Senator Simon’s SB166: Administrative Efficiency in Public Schools

Whatever You Do, Don’t Call it DeRegulation

Yesterday, Senator Corey Simon filed SB166: Administrative Efficiency in Public Schools. The bill continues Simon’s, and former Senate President Kathleen Passidomo’s, efforts to reduce the over burdensome regulations placed on Florida’s public schools, freeing districts to innovate and focus more on student success than unneccessary regulatory compliance. When HB1 passed in 2023, the Florida Senate insisted that the deregulation of public schools go hand in hand with expansion to universal vouchers. This year, Simon continues that process under a different name “Administrative Efficiency.”

SB166 includes many of the proposals that failed to pass last session and a few more. It is a 107 page bill, with a 7 page long title. Here are the highlights.

The elimination of high school graduation exit requirements

(Begins at line 557). This long overdue.

• Currently students must pass state created Algebra 1 End of Course (EOC) and 10th Grade English Language Arts (ELA) exams to be eligible for graduation. Once a popular policy, Florida is now one of only 6 states to continue to mandate test based graduation requirements.
• SB166 removes the requirement to pass the Algebra 1 and 10th grade ELA exam but requires that students have passing grades in both Algebra 1 and 10th grade ELA.
• Adds a new requirement that the 10th grade ELA exam will counts 30% of the student’s course grade (the Algebra 1 EOC already counts for 30% of the student’s course grade, like all of Florida’s state mandated EOCs).

Modification 3rd grade Retention (a tiny bit).

Last session, Simon’s proposal included parents in the decisions surrounding promotion to fourth grade (which appalled Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future and Moms for Liberty, who apparently only advocate for certain kinds of parental empowerment). This year he is less bold (line 832).

• Allows students’ scoring a level 3 or higher on state progress monitoring (FAST PM1 or PM2) to qualify for forth grade promotion.

Rewarding great teachers in Title 1 schools:

Allows up to 5% of Title 1 funds to be used as financial incentives and rewards for the purpose of attracting and qualified and effective teachers to Title 1 schools. (line 1251)

Multi-Year Contracts for Teachers

(line 1490) – I believe being able to offer multi-year contracts will aid in retaining great teachers.

• Starting July 1, 2026, an instructional multiyear contract may be awarded to an employee who:
  • Holds an active professional or temporary teaching certificate.
  • Is recommended by the district superintendent based on performance evaluations and approved by the school board.
  • Has not received an unsatisfactory or needs improvement rating in their performance evaluation.
• If an employee with a multiyear contract later receives an unsatisfactory or needs improvement rating, they will be placed on an annual contract the following year, with past evaluations considered for just cause determinations.
• The trade-off (line 1593): A teacher’s performance evaluation will return to being 50% (rather than 1/3) based upon data and indicators of student performance (historically, this has always been test score related)..
  • The indicators of student performance, rather than being prescribed by the state, can be determined by each school district.
  • The bill deletes lines 1596-1631 allowing districts more local control of performance evaluations.

Expanding the term of teacher certifications

For highly effective teachers from 5 years to 10 years (line 1969):

• Teachers rated highly effective in the first four years of a 5-year certificate may receive a 10-year certificate. However, they must first have had at least one 5-year certificate.
• Teachers with an effective or highly effective rating for the first nine years of a 10-year certificate may renew for another 10 years. Those who do not meet this requirement can only renew for five years.

School Facilities Plans:

SB166 dramatically simplifies the rules, regulations and reporting requirements in f.s. 1013.35 School district educational facilities plan (line 2172) – deleting more than 6 pages of state statutory requirements.

Eliminates the entire section of 1013.451 Life-cycle costs comparison

(line 2471), which required districts to compare life-cycle costs of materials from different providers, considering things like resistance to wind and debris damage, protection against wood-destroying organisms, etc.

Permanently eliminates all the antiquated cost-per-student station language

(lines 2582 and 2666). This would be music to the ears of all South Florida districts, where current constriction costs are 2-3 times higher than Florida’s current cost-per-student caps station limits.

Mucks around with Class size (again):

Although voters overwhelmingly approved manadatory class size limits TWICE (in 2002 and 2010), Florida’s Legislature has consistently chipped away at the Constitutional requirements, this year they are eliminating the “Accountability” portion of the Class Size Statute.

Last session, the House Speaker vowed self-immolation if Simon’s de-regulation bill passed intact and the House GOP suggested families should have the “choice” between highly regulated public schools and totally unregulated private schools. There is currently no companion bill to SB166 but there is some glimmer of hope. House Speaker Perez did create a new House subcommittee called the “Education Administration Subcommittee” – could that signal interesting in continuing the deregulation (I mean Administrative Efficiency) process?

If you support the ideas in SB166, I encourage you to contact the leadership of the House Education Administration Subcommittee, you can find their contact information here. Let them know that you supports Senator Simons proposals for “Administrative Efficiency in Public Schools.”