BY SOMMER BRUGAL AND ANDRE FERNANDEZ UPDATED FEBRUARY 02, 2023 6:40 PM
Florida’s children who are the most vulnerable; those in need of inclusion the most … are being targeted; singled out by Governor Ron DeSantis only to bring national attention in his quest for power, securing his candidacy for president in 2024…
This latest requirement for Florida’s high school female athletes sharing their personal menstrual history goes beyond what anyone…other than family or a doctor, should know!!
He does not care how his authoritarian actions hurt Florida… especially our children…
He only became our governor by voter suppression and a lack of strong support of the Democratic candidate, Charlie Crist…
I myself remember, living in Flagler and Volusia County where he was our representative, and did absolutely nothing…
Now, with his divisive agenda, he has a strong support of those with money giving him the national stage…
This latest attack is once again hurting our high school athletes…
A proposed draft of a physical education form in Florida could require all high school student athletes to disclose information regarding their menstrual history, which opponents are pushing back against. Richard Bagan via Unsplash
When I began my teacher journey back in the seventies…Even though our pay was quite inadequate… We had such hope, and a surplus of teachers…So much so, I had to travel 90 miles a day, just to teach…
Being apolitical, I did not realize, nor appreciate our teacher’s union…For years, stayed away from joining…
I then realized by those “No Child Left Behind ” years …We sure needed that unity of the union for our advocacy… And especially now in these divisive times it is critical…
So for me, doing my part, now, even though I am retired, I am proudly a member of my local, ACEA; Alachua County Education Association, FEA; Florida Education Association and AFT; American Federation of Teachers….
Divide and Conquer… Governor Ron DeSantis is once again using his authoritarian control over our Teachers Union…
Delaney Johnston January 23, 2023
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday unveiled a series of proposals aimed at school boards and teachers’ unions, the latest salvo in his battles over education policy in the state.
At an event in Jacksonville, DeSantis unveiled what he called a “Teachers Bill of Rights,” which would give teachers the green light to stand up to their school boards if they felt their policies violated state law.
He also proposed banning teachers’ unions from automatically deducting dues from paychecks, imposing stricter term limits on school board members, and amending the state constitution to allow school board candidates to reveal their political parties in the now bipartisan races.
DeSantis said he wants an additional $200 million for the special fund created to increase teachers’ salaries, bringing the total for teachers’ salaries in his recommended budget for next year to $1 billion.
A total of $3 billion has been spent on salaries over the past three years, he said.
Much of that money, however, went to raising starting salaries for new teachers, so the state still ranked 48th for average public school teacher salaries last year, according to the National Education Association, one place lower than when DeSantis took office in the year 2019
The state also had 5,300 vacant teaching positions this month, more than double the number two years ago, according to the state teachers’ union.
DeSantis’ proposals to the school boards came after he got involved on an unprecedented scale in local board races for governor and promoted conservative candidates across the state. That included Orange County, where Moms for Liberty member Alicia Farrant won a seat on the board.
“What we’ve seen over the years is that you have … counties in Southwest Florida that voted for me by about 40 points, and yet they vote people into school boards that’s like a completely opposite philosophy,” DeSantis said. “…And sometimes it’s hard not to know because you have all these names on one ballot.”
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, wrote on Twitter that eight-year term limits on school board members instead of the current 12 and partisan elections aim to “essentially get rid of current members over time and improve public education partisan.” This goes way deeper than just culture wars — this is an educational power grab.”
The new proposals would have to be approved by the legislature or, in the case of a constitutional amendment, by state voters by referendum.
They come just days after DeSantis and Education Commissioner Manny Diaz made national headlines by banning an AP African American Studies course in the state and announcing plans for the state to fund all parents who send their children to voucher schools, regardless of income want to send.
His proposal on teachers’ rights is modeled after the Parents Bill of Rights, which allowed parents to ignore COVID restrictions in schools. DeSantis said the state will “protect” teachers from their boards or unions.
