Florida Class Size Compliance: Is it Really as Simple as Saying “We Can’t Afford to Comply?”

It isn’t. Elected constitutional officers cannot blatantly disregard the will of the people, the constitution, and the law. Saying “We cannot come into full compliance, because we cannot afford to” is not a rational legal argument. Florida law speaks to this issue, as Sec. 1001.42(15), lists one of the School Board's duties as:

ENFORCEMENT OF LAW AND RULES.--Require that all laws and rules of the State Board of Education or of the district school board are properly enforced.

                                                                               
                                                                                
                                                                                 
                                                                                     The above is fairly succinct and on-point.

Around the State, though, some school districts are saying they might not comply. Other districts, at the urging of their operations, curriculum, and budgeting staffs, are planning to start next school year out of compliance. They will "lean forward" in an attempt to comply.  That is astonishing.  Any Board Members that go along with that or contemplate going along with that line of thinking need to understand the gravity of that position; They should also read about Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and how it may/could eventually morph and be applied to small governmental boards. Unions (and their attorneys) who are enamored with class size hard caps would really like this. The essence of SOX as I read it—Boards of Directors must have oversight and be cognizant. Boards of Directors cannot vote for a policy and then say as a body (or individually) they did not understand the consequences of said policy. If a board of directors vote for a policy (even one that staff feel is the proper way to proceed) then the board owns the culpability if things go awry.

But the even more important and relevant question about open, unabashed non-compliance With Florida Class Size Law is this:

Will the NEA, AFT, FEA and The EEA (and their attorneys) sit idly by while (and if) School Boards across the state of Florida wantonly defy the Florida Constitution? I do not think so-I think they will go after those that blatantly disregard the statute, in court, in the court of public opinion, and at election time. So while we as individual members of the Board may understand the complexities of the issue and the challenges of class size compliance--legally we do not have the luxury of saying “We’ll go ahead and pay the penalty, it’s cheaper.” I discussed this issue at length last week at the school board workshop with my fellow Board Members and Mrs. Donna Waters, General Counsel of the School Board of Escambia County. Mrs. Waters has said the following with respect to the Board’s handling of class size compliance planning:

“it is up to the School Board to see that all laws are being followed by the district. We cannot have a policy which contemplates violation of a law. On any matter approved by the Board, the members must have a good faith reason to believe that the action taken will be in compliance with the law.”

The above is also fairly succinct and on-point.

Mandatory Class Size laws with firm, rigid caps are fiscally irresponsible and I personally do not support them. Research does not support the claims that mandatory class size caps drastically improve student achievement, not until a 15-1 student-teacher ratio is reached. 15-1, by the way, is financially unachievable. Meanwhile, budgets continue to shrink yet additional teachers need to be hired to meet Florida's strict law. At the Elementary level in Escambia County, current projections are that we will be 57 students over the rigid class size cap district- wide. This condition will necessitate the hiring 23 additional elementary teachers district- wide at a cost of over $1Million to meet the letter of the law.

 Does $1Million dollars for 57 students over the cap sound rational to anyone other that the organized Teacher’s Unions, the NEA, FEA,  AFT, and the EEA (and their attorneys)? Of course not.

Taxpayers need to rise up and join forces with the School Boards Association, The Superintendents Association, The Tea Partiers, and anyone who is rational and vote to amend the class size law. The original incarnation of Florida Class Size was pushed vigorously by those with a financial agenda (Unions) and the final phase of compliance will force districts to become draconian in spending decisions—which will negatively impact students.  We need to "right size class size" and pass the class size ammendment on the November ballot.

But in the meantime, we must make every effort to comply with this existing class size law until such time as it is changed.  Period, break, end of text.

This means we must vote, as board members, for policy and staffing that we feel will put our distict into compliance with the law at the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year.

This is America and not an ala carte café-- we do not get to pick and choose which laws we follow, we can only do what we can to fix or repeal the bad laws.

Zero Tolerance to be Softened in Escambia County?

Flying under the radar of this year's contentious state legislative session, a change to Florida Law regarding Zero Tolerance has been made. 

Previously, Weapons, Firearms, Bomb-Threats, and Drugs were identified under state statutes as "Zero-Tolerance" infractions--and local boards of education were charged with developing codes of student conduct which addressed these issues as "Zero Tolerance" offenses

The latest version of the state statute removes Drugs from the list and combines Firearms and Weapons into one category.  This latest version requires local districts to   "Define criteria for reporting to a law enforcement agency any act that occurs whenever or wherever students are within the jurisdiction of the district school board. "


I understand there has been a major backlash to Zero Tolerance--as around the country stories emerge of honor students going to boot camp for bringing midol to school, or the eagle scout honor student who got expelled for bringing a nail clipper (weapon) to school.  These stories have turned public opinion away from Zero Tolerance.

