General Information
This report contains pertinent information presented and discussed during the Second week of the 2021 legislative session. Both the House and Senate held meetings to discuss a multitude of bills that impact public education. Below you will find a summary of the bills.
2021 Legislation
The following bills were considered this week by various committees:
HB 5 (Zika) / SB 1450 (Rodriguez) – Civic Education Curriculum – reported favorably by both the House PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee and the Senate Education Committee. This bill would require that the U.S. Government class required for high school graduation include comparative discussions of political ideologies that conflict with the freedom and democracy established in the United States. It also requires the DOE to develop oral history resources that can be used in the curriculum. This oral history program would be called the “Portraits in Patriotism Act.”
HB 35 (Fine) – Legal Notices -- reported favorably by the House Judiciary Committee – The bill would allow most government agencies to publish legal notices on a website rather than in the local newspaper. Currently, school districts must follow the notice provisions in Chapter 120, Florida Statutes, as well as section 1001.372. An amendment was brought forth which would allow school districts to publish notices required under Chapter 120 (e.g., rule or policy notices, other meeting notices) on a publicly accessible website. Regular school board meetings likely would need to be published in the newspaper under section 1001.372, Florida Statutes, but all other required notices could be posted on the school board’s public website instead. This was the bill’s second and final committee stop and will now move to the House floor. At this time, there is no companion bill in the Senate.
HB 7 (McClure); SB 72 (Brandes) – Civil Liability for Damages Relating to COVID-19 – the House voted 83-31 to approve HB 7 on third reading on March 5, 2021. The Senate Rules Committee reported SB 72 favorably after amending it to include health care providers in the COVID-19 liability protections instead of addressing the issue in a separate bill, and it will now move to the Senate floor as well. As previously discussed, these bills would extend liability protection to school districts facing potential civil lawsuits for COVID-19-related claims.
HB 15 (Clemons and LaMarca) / SB 50 (Gruters) – Sales and Use Tax. Please see the attached analysis from Jim Hamilton.
HB 51 (McClain) – Charter Schools – reported favorably by the House PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee.
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This bill would allow state universities or colleges to solicit, accept, and approve charter school applications and then serve as the charter sponsor.
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Unlike school districts which must accept and review all charter school applications, colleges and universities would have complete discretion over whether to even consider an application.
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Any schools approved under this bill would not be part of the local school district. The college or university would be considered the local education agency instead.
The bill has two more committee stops remaining. Its Senate companion, SB 1028 (Hutson), still has not been set for a committee hearing.
SB 52 (Rodrigues) / HB 281 (Duggan and Zika) – Postsecondary Education – reported favorably both by the Senate Appropriations Committee and the House Secondary Education and Career Development Subcommittee. This was the third and final committee stop for the Senate version of the bill, while it was the first time the bill was heard in the House. These bills would provide dual enrollment scholarships for private and home school students, as well as public school students enrolled in summer courses.
SB 78 (Rodrigues) / HB 947 (Plakon) – Dues and Uniform Assessments -- reported favorably by the House Government Operations Subcommittee. On the Senate side, the bill was temporarily postponed in Senate Rules Committee last week and was not placed back on the agenda this week.
The bills, which are identical, require union members to sign up for dues deductions after every new contract negotiation. They also require the employer to verify this request with the employee. The house version now moves to the House State Affairs Committee.
SB 98 (Albritton) – Workforce Related Programs and Services – reported favorably by the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee. Among other things, the bill would:
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Require DOE to address the accountability of apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs.
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Look to match the CAPE Industry Certification Funding List with the courses offered throughout Florida under the Career and Professional Education Act, as well as align the list to the future employment projections that will be made by a new Labor Market Estimating Conference; and
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Review the funding weights assigned to the courses and certifications listed in the CAPE Industry Certification Funding List.
The bill will now move to the Senate Education Committee. It does not have a House companion.
HB 131 (Duggan) – Educator Misconduct -- reported favorably by the House Secondary Education and Career Development Subcommittee. This bill attempts to address school employees being accused of sexual misconduct with students and then resigning before an investigation can be completed only to wind up working a different district.
The bill now moves to the House Early Learning and Elementary Education Subcommittee for its second of three committee stops. SB 1864 (Perry) is very similar but not identical, as many of its provisions would address district employees who resign prior to the completion of an investigation or in lieu of termination for anything that affect the health, safety, or welfare of students, not just sexual misconduct. It has yet to be heard in a committee.
HB 135 (Robinson, W.) / SB 532 (Burgess) – School District Career Center Workforce Education Programs – reported favorably by the Senate Education Committee. The House version has yet to be heard by a committee. The bill would allow district career centers to offer students an associate in applied science or associate in science degree program in nursing, but only students who had obtained an LPN from the center first would be eligible to participate in the program. The Senate Health Policy Committeewill next consider the bill. The House companion has not been heard yet.