“[If] A teacher must either obey state law or listen to a school board or school union or administrator telling them to break state law. If they comply with state laws, they are protected,” DeSantis said. “…And it doesn’t matter if a school board or a superintendent disagrees.”
It could potentially affect teachers who squabble with their school boards over the interpretation of issues ranging from the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law to the “Stop WOKE” law banning critical race theory, both of which are broad.
The educators and board members speaking at the event spoke out against their boards’ vaccination mandates and other anti-COVID measures.
“At my current charter school, I am free to choose whether or not to wear a mask, and ‘social distancing’ and quarantining healthy children due to proximity are foreign words,” said Leah Hannigan, a former public school teacher in Duval.
Charlotte Joyce, a member of the Duval School Board, said: “During the pandemic we have seen teacher unions push for mask requirements and vaccinations. Because of our amazing governor, he just put an end to it and said, ‘We’re not going to have that in the state of Florida.’”
DeSantis’ proposal to end the automatic deduction of union dues also targeted teachers’ unions, which he felt had too much power.
“That’s your choice,” DeSantis said of paying membership dues, a critical funding source for unions. “If you want to do it, send money, that’s fine. But automatically deducted when you sign a power of attorney form? They don’t even tell you how much is deducted.”
He added that union officials “should not earn more than the highest-paid teacher. You have these people making huge sums of money, and the teachers make half of that amount. how is that fair How is that something that makes sense?”
However, he did not say if he would attempt to pass legislation mandating it.
Diaz continued to attack teachers’ unions after the event, writing on Twitter that unions are “standing in the way of teachers getting the raises they deserve.”
A spokeswoman for the Florida Education Association. the national teachers’ union, did not return a request for comment…
State’s new bill goes into effect prohibiting material unless deemed appropriate by a librarian or ‘certified media specialist’
School teachers in Florida’s Manatee county are removing books from their classrooms or physically covering them up after a new bill went into effect that prohibited material unless deemed appropriate by a librarian, or “certified media specialist”.
If a teacher is found in violation of these guidelines, they could face felony charges.
The new guidelines for the Florida law, known as HB 1467, outline the books be free of pornographic material, suited to student needs and their ability to comprehend the material, and appropriate for the grade level and age group.
In order to determine if the books meet these guidelines, certified media specialists must undergo an online training developed by Florida’s department of education.
With only a few or even one media specialist present in each school, the process to vet books is lengthy.
Scrutiny of teaching material in Florida schools heightened under the leadership of the rightwing Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, whose administration says it is actively working to “protect parental rights”, which includes a prohibition on childhood education on gender, sexual orientation and critical race theory.
DeSantis has emerged as a legitimate rival to Donald Trump in the Republican party. The former US president has already declared his 2024 candidacy for another White House run, while DeSantis is widely expected to do so later this year.
As part of his appeal to the party’s rightwing base DeSantis has sought to portray himself as a culture war warrior, cracking down on LGBTQ rights and taking conservative stances on the fight against Covid-19 and a host of other issues such as immigration.
In 2021, he announced the Stop Woke (Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees) Act to “give businesses, employees, children and families tools to fight back against woke indoctrination”.
Teachers have condemned the new guidelines.
The Manatee Education Association union president, Pat Barber, told local TV station Fox 13: “We have people who have spent their entire careers building their classroom libraries based on their professional and educational experience and understanding of the age of the children they teach.”
Barber added: “Now, their professional judgment and training are being substituted for the opinion of anyone who wishes to review and challenge the books. We’re focused on things that cause teachers to want to walk away from education because they can’t focus on their mission of educating children.”
Some teachers are even covering up their library books with paper…
Don Falls, a history teacher at Manatee high school, told the Herald-Tribune newspaper: “If you have a lot of books like I do, probably several hundred, it is not practical to run all of them through [the vetting process] so we have to cover them up.”
More school districts in Florida are expected to follow suit as a result of such policies this year. The state’s education department issued a deadline of 1 July 2023 for when “the superintendent of schools in each district must certify to the FDOE Commissioner that all school librarians and media specialists have completed this training”.
