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Bills of importance to nonpublic education in Florida moving along.
May 5th Update:
FHSAA Transfer Issue: The Senate has passed the FHSAA Task Force bill by substituting the House bill H 7119 for the Senate bill. In so doing the bill should move to the Governor for signature after it is put in proper form and the House concurs. In passage of the legislation, the Amendment passed in January by the FHSAA Board will be held in abeyance for a year until the completion of the work of the Task Force.
Scholarship Accountability Bill: The comprehensive voucher/scholarship accountability bill S 256 by King was passed and sent to the House for final passage. The companion bill is on the House Calendar and ready for reception in messages. King's language on "random site visits" by the DOE stayed in the bill. Of concern is the nature of the random site visits. (See page 2) S 2017 Constitutional Amendment:
All eyes are on the Governor and the Senate leadership to see if they can obtain the 24 votes needed for this initiative. Thanks to all of you who made your phone calls and sent your email messages to the senators. This is after the rare move on Wednesday when the Senate agreed to again take up this issue after failing by one vote to pass it on Tuesdsay. In a terse statement, Bush said it was wrong that voters would not get to decide the fate of voucher programs.
In a terse statement, Governor Bush said, ''It is unfortunate that today individual Florida senators turned their backs on the 16,812 McKay Scholarship students, the 14,084 Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship students, the 740 Opportunity Scholarship students, and the many others in voluntary pre-kindergarten and college assistance programs that needed them,'' Bush said. ``I am disappointed that the citizens of Florida were not given an opportunity to be heard.''
Challenges Awaited: It seems apparent to most observers that the ACLU and the Teachers Union will go to court to attempt to stop all state funds from going to religions schools who are participating in any of the scholarship programs.
Annual Survey Form Comments Requested: Virginia Gentles, director of the Office for School Choice and Independent Education has asked FAANS to review the existing Annual Survey on the FLDOE>Office for School Choice web site. Her desire is to use input from the nonpublic schools in modifying the Survey for 2006-2007.
One change will be to carefully call attention to the difference between being a member of an association and being an ACCREDITED member of an association. They will also carefully designate the known existing accrediting associations in a pull down menu to avoid the numerous illegible responses and the agencies listed that no one has ever heard of.
New Web Site for Office for School Choice: http://www.floridaschoolchoice.org A newsletter from the Office for School Choice was sent out May 5th to all stakeholders. The information hotline is 1-800-447- 1636.
Assistance from FAANS Directors Requested to Address Screening Students in VPK: Shan Goff has requested FAANS to assist her office in determining how to do the screening of VPK children in nonpublic schools.