SB 146 (Brandes) – Civic Education – reported favorably by the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill establishes a nonpartisan civic literacy practicum, which high schools could choose to incorporate into their US Government courses. Those schools that successfully implement this practicum could then be eligible for designation as a Freedom School. The bill will now move to the Senate floor. HB 611 (Diamond), which is very similar but would also establish a citizen scholar program at the University of South Florida, made its first appearance and was reported favorably by the House Secondary Education and Career Development Subcommittee. It now moves to the House Education & Employment Committee.
HB 149 (Dubose and Palsencia) / SB 192 (Book) – reported favorably by the House Secondary Education and Career Development Subcommittee. The bill would prohibit the use of seclusion in a school and impose greater restrictions on the use of restraints. It has one more committee stop to make. The Senate companion has not been heard in committee yet.
SB 200 (Berman) / HB 1025 (Skidmore) – Student Retention – reported favorably by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Education. There has not been any movement on the House side yet.
This bill allows a parent could elect to have any K-8 student retained this year after collaboration with the principal and teachers and such decision must be based on academic reasons. It also prohibits a middle school student from repeating a high school level course for grade forgiveness unless the student received a C or lower. The bill now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
HB 259 (Williamson and Byrd) / SB 498 (Gruters) – Safety of Religious Institutions – reported favorably in both the House Education and Employment Committee and the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. These bills remove restrictions on carring a concealed weapon at church on the weekend if that church has its own school on site due to the prohibition on firearms at all school properties. It further states that it is up to the religious institution to decide whether its members can carry firearms, even if the institution is leasing someone else’s property, including a public school. The bill would take effect immediately upon becoming law. The house version now moves on to the House Judiciary Committee and the senate version moves to the Senate Rules Committee.
HB 311 (Silvers) / SB 1456 (Rodrigues) – Public Records / Examination and Assessment Instruments – reported favorably by the House Post-Secondary Education and Lifelong Learning Subcommittee. This bill would expand the scope of the public records exemptions for certain examination and assessment instruments. It now moves to the House Government Operations Subcommittee. The Senate version has not been scheduled for a committee hearing yet.
HB 383 (Plasencia) / SB 590 (Harrell) – Involuntary Examination of Minors -- reported favorably after significant amendment by the House Early Learning and Elementary Education Subcommittee. This bill addresses the involuntary examination of minors (Baker Act). After the House version of the bill would require a school to notify a parent before a child is removed from school unless the principal believes that delaying the removal would harm the student. The house version now moves to the House Secondary Education & Career Development Subcommittee. The senate version was heard in one committee in February but still has two more committee stops to go.
HB 507 (Rizo) – Education – reported favorably by the House Secondary Education and Career Development Subcommittee. The main provisions of the bill include:
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Authorizing the DOE to hold patents, copyrights, trademarks etc., and to sell or license any materials for which they control the rights.
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Requiring students to take a civic literacy assessment after their U.S. Government class. Students who pass the assessment would then be exempt from this bill’s newly required civic literacy course requirement for Florida college and university students.
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Requiring school districts to administer either the SAT or ACT for all 11th grade, public school students.
There is a similar bill in the Senate, SB 1108 (Diaz), but it has not been heard by any committee yet. The house version still has three more committee stops to make as well.
HB 519 (Yarborough) / SB 1094 (Bean) – Required Health Education Instruction – reported favorably by the House Secondary Education and Career Development Subcommittee. The bill would require that required sexual education curriculum include age- and developmentally appropriate information on the prevention of child sexual abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking. It now moves to the House Early Learning & Elementary Education Subcommittee. The Senate version has not been scheduled for a committee hearing yet.
HB 529 (Fine) / SB 282 (Baxley) – Moments of Silence in Public Schools – reported favorably by the House Education and Employment Committee. The bill requires a one to two-minute moment of silence at the start of each school day for public school students. This was the bill’s third and final committee stop in the House and will now move to the House floor. The Senate version is still in the Judiciary Committee.
HB 545 (Chaney) / SB 410 (Rodriguez) – Materials Harmful to Minors – reported favorably by the House Secondary Education and Career Development Subcommittee. These bills would seek to ban “obscene” materials from the public schools and require districts to obtain written consent from parents before teaching any sexual education curriculum. The House version includes only the “opt-in” clause concerning sexual education. The Senate version still has the language that could label certain literary works as obscene if someone thought they were not appropriate for minors, but it has not been heard in committee yet. The house version now moves to the House Education & Employment Committee.
HB 559 (Hawkins) – Computer Science Instruction in Elementary Schools – reported favorably by the House Early Learning and Elementary Education Subcommittee. This bill would require, as opposed to allow, computer programming instruction in grades K-12, including “computational thinking and foundational computer science skills.” It now moves to the House PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee. There is no Senate companion.
