Latest news with #SneadsHighSchool
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
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Last-second bartering yielded two education omnibus bills
Sneads High School is in Jackson County in the Panhandle. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix) Two bills contained the bulk of education policy that passed through both legislative chambers, negotiated until the final hours of the scheduled regular session on Friday. Lawmakers couldn't agree to lift the secrecy of university presidential searches, lift labor restrictions for minors, or to implement a full ban on cellphones in high schools, although they did find common ground on requiring parental consent for corporal punishment. HB 1255 and HB 1105 served as the main vehicles for education policy, combining several shorter proposals from throughout the session. Florida made headlines as the first state to ban cellphone use during instructional time in 2023. The Legislature extended that policy this session, banning cellphone use for elementary and middle school students from the beginning of the school day to the end. Lawmakers approved a state pilot study in six counties to evaluate a bell-to-bell ban in high schools. Pending the governor's signature, students would no longer be allowed to earn certificates of completion. These state certificates are for students who earn the credits to graduate but too low a grade point average or fail required math and reading assessments. Lawmakers applauded junking these certificates through legislation filed by Rep. Susan Valdes for raising the bar for student achievement. The certificate of completion is less prestigious than a diploma and can carry little, if any, weight in landing a student a job, lawmakers said. Students with autism may have a better chance to secure work if the governor signs the bill, too. HB 1105 would create a workforce credential for students with autism to prove to employers they are proficient in certain skills, particularly workplace safety. 'Persons with autism are on time, they have a great work ethic, and they can perform work requirements proficiently, especially repetitive skills,' Sen. Don Gaetz said in February. 'There's a place for employees with autism in the workforce in productive jobs, but a major stumbling block is safety.' The program would task the Department of Education to create badges, which would be verified by special education staff, to document a student's abilities. HB 1105, which passed the Senate 26-5 and the House 85-14, would also allow students who participate in two years of marching band to count them toward the one-credit physical education requirement. Existing law allows two full seasons of varsity or junior varsity sports to count toward the physical education requirement. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Lawmakers agreed to require parental consent for corporal punishment, a practice that some lawmakers said they were not aware still existed in Florida but, during the 2023-2024 school year, 17 school districts reported 516 instances of corporal punishment, according to Department of Education data. Principals are responsible for developing corporal punishment policy. State law does require that more than one adult be present when corporal punishment is being inflicted. HB 1255 would allow law enforcement officers to arrest someone for trespassing on a school bus, a measure aiming to protect not just students but bus drivers, too. Democrats often pushed back against GOP bills addressing how charter schools function, leading to some of the most heated debates of the legislative session. In the final packages were provisions lowering the threshold needed to turn a low-performing traditional public school into a 'job-engine' charter school — one meant to attract jobs to a community— and another that includes charter schools as recipients of local government infrastructure surtaxes. Existing law requires more than 50% of teachers and parents both to vote to convert a traditional public school into a job-engine charter school. The Legislature voted, over Democrats' protests, to eliminate the need teacher approval and rely on parent approval instead. The legislation renames Hillsborough Community College as Hillsborough College; requires high schoolers to learn about the costs of postsecondary education and how to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, plus how to apply for scholarships, grants, and student loans; and makes charter school teachers eligible for teacher of the year awards, a proposal Gov. Ron DeSantis made. HB 1225 would have lifted several state laws protecting minors in the workplace. That bill passed the House but died in the Senate after it received just one committee hearing. SB 1692 would have revised the state definition of material that can be considered harmful to minors. Its companion HB 1539 passed the House but, like lifting labor restrictions, made little progress in the Senate. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
