Community & Philanthropy

Florida Roundup: Open enrollment, charter schools, magnet schools and more.

03/26/14 | Travis Pillow

Open enrollment. Parents debate Duval County’s open enrollment proposal at community meetings in Jacksonville. Florida Times-Union.

florida-roundup-logoCharter Schools. A Senate panel scales back legislation aimed at easing their expansion. News Service of Florida. Gradebook. State Sen. Dwight Bullard pans charters on MSNBC’s Ed Show.

Magnet schools. Demand for new Pinellas County programs is high. Tampa Tribune.

Cultural exchange. Students at a Hernando County K-8 science academy embark on a cultural exchange with Chinese middle schoolers. Tampa Bay Times.

Funding. Sarasota voters overwhelmingly back the renewal of a tax to fund schools. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Testing. The switch to computerized grading of student essays could eventually eliminate the need for statewide, standardized writing tests. StateImpact.

Class Size. Lake County avoids state fines for violating the caps. Orlando Sentinel. A Sentinel columnist pans the move. Florida Tax Watch calls for an overhaul of class-size rules. Gradebook.

Unions. Pasco County school employees file a complaint with their school district. Tampa Bay Times.

Special Needs. Hillsborough County looks for ways to accommodate special needs students on their bus rides. Tampa Bay Times. Tampa Tribune.

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BY Travis Pillow

Travis Pillow is Director of Thought Leadership at Step Up For Students and editor of NextSteps. He lives in Sanford, Fla. with his wife and two children. A former Tallahassee statehouse reporter, he most recently worked at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research organization at Arizona State University, where he studied community-led learning innovation and school systems' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. He can be reached at tpillow (at) sufs.org.