SB 598 (Perry) – Back to School Sales Tax Holiday – reported favorably by the Senate Finance and Tax Committee. This bill would set the annual back to school tax holiday from July 30 to August 8, 2021.
SB 726 (Taddeo) / HB 173 (Tant) – Individual Education Plan Requirements for Students with Disabilities – reported favorably by the Senate Education Committee and favorably by the House Secondary Education and Career Development Subcommittee. These bills would require IEP teams to start the transition process in 7th grade instead of at age 14 with an operational plan in place on the first day of high school. The transition process must include information about deferring graduation and all courses and programs available to students. The senate version is now in the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, and the house version moves on to the House PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee.
SB 760 (Burgess) / HB 355 (Beltran) – Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) – reported favorably by the Senate Community Affairs Committee. This bill would allow schools to join an athletic association by sport without losing any status within the FHSAA. It now moves to the Senate Rules Committee. The House, version has had no activity yet, but it has been referred to two committees.
HB 793 (Bell) / SB 1644 (Jones) – Measurement of Student Performance – reported favorably by the House Early Learning and Elementary Education Subcommittee. These bills would require the Commissioner and DOE to release student learning gains (VAM) by July 31 of each year. The House version now moves to the Education and Employment Committee, while the Senate version has not been scheduled for a committee hearing yet.
HB 835 (Byrd) – Employee Organizations – reported favorably by the House Government Operations Subcommittee. The bill would prohibit school districts from deducting union dues for instructional personnel. Instead, teachers would be required to pay their union dues directly. It also requires the union to obtain from members a signed statement in 14-point type that acknowledges that membership in the union is not mandatory. There is no Senate counterpart with respect to the dues deduction prohibition, but there are several bills aimed at education unions in both the House and Senate, including SB 78 and HB 947, which are discussed above.
SB 938 (Wright) – Purple Star Campuses -- reported favorably by the Senate Education Committee. The bill is designed to recognize schools that support children of military members and veterans. Schools would need to designate a staff member as their military liaison, put information on the school website specific for military families, create a transition program for military students, and offer professional development opportunities to staff members addressing issues related to military students. This bill now moves to the Senate Military and Veterans Affairs, Space, and Domestic Security Committee. HB 429 (Learned and Maney) would create a nearly identical program but has not been heard in any of its four assigned committees yet.
HJR 1461 (Garrison) – Prohibition on Compensation for Members of a District School Board -- reported favorably along party lines by the House Secondary Education and Career Development Subcommittee. This joint resolution would ask Florida voters to approve an amendment to the Florida Constitution whereby school board members would serve without compensation, like members of college and university boards of trustees. It now moves to the House Early Learning & Elementary Education Subcommittee.
HB 1505 (Melo) – Workforce Programs and Services – reported favorably by the Post-Secondary Education and Lifelong Learning Subcommittee. This bill seeks to create a “consumer-first,” “performance-based” workforce system with the DEO collaborating with both DCF and DOE in this effort. This bill has been reported favorably in two of its four assigned committees and now moves to the Appropriations Committee. Although there are several bills dealing with workforce programs, apprenticeships, and other similar topics, this bill does not have a direct companion in the Senate.
HB 1507 (Yarborough) – Workforce Related Programs and Services – reported favorably by the House Post-Secondary Education and Lifelong Learning Subcommittee. This bill is entitled the Reimagining Education and Career Help Act, contains the following provisions:
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Creates a Money-Back Guarantee Program, whereby school districts would have to refund the cost of tuition to students who cannot find a job within six months of completing certain programs.
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Workforce performance funding would require that one-third of the funding be based on student job placement and two-thirds be based on the student’s earnings.
The bill will now move to the House Appropriations Committee. While there are several bills addressing workforce education in both the House and Senate, there is no Senate companion at this time.
HB 7033 – Task Force on Closing the Achievement Gap for Boys – reported favorably by the House Early Learning and Elementary Education Subcommittee. This bill would create a task force to examine the problem of the large achievement gap for boys (test scores, discipline rates, disability rates, etc.) and make recommendation to close that gap.
Coming Up: The following pertinent bills are currently scheduled to be heard next week. Please note, this list is only final as it relates to committee meetings on Monday and Tuesday. The list for the remainder of the week will change as the varying notice deadlines for each committee approaches.
Monday, March 15
Children, Families & Seniors Subcommittee
HB 419 Early Learning and Early Grade Success - Grall-Deletes Office of Early Learning; creates Division of Early Learning within DOE; revises provisions relating to early learning coalitions; VPK & school readiness programs; & DOE responsibilities & duties relating to early learning and Gold Seal Quality Care Program.
