2003 Legislative Report

Legislative Report 2003
By Bob Cerra, FASSW Information Specialist
July 15, 2003

While it seems that a "final" 2003 Legislative Report may never be possible as the stream of special sessions supposedly limited to one or two issues continue to produce additional education reform bills, I will try to sum up how the 2003 Legislature has responded to the FASSW platform over the course of the first six months of the year.

When looking solely at the proactive FASSW Platform, the 2003 Legislative Sessions might be viewed as a landmark year for positive movement on the issues important to our members. Significant bills that almost word for word reflected FASSW’s positions on Enhancing Family Involvement, School Safety and Discipline, and School Reform and Improvement were passed and have become law during 2003. In addition, a major bill that would have been opposed based upon our statement on Maximizing Equity was resoundingly rejected as it failed to even get a committee hearing.

Enhancing Family Involvement

"FASSW supports all efforts to expand linkages between families, schools and local communities in order to improve parental involvement, student attendance and academic performance."

During the Regular Session, Senator Constantine (R-Altamonte Springs) sponsored SB 1522 that created the Family and School Partnership for Student Achievement Act. The primary requirements for the bill are that school districts and schools will produce a detailed parent guide for every parent in the district with a wealth of information about options, opportunities, policies and responsibilities available to the student and parent. The DOE will create a checklist of information that must be included in each guide. The bill also adds a requirement that the student’s report card include information to the parent as to whether the student is performing or not performing on grade level.

School Safety and Discipline

"FASSW strongly promotes early intervention initiatives that increase learning, reduce violence and promote safety at school."

During the Special Session "A," provisions of the Class Size Reduction Bill (SB 30-A) relate to protecting the teacher’s right to remove disruptive students while still protecting the student’s rights to ultimately receiving a proper placement. The crux of the issue is that while Florida law has supported the right for a teacher to send students to the principals office for being disruptive or creating a dangerous situation for over six years now, many teachers felt pressure from administrators not to exercise this authority. The language in the bill requires principals, superintendents, school board members and parents to respect and support the right for a teacher to remove a disruptive child. If the teacher believes that ultimately replacing a removed student back into his/her classroom is inappropriate, a student placement committee would be formed at the school to consider where to place the student, as is currently the practice. The bill also added an appeal for a teacher to the superintendent if the student placement committee decides to place the student back in the original classroom.

School Reform and Improvement

"While we support many worthwhile attempts to reform and improve our schools, FASSW opposes the use of the FCAT as the primary source for evaluating and monitoring student achievement. We are strongly against the practice by some schools of using this exam only to make decisions about a student’s promotion."

Two major bills passed in 2003 that reflect 100% of the FASSW position on school improvement and reform. Specifically, without weakening the school accountability system, the bills recognize that the EXCLUSIVE use of the FCAT to determine whether or not a student obtains a diploma is not the appropriate policy for the State. Representative Bev Kilmer (R-Marianna) sponsored HB 1739. That bill allows certain disabled students who obtain all of the coursework requirement for graduation and the GPA requirements for graduation to receive a standard diploma if the student’s IEP recognizes that the FCAT is not a good test for measuring the student’s abilities because of the student’s specific disabilities. During the Special Session "B," the Legislature also passed HB 23-B that allows certain other test scores to substitute for the 10th Grade FCAT, during the 2002-2003 school year only, allowing additional students to receive a standard diploma. During the summer and fall, the Legislature will research whether this provision should be extended for future school years and/or whether it should be expanded in terms of additional tests.

In fact, the Senate has pledged that everything relating to the FCAT and all of its current uses will be analyzed during the interim between regular sessions. Of course, if we continue the current string of special sessions there might not ever be much of an interim this year.

Maximizing Equity

"FASSW opposes any legislative action, state proposition or administrative rule that denies or limits health, social services, housing, educational or employment opportunities to any individual."

This was really the only FASSW position that was posed in the negative. We worked extremely hard to remain positive in all of the positions that we staked out for 2003. Early in the Regular Session, a bill was filed that created a tremendous concern for FASSW because of how clearly it violated the principles of this policy statement. SB 178 by Senator Cowin (R-Leesburg) would have limited community residential homes from being located within 500 feet of an existing single-family home. For all intents and purposes, this would have eliminated any of these facilities from being located in residential neighborhoods. Dozens of interest groups that advocate for the rights of disabled adults and children mobilized to insure that the bill would not even be heard in a committee this year.

Concerns from 2003

While many of our proactive positions from the Platform were positively addressed by the 2003 Legislature, some concerns still remain. Primary among these is the BEST Program which was passed by the 2003 Legislature but which will not be effective until the 2004-2005 school year. This program creates a career ladder for classroom teachers only. It provides significant bonuses for classroom teachers who achieve the requirements of the "ladder." But by limiting the program to classroom teachers only, school social workers will not be eligible for the bonuses. The early analysis of the program suggests that it would cost over $300 million to implement. With the State’s funding in short supply, it is unlikely that significant funds for pay raises or bonuses out side this program would be likely after the State budgets next year for this program, class size reduction, universal pre-K for all 4-year-olds, the bullet train, the court system, etc. We are not opposed to a career ladder as a way to generate additional performance from the professionals that teach our students; however, we cannot understand why the State believes that it needs to improve performance out of some professionals at the expense of other professionals who are also dedicated to the success of every student. Expanding this program in 2004-2005 to include all instructional personnel will be a difficult challenge, but it is one that FASSW is poised to face.

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