Latest news with #SB1470
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A new law might balance security, student comfort at Florida schools
Officials charged with keeping Tampa Bay area schools secure say Florida's newest school safety law revisions will ease a strain that last year's version inadvertently imposed on campuses across the state. The update, signed into law Wednesday by Gov. Ron DeSantis, will give schools more flexibility in which doors and gates they must keep locked, and when. School officials raised concerns about the 2024 requirements even before they became law, saying the wording forced them to keep all access and entry points either staffed or locked even when it made no sense. 'The intent was one way, but the way the law was written didn't offer the flexibility that lawmakers thought it did,' said Mike Baumaister, chief security officer for Pasco County schools. Schools struggled with issues such as needing to keep parking lot gates secured despite being far from the main campus entrance. They faced complaints from parents who came to watch after-school events and could not get to the activities because the doors were locked and no one was available to let them in. In some instances, students found themselves locked out of classroom buildings as they moved across campus for things like going to the media center or school office. 'We have to keep safety paramount,' Baumaister said. 'But we also have to create a learning environment.' Several school boards made changing the law a priority for the spring legislative session. 'They listened to us,' said John Newman, chief security officer for Hillsborough County schools. The law (SB 1470) includes several provisions, including expansion of the school guardian program to include child care centers and creation of a centralized panic alert system. The issue that school districts most keenly watched, though, related to the rules on doors and gates. First, the Legislature redefined the time during which the law will apply to 30 minutes before classes begin up until 30 minutes after classes end. The previous version was in place whenever students were on campus, regardless of whether it was what the law called 'normal school hours.' 'Schools are open 20 hours a day. You've got all sorts of activities going on,' Newman noted. This change should allow schools to maintain security while also being reasonable as students and families participate in those activities, he said. The law also clarifies that the intent of keeping students and staff safe does not mean that every single door and gate must be locked all day long. It sets forth that the critical component is to have a locked down exterior perimeter that keeps the general public away from students and classes throughout the day, unless expressly let in. Within the 'secure exclusive zone,' though, some doors and gates may remain open to allow for a normal flow. 'I don't want them to feel like they're walking into a detention facility,' Newman said. Schools need to make sure they know who is coming and going, Baumaister said. And nothing will change the practice of keeping classrooms locked during courses. But a thorough review of all the access points will allow school officials to better assess which ones should remain secured and which ones can be open without requiring an employee to stand guard. 'My goal is to let teachers who maybe had to monitor a gate or door between classes get that time back for planning,' Baumaister said. In signing the legislation, DeSantis acknowledged the need to continually update school security efforts based on what's happening in real time. 'Yes, we want to keep bad guys out,' he said. 'But we also want to be practical.' Education commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. stressed that the motivation 'is not about pride or ego. It's about what works.' Newman praised lawmakers and governor for their approach. 'This is the sixth year in a row the Legislature has really made school safety a primary focus,' he said. 'When it comes to school safety ... just the fact that our Legislature makes mandates and provides funding for those is huge. We are so far ahead of other states.'
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
DeSantis signs law allowing child care center employees to undergo training to carry guns
Employees of child care centers would have to undergo a 144-hour training as part of the expanded school guardian program (Getty Images) Child care center employees can undergo training to carry guns at work under a law Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Wednesday. The change is part of an expansion of the school guardian program that already allows public and private school employees to act as law enforcement when an active shooter enters their campus. The Florida Legislature established the program after the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people. Currently, 53 counties participate in the program, which requires volunteer school employees to undergo a 144-hour training, according to a legislative analysis of the bill, SB 1470, which lawmakers passed unanimously. 'I think that's going to be something that people are going to like,' DeSantis said of the program expansion during a Wednesday press conference at Winter Haven Senior High. Additionally, the law revises school door locking requirements, appeasing sheriffs' concerns. The new law allows classrooms to use temporary locks, requires school safety protocol to apply for 30 minutes before and after school, and exempts door locking for career and technical education classrooms where ventilation is required. 'I think what the Legislature did is they tweaked this. They made sure that, yes, we want to be able to create blocks to keep bad guys out, but we also want it to be practical,' the governor said. 'We want to make sure people are able to do their daily tasks and get to where they need to go.' Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd previously told Florida Phoenix that the door-locking law passed in 2024 was 'clunky and difficult to understand and easy to violate it even without the intent to violate it.' DeSantis signed two other bills. HB 279 brings harsher penalties for false reporting of a crime, and HB 1099 gives police officers discretion over whether they should immediately arrest someone in a hospital, nursing home, or assisted living facility. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Classroom locked-door law revisions target sheriffs' concerns