Tuesday, March 16
Early Learning & Elementary Education
HB 51 Charter Schools - McClain-Authorizes state universities & Florida College System institutions to sponsor charter schools; revises reporting & accountability requirements & populations for which charter school is authorized to limit enrollment process; provides for funding; authorizes career & professional academy to be offered by charter school.
HB 1061 Schools of Hope - Smith, D.-Adds certain hope operators to entities required to perform annual financial audit & provide financial statements; revises definition of "persistently low-performing school"; revises student reporting for schools of hope; revises provisions related to the list of specified facilities; revises time certain funds may be carried forward; requires certain school of hope personnel undergo background screening
HB 131 Educator Conduct - Duggan-Requiring DOE to maintain a disqualification list of individuals; revises provisions relating to employment & termination of public school & private school employees; revises duties of DOE, Commissioner of Education, & school districts relating to employee conduct & employment & termination of public school & private school employees.
HB 519 Required Health Education Instruction - Yarborough-Provides additional requirements for health education; revises grades when students receive certain health education instruction; requires health education instruction include prevention of specified harms.
ELE3-School Safety - PCB-This bill was filed on Friday, March 12, 2021in the evening.
Local Administration & Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee
HB 337 Impact Fees - DiCeglie-Specifies instances when local government or special district may collect impact fee; requires local governments & special districts to credit against collection of impact fee any contribution related to public facilities; provides annual limitations on impact fee increases; requires school districts to report specified items regarding impact fees; requires specified entities to file affidavit attesting that impact fees were appropriately collected & expended
Education
SB 86 Student Financial Aid - Baxley-Requiring that eligibility for state financial aid awards and tuition assistance grants be reevaluated each term and identify students’ program of study; revising the formula for calculating how Florida Public Student Assistance Grant Program funds are distributed; authorizing a Bright Futures Scholarship recipient to apply the unused portion of a Florida Academic Scholars award or Florida Medallion Scholars award toward graduate study for a specified academic year; establishing the Florida Bright Opportunities Grant Program; establishing the Florida Endeavor Scholarship Program, etc.
SB 1372 Literacy Improvement - Burgess-Establishing the New Worlds Reading Initiative under the Department of Education; requiring the administrator, in consultation with a specified entity, to develop a selection of books; requiring the administrator to coordinate monthly book distribution to certain students; requiring the administrator to assist with local implementation of the initiative; requiring that a certain notification include information about the initiative, etc
SB 1898 Student Literacy - Rodriguez-Revising and providing duties for the Just Read, Florida! Office within the Department of Education; requiring the Department of Education, in consultation with the Office of Early Learning, to implement a coordinated screening and progress monitoring system for students in the Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program through grade 8; requiring certain students to participate in a certain coordinated screening and progress monitoring system; creating the “Reading Achievement Initiative for Scholastic Excellence Act”, etc
Post-Secondary Education & Lifelong Learning Subcommittee
HB 281 Postsecondary Education Financial Matters - Duggan and Zika-Establishes Dual Enrollment Scholarship Program; provides eligibility requirements for program; authorizes university boards of trustees to implement bonus scheme for state university system employees
HB 507 Education - Rizo-Revises provisions relating to DOE powers & duties, the statewide assessment program, and postsecondary civics education
HB 1423 Florida Private Student Assistance Grant Program - Tuck-Expanding eligibility for Florida private student assistance grant to include full-time degree-seeking students accepted at a competency-based nonprofit virtual postsecondary institution that meets specified criteria
Military and Veterans’ Affairs, Space, and Domestic Security
SB 938 Purple Star Campuses - Wright-Requiring the Department of Education to establish the Purple Star Campus program; specifying program criteria for participating schools; authorizing the department to establish additional program eligibility criteria; authorizing schools to partner with school districts to meet such criteria; requiring the State Board of Education to adopt rules, etc
Wednesday March 17
Health Policy
SB 532 Workforce Education - Burgess- Revising the workforce education programs that school district career centers are authorized to conduct, etc
Appropriations Subcommittee on Education
SB 726 Individual Education Plan Requirements for Students with Disabilities - Taddeo-Individual Education Plan Requirements for Students with Disabilities; Revising the timeline for the development and implementation of an individual education plan (IEP) for a student with disabilities to transition to postsecondary education and career opportunities; revising the requirements for an IEP for the transitions to a postsecondary education or career opportunities; requiring the Department of Education to conduct a review of specified services and programs, etc.
SB 1450 Civic Education Curriculum - Rodriguez- Revising the social studies high school graduation credit requirement; requiring the Department of Education to develop or approve an integrated civic education curriculum that meets certain requirements; requiring the department to curate oral history resources to be used along with such curriculum; designating the “Portraits in Patriotism Act”, etc.
SB 1484 Florida Student Assistance Grant Program - Gruters-Expanding eligibility for the program to full-time degree-seeking students accepted at a competency-based nonprofit virtual postsecondary institution that meets specified criteria, etc.