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As the Florida Department of Education seeks proposals from textbook companies to provide social-studies materials to schools, it is making clear concepts such as critical race theory and social justice should not be included. The department is accepting bids from companies through June 10 to provide social-studies books for a five-year period starting in 2023. The department posted to its website a 29-page document that lists detailed criteria for what is expected to be included in the books and, revealingly, what’s expected to be left out. The criteria emphasize a requirement that all materials align with Florida's “Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking” standards, which were adopted by the state in 2019.

 

Action News JAX

 

About 44% of adolescents experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the pandemic, according to a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared with 37% in 2019. Recognizing this, districts across the country are using federal COVID relief aid to bring mental health professionals into schools and to expand social-emotional learning. This also creates the challenge of how to sustain new school staff positions when the funding expires at the end of 2024. Medicaid, the federal-state partnership that provides health care for millions of public school students, could be part of the solution, as long as states take the necessary steps to use it and federal agencies back them up. Currently, 16 states — Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — have expanded their programs to allow qualified school providers to bill for covered behavioral health services for Medicaid-enrolled students beyond those with IEPs, according to the Healthy Schools Campaign.

 

The 74

The Miami Dade School Board has approved a slew of administrative and high-ranking roles within the district, including a six-figure administrative position for Superintendent Jose Dotres' wife. Maribel Bruscantini Dotres, a longtime principal at Palm Springs North Elementary in Hialeah before leaving to work as an administrator with Collier County Public Schools in 2021, will step up as the administrative director of professional development and evaluation on an expected salary of between $101,335 and $154,000. In total, the board filled or created 35 positions. Among the new hires will be a new student and families' enrollment officer, who will work to “develop and implement a strategic and innovative student recruitment plan” to offset the decrease in student enrollment, and a new sustainability officer, who will oversee policies related to the district's energy use, conservation, pollution reduction and waste elimination.

 

The Miami Herald

The School Board of Lee County has censured one of its own, ahead of a whistleblower complaint investigation. The board voted 5 to 2 to censure Board Member Chris Patricca until the complaint can be investigated and completed. The board did not go into the details of the complaint, which has not been made public. Board member Melisa Giovannelli, who did not approve of the measure, commented: “We have a duty to protect and make employees comfortable including staff out in the district. The board should be leading by example and not any retaliation on them for doing their job. We would save taxpayers money by not investigating and Chris Patricca resigning.”

 

Lehigh Acres Citizen

Improved coordination and more comprehensive efforts among schools, governments, community organizations and court systems are needed to keep youth out of the juvenile justice system and respond to those who do become involved, lawmakers and panelists agreed during a  House Civil Rights and Human Services Subcommittee hearing this week. Several lawmakers and witnesses also suggested youth be incarcerated only when they are violent or dangerous. “Preventing youth from ending up in detention is imperative,” said Ranking Subcommittee Chair Russ Fulcher, a Republican from Idaho. Panelists also spoke about the value of connecting youth in the juvenile justice system with arts, extracurricular activities, and career and technical education. Involvement in those activities can help build self-confidence, expose youth to pro-social engagements, and help them gain skills needed to get jobs, they said. 

 

K-12 Dive

A National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) review of more than 1,100 teacher-preparation programs that was released this week found that they are devoting more time to math coursework. Undergraduate programs that prepare aspiring elementary teachers now require an average of 19% more time for elementary math coursework than they did in 2014. However, the Washington-based think tank argues that more needs to be done. The NCTQ recommends that programs spend a minimum of 45 instructional hours on math pedagogy and 105 instructional hours on math content but notes that, on average, undergraduate teacher-prep programs dedicate 49 hours to elementary math pedagogy and 85 hours to elementary math content. About a fifth of undergraduate programs earned an ‘F’ grade in NCTQ’s review for providing less than 60% of the recommended mathematics coursework. Graduate programs fared even worse, as 85% of those programs earned an ‘F’ and just 2% earned an ‘A’ or an ‘A+.’ “We need to recognize that teaching math at the elementary level is a complex enterprise,” said NCTQ president Heather Peske.

 

Education Week

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has doubled down on his support of a new home loan assistance program that would make homeownership more accessible to teachers, first responders, including law enforcement officers, firefighters, EMTs and paramedics, by eliminating barriers like down payments and monthly mortgage insurance premiums. “First responders and teachers work tirelessly to serve our communities, and they have faced incredibly difficult circumstances over the past two years,” Rubio says. “As housing prices continue to skyrocket, our bill would help ensure that teachers and first responders can own a home in the communities they dutifully serve.”

 

Florida Daily

More than half of U.S. adults said they believe states should be "required" to offer K-12 education to all children regardless of their citizenship or immigration status, according to a new YouGov poll. The federal government currently provides all students with the right to get a public education, regardless of their legal status. But Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who is running for re-election, recently said he would support challenging Plyler v. Doe, the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision that blocks states from withholding the money needed to provide that education for all. Of the 6,600 U.S. adults surveyed, 56% of respondents said states should "be required to provide K-12 public education to all children, regardless of the legality of their immigration status," and 17% said they were unsure. The remaining 27% of respondents said they did not believe states should have to provide access to public education for all.

 

Newsweek