When government faces a problem, the response often goes through three stages before its tackled.
Step 1: Deny that the problem exists. It’s just a few noisy people lying to you for their selfish political interests.
Step 2: The problem exists but not to the extent or for the reasons critics claimed.
Step 3: The problem is real and we’ve been addressing it for some time despite the harping of critics…
Florida now has a teacher shortage problem. And unsurprisingly, the state of Florida is in Stage 1 with one foot in Stage 2.
A recently released Florida Education Association survey tallied 5,294 vacancies in Florida public schools. The survey noted that five years ago, the state had only 1,492 vacancies.
The Florida Department of Education disputed the number, talked about the “myth” of a teacher shortage, and blamed the teachers union for twisting number to create a fake problem. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Pay no attention to that substitute teacher wandering the halls trying to find the right classroom….
Help from abroad?Volusia school board considers hiring international teachers to address critical shortages
Another district could look overseas:Could international teachers address critical shortages? Flagler Schools is considering it
Yet this report of shortages jibes with other surveys. Like a report issued last summer by Brown University’s Annenberg Institute that found the teacher shortage to be more than a passing pandemic problem and that Florida had the worst shortage of any state.
Closer to home, this also jibes with measures local school boards are forced to take as they scramble to staff classrooms. The Volusia County School Board, for instance, discussed importing teachers from abroad to fill the staffing gaps. The school system started the school year with 272 instructional vacancies which it managed to whittle down to 141. And it has 239 support vacancies. And even the district’s recruitment and retention coordinator has left…
Flagler County, too, is looking at importing teachers from abroad to fill some of its vacancies.
All this probably jibes, too, with what you probably heard from any kids, parents and teachers you know.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced the state is tackling this situation — which is not really a problem — by allowing military veterans to teach without getting a college degree. As of the start of the year, a total of — wait for it — 10 had been hired statewide.
So, yes, there really is a teacher shortage. Maybe not in every school, maybe not in every subject area, or in every grade, but enough that it’s clearly a problem. This is not fake news.
And as a believer in the wisdom of free markets, I generally regard teacher shortages as nature’s way of telling us that we aren’t paying teachers enough.
Or more accurately, that we aren’t rewarding teachers enough.
FLORIDA Florida teachers move to block DeSantis questions on CRT Associated Press
Published: January 11, 2023 at 9:40 PM
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A group of Florida college professors on Wednesday asked a federal judge to block Gov. Ron DeSantis from requesting spending data on diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory programs in state universities.
The filing comes as part of a lawsuit against the so-called “Stop WOKE” Act, which restricts certain race-based conversations and analysis in colleges. Tallahassee U.S. District Judge Mark Walker has blocked the law, though DeSantis’ office is appealing the decision.
The Republican governor in late December requested that state colleges submit spending data and other information on programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory, which examines systemic racism. The schools were asked to submit the data by Friday.
The college educators, who are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and Legal Defense Fund, argue the governor’s request violates the court order blocking the “Stop WOKE” Act.
“This is just another step towards enforcing this unconstitutional law and is clearly intended to continue to chill the speech of instructors and students in Florida. We cannot allow these threats against free speech to continue,” Jerry Edwards, staff attorney of the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement.
DeSantis’ office did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
The law prohibits teaching or business practices that contend members of one ethnic group are inherently racist and should feel guilt for past actions committed by others. It also bars the notion that a person’s status as privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by their race or gender, or that discrimination is acceptable to achieve diversity.
The governor began pushing for the law late last year and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed it during the 2022 legislative session.
Critical race theory was developed during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what scholars viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. It centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society.
Conservatives have rejected critical race theory, arguing the philosophy racially divides American society and aims to rewrite history to make white people believe they are inherently racist.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
I can not believe Congress will finally tackle the issue of teacher pay inequities…
When I began in 1972, I was making only $5,000 for the year… Traveling 90 miles a day just to teach…
We now have such a critical teacher shortage…With all the major issues teachers face today …
Young, creative people are not willing to go into teaching only to deal with gun and health safety, such that the divisiveness of politics continuously permeates curriculum and inclusion of all children…
Leaving our children and schools in crisis….
Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Florida) introduced the American Teacher Act to incentivize states to increase the minimum K-12 teacher salary to $60,000 and adjust for inflation.
Wilson, the chair of the Higher Education and Workforce Investment Subcommittee, said the financial incentive supports ongoing state efforts to provide competitive wages for teachers and address the national teacher shortage.
“Teachers deserve a raise. Unfortunately, our nation’s teachers have been underpaid, overworked and deprived of resources for too long,” Wilson stated. “That’s why I’m filing the American Teacher Act, to give our nation’s teachers the raise they have earned and deserve.”
Wilson called teachers the backbone of America’s education system and economy. She noted that they play a foundational role in the development of children.
“For seven hours a day, they help shape and inspire young minds as well as nurture students academically and socially,” Wilson said.
“As the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill, teachers continued to play a critical role in our recovery, underscoring their indispensability,” she said.
The nonprofit Teacher Salary Project helped Wilson draft the bill, which they said responds to a national teacher shortage and low professional morale.
The bill creates a four-year federal grant program to increase teachers’ annual salaries to a minimum of $60,000 nationwide.
Additionally, it would create a four-year federal grant available to states and local educational agencies to guarantee the $60,000 minimum wage.
The bill wouldn’t reduce salaries for those already making more than $60,000 and wouldn’t replace existing federal, state, or local funds used toward teacher pay
Earlier this year, EducationWeek estimated that more than 36,500 teacher vacancies exist in the United States.
They noted that uncredentialed teachers filled more than 163,500 positions. Meanwhile, the Teacher Salary Project pointed out that 74% of teachers don’t believe they receive fair pay.
“How do we get (teacher pay increases) to happen when people in the position to make change are so scared or intimidated by the price tag and the controversial topics associated with higher pay, like performance-based pay and increases in taxes?” Ellen Sherratt, board president of the Teacher Salary Project, told Education NC.
Wilson said teacher shortages count among the most pressing threats to education access today, with districts across the country forced to radically adjust school offerings to respond to turnover and prolonged vacancies.
“While teachers have never received the wages and respect commensurate with the work they do to help all children reach their promise and potential, the culture wars and stagnant wages of the last few years have made this worse,” stated Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
“Recruiting and retaining a diverse teaching force has become increasingly difficult—indeed, most parents say they wouldn’t want their kids choosing teaching as a career,” Weingarten remarked.
The president of AFT added that Wilson’s bill addresses challenges by providing states with federal funding as incentives for teachers and school districts.
“It also funds a national campaign highlighting the value of the teaching profession and encouraging young people to become teachers, using many of the recommendations in the AFT’s Teacher and School Staff Shortage Task Force report ‘Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?’ for recruiting the best candidates into teaching, including increasing compensation,” Weingarten said.
“This bill says put your money where your mouth is,” she continued. “We thank Rep. Wilson for her bold legislation addressing the low starting salaries that have plagued the teaching profession for generations, and we are proud to support this legislation.”
I am extremely sad and concerned over the restrictive policies that are affecting our public schools due to republican leadership here in Florida…
Losing this election…
We did not elect the more empathetic, democratic candidate Charlie Crist, who would have prioritized our children and their right to a strong public school education…
Hope and Faith…
#floridaelection Our precious children… Women’s rights… Seniors… Where did it go wrong???
If What’s Ahead Scares You… And What’s Behind Hurts You…
Such a blessing… Hurricanes… Rain… Sleet…Snow… Got my mail in ballot Saturday!!!
Goes in Monday’s mail… “Florida” more than ever… All those impacted by #ianrecovery #VoteBlueForSoManyReasons #DemsDeliver 🌊💙✨💫 @CharlieCrist @KarlaforFlorida @valdemings
Janis Sexton...Teacher...Advocate 