Around the state: The governor and House speaker ratchet up the rhetoric about how to cut taxes, the Senate and House diverge on how to handle cell phones in schools, Citrus County deputies say most of the $847,000 stolen from the school district through online fraud has been recovered, a three-year contract extension is proposed for Broward County’s school superintendent, and Duval’s school board is expected to decide today whether to return a novel with a theme of incest back to high school libraries. Here are details about those stories and others from the state’s districts, private schools, and colleges and universities:
Broward: A proposed three-year contract extension would keep Superintendent Howard Hepburn in his job through June 30, 2030. A provision calling on Hepburn to move 50 miles from West Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale was removed from the original draft, and Hepburn dropped a request to switch any termination vote from a simple majority of the nine-member board to require a supermajority of 6 votes needed to fire Hepburn. Sun Sentinel. School volunteers say the district’s push to “rein in” its many advisory committees is an attempt to silence their input and “DOGE” their committees. Members of the school board have recently proposed limits on how long volunteers can serve as committee leaders and how many committees they can serve on at one time. On March 7, Superintendent Hepburn appointed an 11-member task force to review committee structures over the next 60 days and make recommendations to the board. Sun Sentinel.
Palm Beach: A teacher at Watson B. Duncan Middle School in Palm Beach Gardens has been arrested and accused of having inappropriate contact with a minor. School officials said Christopher T. Withers, 32, has been removed from the campus. WPTV. WPEC.
Duval: School board members are expected to decide today whether to return a book with an incest theme to high school libraries. Identical, a young adult novel by Ellen Hopkins, was removed in 2023 after it was challenged for being too sexually explicit, but a review committee has recommended it be returned to libraries and that copies should be provided to high school guidance staffs. Florida Times-Union.
Polk: The principal of the Bok Academy North charter school in Lake Wales was arrested Saturday and accused of walking out of a Winter Haven Walmart without paying for $37.45 worth of items. Police said Gregory Lewis admitted what he had done, and school officials said he was placed on administrative leave. WFLA.
Brevard: The education chair of the South Brevard NAACP has run a STEM program for disadvantaged kids for the past two years, and last weekend held a workshop to let parents know about resources available to help support them and their children, and how they can get more engaged with their child’s education. Bernard Bryan also encouraged the parents who attended to tell their friends. “Don’t give up,” he said. “We’ve got to fight strategically. We’ve got to have a plan. We’ve got to know what the goals are. You want to see your crime go down, you want to see your community raise to another level, education is the key.” Florida Today.
Volusia: Security screening technology driven by artificial intelligence is now in place for students attending Atlantic High School in Port Orange. The system detects weapons, and is expected to be deployed to every district high school by the end of the 2025-2026 school year. WFTV.
Collier: A 17-year-old student at Palmetto Ridge High School in Naples has been arrested and accused of having a loaded handgun in his car in a campus parking lot. Deputies said the boy didn’t threaten anyone or bring the gun into the school. WINK. WFTX. WBBH.
Hernando: The Little Rock Cannery School that was built in 1941 and has been used as a school, a boys’ and girls’ home, a library and a cannery will be resurrected by September or October as the private Roots Academy Brooksville microschool for children 5 to 12 years old. Tishia Wingate and her family are renovating it. “I only want to take about 30 kids,” Wingate said. “We are doing mastery-based learning – small groups. … I kind of want to bring a different type of learning to Brooksville.” Hernando Sun.
Citrus: Most of the $847,000 stolen from the school district in an elaborate fraud scheme has been recovered, sheriff’s deputies announced Monday. The criminals impersonated a construction vendor and e-mailed district officials a new account number to send payments to. Once the district discovered the missing funds it notified the sheriff, who then brought in the U.S. Secret Service, which froze the fraudulent account after $67,260.86 had been moved. Citrus County Chronicle. WFLA. WFTS.
Tax talk escalates: The tussle between Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, over the best way to cut taxes sharpened Monday. DeSantis, who wants to provide $1,000 property tax rebates to homeowners this year and eventually eliminate them, said residents are “are not clamoring for sales tax; they’re clamoring for property tax relief” and that he didn’t want to give tourists a tax cut. Perez has proposed dropping the sales tax from 6% to 5.25%. Both are projected to save state residents $5 billion in the next year. Meanwhile, Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, said he was open to an “all of the above approach” but wants the cuts to be “predominantly” for one year only. Politico Florida. USA Today Florida Network. News Service of Florida. Orlando Sentinel. Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald. WTVT. WJXT. WKMG. Florida Politics.
Phones in schools bill stumbles: A policy disagreement on the use of cell phones in schools has developed in the Legislature. The House wants to ban any use of phones by students during the school day, starting next fall, while the Senate is proposing that the issue first be studied by the Florida Department of Education. Both bills are moving through committees, and may have to be reconciled by leaders of the two chambers. Politico Florida. Florida Politics.
College presidential searches: A bill that would open the process of college presidential searches to the public and no longer require the Board of Governors to approve appointments cleared a Senate committee Monday. “We cannot reject DEI in the name of meritocracy while replacing it with a spoil system for a select few,” said House Speaker Perez. If approved, the bill would repeal a 2022 law that shielded searches from the public, vested authority in the BOG instead of trustees, and led to the appointments of politicians instead of academics. Politico Florida.
Social media challenge revised: Social media companies have revised and refiled their challenge to a 2024 law that would bar children under 16 from accessing certain social media sites, such as Snapchat and YouTube and possibly Facebook and Instagram. In mid-March, a federal judge rejected the companies’ bid for a preliminary injunction against the law, but said they could revise the suit and refile for a temporary injunction. News Service of Florida. Fresh Take Florida.
Around the nation: A national database of school shootings that was funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been shut down as part of government cutbacks. The database “was the only publicly available source of information that allowed homeland security professionals, law enforcement, school administrators, prevention practitioners, and policymakers to analyze the scope and nature of terrorism and targeted violence in the United States,” according to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and and Responses to Terrorism, which oversaw the project. K-12 Dive.
Opinions on schools: Drowning school districts in cash even as their enrollments shrink, which is what happened during the pandemic, may have turned off the positive competitive impact of choice programs. Matt Ladner, NextSteps. The K-12 budget in the Florida House would cut incentives to high schools for advanced courses, dual enrollment and career and technical education in half. Paul Cottle, Bridge to Tomorrow. NAEP test cycles suggest that early gains tend to plateau or evaporate by 8th grade. A substantial number of U.S. students simply seem to run out of gas as readers as they move from upper elementary to middle school and beyond. A compelling explanation may lie in something called the decoding threshold. Robert Pondiscio, The 74.
