Around the state: Orange school board members said district teachers have the option of calling students by their preferred pronouns as long as the students have permission from a parent, the Hillsborough school district and the University of Tampa are being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for alleged discrimination, Pasco school board members are being urged by some parents and religious leaders to end the district’s relationship with the American Library Association, a rule is being created by the state that would allow high-school students to earn credits for doing extracurricular activities with career and technical student organizations, and Lee County schools name their principal and assistant principal of the year. Here are details about those stories and others from the state’s districts, private schools, and colleges and universities:
Miami-Dade: An after-school camp coach at Robert King High Park in Miami has been arrested and accused of molesting a 9-year-old camp attendee. Police said Julio Isidro, 19, is charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation of a child. Miami Herald. WFOR. WTVJ.
Hillsborough: The school district and the University of Tampa are being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for alleged discrimination relating to incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia. School district officials had no comment, but a University of Tampa spokesperson said the incident being investigated happened in September, about a month before the Oct. 7 attack against Israel by the Hamas organization sparked a spate of protests. Last week the DOE announced it was investigating claims of discrimination against six colleges, including Columbia, Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania, and one K-12 school. CNN. WFLA. WTSP. WTVT. WFTS.
Orange: School board members contend their interpretation of the Parental Rights in Education law allows teachers the option of calling students by their preferred pronouns as long as the student has permission from a parent. Unless that interpretation is challenged by the state or the district’s legal staff, the district will notify teachers Dec. 4 that they can start using students’ preferred pronouns next month. School board member Melissa Byrd said at least eight other state school districts have already adopted that position, and urged Orange schools to follow that path. “I don’t know what we’re waiting for,” she said. Colleague Maria Salamanca agreed, saying, “I challenge our legal team to be bolder.” Orlando Sentinel. WESH. At least 10 states have new laws prohibiting or restricting students from using pronouns or names that don’t match their sex assigned at birth. Associated Press.
Polk: Newer, brighter streetlights have been installed at a bus stop where 13-year-old Jadin Galindo was struck by a vehicle and killed in February while waiting for his bus, and elsewhere in the city of Lake Wales. “These tragedies are horrible for any city, but we want to try to salvage as much as we can from a safety and security standpoint for our citizens,” said city commissioner Keith Thompson. “We started a process to update city lighting across our footprint.” Galindo’s father Joel said the lighting upgrades are a good start, but that it was a “damn shame” it wasn’t done until after a tragedy. WFTS.
Pinellas: About 10 percent of the students enrolled this year in the four-year Automotive Academy at Northeast High School in St. Petersburg are female, a record for the magnet program that is typically made up of male students. “Whenever my mom signed me up, I told her, ‘I’m scared there’s not going to be any other girls in the program with me,’ ” said Makayla Jewett, a 15-year-old freshman who said she has always loved cars. “I do want to get into drifting and drag racing,” she said. “I want to be able to build race engines for special cars.” Junior Nigella Gerena, 16, called the academy fun and practical. “The only stuff my dad taught me was taking off a tire, changing the oil,” she said. “Here, you learn much more. … It’s a good program. Learning about all this stuff is good for when you leave and get out in the real world.” Tampa Bay Times.
Lee: Alex Dworzanski of Harns Marsh Middle School has been chosen as the school district’s principal of the year, and Kristin Stevens of East Lee County High School has been named the assistant principal of the year. Both are now eligible for the statewide competition. Lehigh Acres Citizen.
Pasco: School board members are being urged by some parents and religious leaders to end the district’s relationship with the American Library Association, a national group that fights censorship of books and is led by a woman who calls herself a “Marxist lesbian.” Parent Kirsten Krauer said the group goes “against Christian beliefs. I hope as a parent that you could sever ties with them.” The complaints were forwarded to Superintendent Kurt Browning, who said he would look into them after the Thanksgiving break. Tampa Bay Times.
Manatee: Dave Miner, a member of the school board from 2012-2020 who ran with the nickname “Watchdog” on the 2008 ballot in a losing effort, has died at the age of 77. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Gadsden: Only 29 percent of 3rd-graders in the county were proficient in reading and writing during the 2021-2022 school year, according to statistics from the Florida Department of Education. A free at-home program developed by the University of Florida with funding from the Legislature has aspirations of improving that percentage. New Worlds Reading offers free books to students in the voluntary preK program through the 5th grade who are reading below grade level. Grace Talkington, an educator with the program, said the county is considered a book desert. “That means that there is a significant amount of households that have less than 100 books and especially in Gadsden County,” she said. “Those (homes) don’t have as much access to diversity or cultural responsiveness to different things.” WTXL.
Colleges and universities: A second lawsuit has been filed against the state and higher education officials by a pro-Palestine group at the University of South Florida, charging that the order to disband violates the group’s First Amendment rights of free speech. The Muslim civil rights group Council on American-Islamic Relations at USF filed this suit, following one filed last week by the University of Florida’s Students for Justice in Palestine group. “Neither the state of Florida nor its state colleges and universities are enclaves immune from the requirements and protections of the First Amendment,” the lawsuit says. “But once again events suggest that defendants either don’t know that or reject it.” Politico Florida. Tampa Bay Times. News Service of Florida. USA Today Florida Network. Associated Press.
Fighting book restrictions: Katie Blankenship, formerly the deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and recently appointed as the first-ever director of PEN America Florida, said the group will support efforts to restrict book removals and restrictions in schools, and lobby against what it considers harmful legislation. “What we’re doing is building an advocacy office in Florida to address this wave of extremist legislation and the culture wars being mounted in Florida by a very small minority,” she said. USA Today Florida Network.
In the Legislature: A rule is being created by the Florida Department of Education that would allow high-school students to earn credits for doing extracurricular activities with career and technical student organizations. A workshop to discuss the rule, which sets the parameters for a bill passed by the 2023 Legislature, is scheduled Dec. 5. News Service of Florida. The Florida Coaches Coalition will meet with legislators Dec. 7 to lobby for funding so coaches in all sports can be paid more. Group representatives called the meeting the “first opportunity ever” that state legislators can “hear directly from coaches on how low supplements affect their lives. This is also an opportunity to work collectively to see if a solution can be found prior to the legislative session in January.” Palm Beach Post.
Around the nation: Once a lifeline for low-income students, school vouchers around the United States are increasingly available to families of greater means. And funding the vouchers is starting to strain some state budgets. Politico. A bill calling for a federal study of the effect of cell phone use in schools on students’ mental health and academic performance has been filed by two U.S. senators. It also calls for creating a pilot program awarding grants to school districts that create a cell phone-free school environment. Education Week. Almost 62,000 U.S. K-12 public school students were referred to law enforcement agencies and 8,900 were arrested during the 2020-2021 school year, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Children with disabilities and black students were disproportionately affected. Scripps News.
Opinions on schools: Paul E. Peterson’s and M. Danish Shakeel’s effort to rank state charter sectors based on outcomes is laudable, but their choice of data and outcomes could profit from refinement. Matthew Ladner, NextSteps.
