fact the local community will have no say at all.

SB140 and HB123, take what should be a local decision – the use and/or repurposing of public assets – and hand it over to bureaucrats in Tallahassee.”

Pro-public education advocates in Tallahassee next week should support the bills before Monday’s Senate Education committee and STRONGLY OPPOSE Andrade’s HB123 on Tuesday. Consider contacting the members of the House Education Administration Subcommittee prior to the meeting (you can find their contact info here) and urging a no vote on Andrade’s bill and its attack on local control of public schools.

As always, you can watch committee meetings on thefloridachannel.org.