A fence stands around Sneads High School in the Panhandle. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix) Florida's sheriffs asked for legislative clarification of a 'clunky' 2024 school-safety law. Lawmakers responded, sending classroom door-locking revisions through both chambers. Last summer, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judge espressed concern that law enforcement officers might unintentionally violate state laws designed to lock out threatening people. 'You know, we passed this legislation last year, and it's unfortunate that the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Commission had to request that it be passed in the first place,' Judd told the Phoenix in a phone interview. 'But, despite our best efforts, there were some schools and some administrators who weren't keeping the doors locked,' he continued. His county didn't have that problems but that other counties did, he said. Judd said the law, before amended, was 'clunky and difficult to understand and easy to violate it even without the intent to violate it.' Legislative clarification may be needed on school safety law, commission says Lawmakers passed SB 1470 during the last week of the scheduled legislative session. The bill builds on the school guardian program, developed after the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas shootings that killed 17 people, and looks to clarify door locking requirements in hopes of preventing the next school shooting. The bill builds on HB 1473, a 2024 law mandating classrooms be locked, as well as campus access doors, gates, and other access points, when students are present. Among the concerns sheriffs raised were the extent to which doors were required to be locked and whether to lock career and technical education classrooms during lessons that require ventilation, like welding. 'I think it's much better now than it was before,' Judd said this week. In July, voicing concerns from his employees, he had said, 'We're having a really hard time' and 'we need something from the state to come down to these folks.' Specifically, the new bill would allow classrooms to use temporary locks, require school safety protocol to apply for 30 minutes before and after school, and allow door locking exemptions for career and technical education classrooms where ventilation is required. 'No two doors or classrooms are equal, depending on the type of instruction that's going on there,' Judd said. The bill requires the perimeter of campuses to be locked or guarded, protecting students behind a locked gate or door. 'The law was a little clunky last year and it needed to be cleaned up so we more clearly could make it reasonable to lock all the doors, and that's what this legislation did this year,' Judd said. 'You would think it would not be necessary to have to put in law to lock a school door to protect a child, however, that's exactly what we had to do.' Sen. Danny Burgess, the measure's Senate sponsor, said the bill helps clarify that schools would not need to provide security for non-school meetings happening at night, such as a Boy Scouts meeting. The 2024 law requires security 'when students are on campus,' whereas the new language sets the timeframe for security measures to 30 minutes before and after school. 'SB 1470 builds on last year's school safety policy that we passed by strengthening school safety training and campus security measures while supporting practical implementation for schools and law enforcement. Essentially, the goal is to balance enhanced safety against the need for efficient operations in schools,' Burgess said when presenting the bill in committee in March. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The House bill was sponsored by Reps. Brad Yeager and Christine Hunschofsky, who was mayor of Parkland at the time of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shootings. Hunschofsky said in March that she and Yeager made sure to consult with school leaders in crafting the legislation 'so that whatever we're doing up here also makes sense in a school environment, because it's about safety but it's also about making sure the kids and the teachers have the environment that they need to thrive.' The bill passed unanimously in all of its stops. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, chair of the safety commission, worked with legislators to address the needed changes, Judd and Burgess said. Subject to the still incomplete Appropriations Act, the bill would implement a centralized panic alert system connecting the state's schools. It would allow childcare facilities, at their own cost, to partake in the school guardian program to train staff or guards in school safety. 'It's like building a new park — you pour sidewalks and then sometimes you see people want to walk in areas where there's not a sidewalk so you go back and you pour more sidewalks where people really want to walk,' Judd said. 'We've got this law in place to make sure children are kept safe and if we need to tweak it or modify it in the future, just as the Legislature was more than willing to do it this time, then we'll do that at the appropriate time.' The bill has not yet been sent to the governor. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
When must Florida schools lock doors? Lawmakers rewrite the rules.