I understand that common sense must come into play when crafting rules of student conduct.

But I also think taking a step backward in Escambia County by taking drug possession/use off of the list of Zero Tolerance offenses is a serious mistake.

Like it or not--there are drugs in our schools.  Monthly, we kick out 10-15 students for drug possession.  (This represents the ones we actually catch)

On a personal note, my own son came home from middle school and told me one of his classmates brought "weed" to school and showed it ot him.

Kids bring dangerous illegal drugs to school with the intent to sell these drugs to other students, and as the economy continues to deteriorate, I believe this will be a situation that continues and may even worsen.

If we water down zero tolerance to eliminate drug possession as an offense, what message will that send to students and parents?

I am advocating, and I have been advocating for some time now--for a comprehensive drug eradication policy in our school district, to include:

1.  An increase in the frequency of drug dog searches, with a managed approach that is measurable.
2.  Zero Tolerance for bringing illegal drugs to school-for students and employees.
3.  Implimentation of a district-wide "Campus Crime-Stoppers" toll free hotline number and website where students can anonymously report criminal/drug activity in our schools and receive cash rewards
4.  Drug testing for those students who wish to participate in Extracurricular Activities

I am in favor of due process, and that is why I fought hard to have a safe harbor provision put into our school board policy.

But I have zero sympathy for drug dealers in school.  Zero sympathy.

Bottom line:  Drugs destroy lives, and watering down the punishment for those who seek to bring the infection of drugs to students in our schools is a mistake.  I will not vote to take drug possession out of the language for "Zero Tolerance" in our student handbook.  I will actively fight against such a dangerous and irresponsible move, because our children deserve to have schools that are safe and drug-free.

Glen Beck to America's Parents "Pull Your kids Out of these [Public] Schools"

During his nationally broadcast (3rd highest audience behind Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity) radio program yesterday, Glen Beck implored his audience, by repeating three times for emphasis--to remove their children from America's Public Schools.

(I listen to Beck from time to time and I find his show to be entertaining--however I think Michael Savage is much better-- much more entertaining, intelligent, and enlightening.  WCOA bumped Savage's show back an hour to give us more Hannity and Beck-which was really disappointing)

But yesterday, Beck had started the segment by criticizing a San Francisco Bay Area School for sending students home for wearing shirts that displayed the American Flag.  The issue was that several students wore the American Flag shirts on Cinco De Mayo--and apparently this offended the largely hispanic population at the school in question.

Obviously, I agree with Beck in that for an American school to send students home for wearing American Flag Shirts was outrageous.  No child, I do not care the day, should ever be punished for being patriotic for his country-our country-The United States of America.  If students from other countries did not like seeing the red, white, and blue --they should return to their country of origin, period.  This is America!

The story, which appeared on the Drudge Report earlier in the day, can be read here.

I agree this particular incident was a travesty, but for Beck to make the leap that all families should consider homeschooling their children was/is  an overreaction to this one isolated incident.

But public schools get beat down routinely on talk radio programs.  Hannity constantly bashes on Public Schools.  Limbaugh does as well.

And the Problem is this-lots of people believe every word these talk show (entertainment) hosts spew.

I'm the first to admit pubic schools have issues--and reform is desperately needed.  But I'm a believer in Public Education and I strongly support public schools and I know if public education is ever eliminated our country's very future would be seriously in jeopardy.

We need to fix our schools, make them more efficient, and get back to the basics or people like Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh will be proven right in the end.

Our Country cannot afford for this to happen.

Florida Class Size Compliance Penalty--Out Comes the Hammer!

Some agreed with the 2002 Class Size Amendment, others fought against it.  We all know it passed and the final phase of compliance comes up beginning this fall.  Florida has spent more than $16 Billion dollars in the last eight years to make compliance possible.

Taxpayers want to see districts comply with the law.  The law is the law-regardless of what our personal opinions may be.

Districts are required to be in compliance come the first day of classes this fall--those that are not will be penalized.  I have heard that many districts will in fact meet the requirement--perhaps as many as 50% of the districts.

Others I have spoken with guess that it will be just a handful of districts. 

Some say no districts will comply.  Who knows what will happen?

I am hopeful Escambia County will be in compliance.  We have spent our class size categorical dollars wisely, we are told, and so the test comes in September.  This item will be discussed in detail at the next school board workshop meeting in May.

