On the Agenda: Florida Ed Meetings Committee Week #3
This week, Alachua County Senator Keith Perry filed SB452, which would codify into state law a ban on school districts requiring students to wear masks. You can hear more about it here. Remember, Alachua County is one of the districts who has been sanctioned by the FLDOE for being noncompliant and issuing a mask mandate with only a medical opt-out in their district. What else is in store for our public schools this year?
The Florida Legislature meets again next week for their second Committee Week before the 2022 Session. The rest of the Interim Committee Week Schedule is here.
Here’s what’s on the Calendar for Week 2. Education committees are meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Monday October 18, 2021:
No Scheduled Education Committees.
Tuesday , October 19, 2021:
No Scheduled Education Committees.
Wednesday, October 20, 2021:
9:00 AM House Secondary Education & Career Development Subcommittee
Agenda here.
Presentation on Florida’s dropout prevention and academic intervention programs.
11:00 am House Early Learning & Elementary Education Subcommittee
Agenda here.
Presentation by the Department of Education on the governance of early learning programs
Panel discussion on policy barriers to access to high quality early learning
3:00 pm House PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee
This is the committee chaired by Brevard Representative, Randy Fine, who, over the summer, openly threatened school boards imposing mask mandates, saying he would “make sure they get hurt next year.” So yeah, House PreK-12 Appropriations will be “interesting” to watch this session.
Agenda here.
Overview on K-12 Virtual Instruction
Overview of Juvenile Justice Education Funding in the Florida Education Finance Program
Thursday, October 21, 2021:
9:00 AM House Post-Secondary Education & Lifelong Learning Subcommittee
Agenda here.
Presentation(s) on updates to student codes of conduct to incorporate additional student due process protections.
The two big Education policy committees, House Education and Employment Committee and the Senate Education Committee, are not meeting during Committee Week 3.
Remember, last session was particularly rough on public schools. Will the session be any better? Regardless, if we want to save public education in Florida, we need everyone to be paying attention. All meetings are live streamed and archived at thefloridachannel.org. Please follow along with us this legislative season (on Facebook and Twitter), stay informed, help us call out the accountabaloney and defend our community’s public schools.