The big story: After some give and take on the details, the Florida Legislature has sent a school security update bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis for his consideration. The measure includes several provisions, including an expansion of the school guardian program that lawmakers first created after the 2018 Parkland school shooting massacre. One of the most keenly watched portions of the bill (SB 1470) aims to provide relief to school districts that struggled to implement strict rules related to when doors and gates must be closed and locked. School officials said the law requiring all access points to be either staffed or locked whenever students are on campus created situations that might place students on the wrong side of a locked door during emergencies. Among other problems, the law also created access issues for students and families before and after classes, when fewer staff members were present yet activities continued. The update would ease the door locking requirements before and after the school supervision time, and also allow schools to allow unlocked doors and gates in a school's interior and in areas such as parking lots, as long as all access points leading directly to student areas remain secure. They called this area a 'secure exclusive zone.' Sponsor Sen. Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrills, called the changes 'common sense reforms,' noting they would 'help balance the need for safety against efficiencies.' School districts including Pinellas County had made this subject a priority for this legislative session. The proposal now heads to the governor's desk for consideration. Read more from Florida Politics. Today in Tallahassee ... It's the final day for lawmakers to bring any outstanding non-budget bills in for a landing. Several education-related items remain available for votes, including a handful of train bills that have gone back and forth between the chambers already. The Senate is scheduled to convene at 10 a.m. and the House is set to convene at 11 a.m. Charter schools: The Florida House signed off on legislation allowing charter schools to have stricter codes of conduct than district schools, WTVJ reports. It heads to the governor's desk. • The Alachua County school board held an emergency meeting to shutter a charter school amid concerns of safety and leadership failures, the Gainesville Sun reports. Preferred names: At least two additional Brevard County teachers have been reprimanded for using a students' preferred names without parental permission, Florida Today reports. Rezoning: Parents whose children attend Venice High in Sarasota County don't like the school district's plans for redrawing attendance boundaries for a new high school opening in 2026, the Venice Gondolier reports. School zones: Drivers in Palm Bay are complaining that cameras in school zones are inaccurately reporting violations, Spectrum 13 reports. Police officials said they are working to fix the problems. Student health: Florida health officials seek to reduce youth smoking by working with schools, WUSF reports. Trump agenda: A day before Pinellas County officials and civic leaders discussed extending plans to improve Black student achievement, the Trump administration announced a civil rights investigation into an Illinois school district for its Black Students Success Plan, The Guardian reports. Don't miss a story. Here's a link to yesterday's roundup. Before you go ... New jazz from Jeff Goldblum, featuring Cynthia Erivo. Enjoy.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lawmakers call for changes to Florida's school voucher funding
The big story: As Florida's voucher program has grown, school district officials have raised concerns about their ability to keep track of students and funding as they move in and out of classrooms. The state Senate has proposed changing the education funding program to streamline the process. Sponsors say the measure also should help improve the reimbursement model that has frustrated many voucher recipients. 'With input from stakeholders across the spectrum of school choice, this bill creates reasonable timeframes and mechanisms to improve both transparency and efficiency in education funding,' Sen. Don Gaetz said in a news release. Here's the bill, which is scheduled to be presented in committee on Wednesday. Read more from News Service of Florida. Today in Tallahassee ... The Senate Appropriations Committee on PreK-12 Education will hear four bills including SB 1470 on security when it meets at 1:30 p.m. • The Senate Appropriations Committee on Higher Education will consider two bills and appointments to the board of 10 colleges and universities when it meets at 4 p.m. • The House Commerce Committee will take up its version of a rural communities improvement bill (HB 1427) when it meets at 4 p.m. Running the Ringling: Many museum supporters are questioning the ability of New College to handle the complex operations of the Ringling Museum if it were to take over, as Gov. Ron DeSantis has suggested, Suncoast Searchlight reports. Merger proposal: A plan to merge Tallahassee State College and Lively Technical College will not move forward, WFSU reports. Federal programs: South Florida education leaders are exploring the potential impacts of dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, the Miami Herald reports. More reaction from WFSU, Central Florida Public Media, Florida Phoenix. Environmental education: Pinellas County has approved $2.7 million to refurbish the education centers at two nature preserves, Suncoast News reports. Diversity, equity and inclusion: Florida lawmakers are continuing Florida's efforts to remove diversity, equity and inclusion programs from K-12 schools, local and state governments, and health care, Politico Florida reports. Classroom technology: Broward County schools are working on a better way to keep inventory after the disappearance of several computers bought for student use during the pandemic, the Sun-Sentinel reports. Civil rights investigations: Seven other Florida universities offer the same scholarship that the University of South Florida faces a federal investigation over, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Choices: The Santa Rosa County school district has begun offering virtual courses for students who receive vouchers, Navarre Press reports. Campus leadership: Escambia County commissioners are asking the state Senate to reject Scott Yenor as a trustee for the University of West Florida, saying his views on women in the workplace are a threat for their community, WEAR reports. Bus safety: The Polk County Sheriff's Office is paid $84 an hour to review school bus camera footage for possible passing violations, the Ledger reports. From the police blotter ... A St. Lucie County school bus aide was arrested on accusations of aggressively shaking a student with special needs, TC Palm reports. • The Citrus County Sheriff's Office is investigating a complaint that the school district was scammed out of a large amount of money, the Citrus County Chronicle reports. Don't miss a story. Here's a link to Friday's roundup. Before you go ... Baba Yaga has a new release out. Check out their sound.