Initially, the "count"  for district compliance was not to occur until February 2011.  Then the veto of SB6 happened, and the date for the "count" moved ahead. (coincidence?)

The legislature changed this timeline in the last days of the session, and the student "count" will now be done in October.  Districts will not be able to glide through to the holidays, hoping that the voters will pass the ballot measure to ease class size.

As it stands now, districts will have to start the year in compliance or face a financial penalty.

The ballot initiative to ease class size is widely expected to fail in November;  getting 60% of the electorate to agree with the rationale will be difficult-especially with the statewide teacher's union staunchly opposed to any deviation from the classroom level "hard count".

Parents and the voters who approved the initial class size mandate like small classes, and they will rail against passage of the amendment.   The union will put the full-court press on to defeat the initiative.  NSBA and others will attempt to support (weakly)-- the passage of the ballot measure--so, my prediction-- initiative fails.

Class size reduction compliance will be determined in the October F.T.E. student count and will be measured against the current Constitutional requirement


1. Districts that fail to comply will lose the applicable value of the class size reduction categorical and 50% of the B.S.A. (Base Student Allocation) times the district D.C.D. (District Cost ifferential--.949)for each out of compliance full time equivalent student.

2. Funds from the penalty will be redistributed to school districts. First, districts in compliance will receive an adjustment based on the number of students in the district and the base student allocation up to an amount equal to five percent of the districts base F.E.F.P. allocation.

3. If there are funds available after this distribution the balance of the funds will be redistributed back to the districts that are out of compliance contingent upon the district submitting a detailed plan to come into compliance. No more than 25% of the penalty funds can be distributed to in compliance districts, therefore out of compliance district will have from 75% - 100% of their funds returned. Current projections using 2009-2010 student data and 2010-2011 class size reduction requirements show no districts in compliance. That would mean 100% of the district funds would be returned to the out of compliance districts.

4. If the Constitutional amendment passes, the compliance penalty remains the same, and is applied to the new requirement.


The next few months will be economically painful.

Student of the Year 2010

One of the events I most look forward to attending every year is the "Student of the Year" award ceremony.

This year, the event was held at 6PM on Thursday, April, 22nd at N.B. Cook Elementary School of the arts.

Dozens of students were recognized for outstanding achievements despite tremendous personal obstacles.

These students are not necessarily the ones with the highest Grade Point Averages or the ones who are the most popular--but these are the students who have done the most and achieved the most with all of their hardships/ circumstances taken into account.

Some of the issues faced by these students include the following:

Brain Cancer, loss of parent (s), death of siblings, tremendous physical handicap, autism, learning disability, and physical deformity.

Seeing what these children have been able to overcome should give us pause to be thankful for the blessings we all have in our own lives.

I am extremely thankful to the sponsors of this event:

Escambia County Council of PTAs and PTSAs

Baptist Hospital

Escambia County Public Schools Foundation

Stone's Studio

Winn Dixie

Publix

Plant and Flower Boutique

EPEA Kickball Tournament Part II

The first ever EPEA kickball tournament was concluded this past weekend--and the Grand Champion was  FERRY PASS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.

Our team, The Beulah wildcats, made it to the final four before being eliminated by a score of 12-4 by the eventual champs Ferry Pass.

I must say that my legs were a wreck the day after this tournament ended, and I think I strained some muscles in my back and side that I've not used before--I'm on Tylenol PM for the next few days!

I'm already looking forward to next years event-hopefully I'll be invited to play even though I dropped a couple of fly balls in the outfield!

Congratulations to EPEA for a great fundraiser that was tons of fun to participate in.

The completed bracket can be seen here

Escambia Physical Education Association (EPEA) Kick-Ball Tournament Part 1

The Escambia Physical Education Association is in the midst of their first ever 2 day kick-ball tournament fundraiser this weekend at Exchange Park in Pensacola.

The single elimination event began yesterday, with 25 teams from schools and administrative facilities competing for the first place trophy.

This fundraising tournament, which has already raised over $2,000.00 for the EPEA, is an opportunity form many teachers and staff members to have a blast playing a game that many of us have not played for 30+ years.

In round one action, Beulah (our team) demolished Navy Point by a score of 16-3-advancing to second round play this afternoon at 3PM.

About EPEA:

The Escambia Physical Education Association is an organization of physical education teachers and worksite wellness coordinators committed to the development and promotion of quality school physical education and wellness programs in Escambia County. The Association works in cooperation with the School District of Escambia County and many local agencies and organizations.