Short of banning school officials from paddling or hitting kids, the proposal from Palm Beach Democrat Rep. Katherine Waldron would require schools that use corporal punishment to get permission to do so from parents at the beginning of the school year.

Principals would be barred from hitting kids whose parents don’t opt in or fill out a permission slip. The bill gained unanimous approval in its first committee stop. The identical Senate version has not been heard.

“Many people probably did think that it was already banned. I didn’t know it was a district-by-district thing. … I can tell you that if it were me and my kid came home and told me that they mouthed off to the teacher and as a result of mouthing off to the teacher some principal took a piece of wood to them; Me and that principal would have issues,” said Democratic Rep. Christopher Benjamin of Miami-Dade County. “This bill doesn’t go far enough. It should be outright banned.”

The measure also bans using physical force on students with students with disabilities and homeless students. Charter schools, which are public schools in Florida, would have to comply with corporal punishment restrictions.

Florida isn’t alone in the use of corporal punishments against students. While the practice is most common in southern states, only 27 states have , according to the latest analysis from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.

Over the past decade, school districts have lessened their use of corporal punishment, but that doesn’t mean it’s uncommon. In the previous school year, 18 districts reported 509 instances in which officials used physical force to discipline students, according to the Florida Department of Education. When and how the students can be hit is largely left up to principals. Only principals, not teachers, would be allowed to hit the kids under the proposal.

Reported instances of corporal punishment are concentrated in northern Florida counties such as Suwannee, Holmes, Columbia and Calhoun.

‘Capricious and arbitrary treatment’

Although the bill garnered bipartisan support, some House Republicans in the Education Quality Subcommittee said they disfavored a restriction against corporal punishment for students with individual education plans, which demonstrate that a student has different needs or could have a disability. Pasco Rep. Brad Yeager said his son had an IEP but that it didn’t affect his behavior. He also asked if Waldron would consider changing the bill so that parents have to indicate they don’t want principals to paddle their kids.

Waldron said the IEP provision protects students with disabilities who may not be able to control their behavior. In the 2020-2021 school year, school officials reported hitting 200 students with disabilities, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

The line of questioning from Marion Republican Rep. Ryan Chamberlin about whether misbehavior had gone up in counties that didn’t use corporal punishment irked fellow Republican Rep. Mike Beltran of Hillsborough and Manatee. Beltran is one of the GOP sponsors of the bill.

“The subtext to some of the questioning was that somehow we were being lenient, or excessively lenient to children, or that there was some problem in society that arose today that we need to preserve, or expand, or continue to use corporal punishment. I haven’t been lenient at all,” Beltran said.

He also said that corporal punishment should be banned completely. The Legislature attempted to do so not too long ago. In 2019, then Sen. Annettee Taddeo sponsored a bill .

He continued: “I could get sentenced by a judge, and they’re still not going to paddle me. Yet some principal and some teacher, basically, can decide to discipline the child. It makes absolutely no sense. It’s completely susceptible to capricious and arbitrary treatment.”

Chamberlin responded that he asked those questions because he was curious about Florida’s use of corporal punishment.

“It’s not about necessarily personal preference. It’s understanding what’s in the best interest of the children and how they can grow and learn,” he said.

Waldron gave credit to a group of University of Florida students who pushed lawmakers to take up the issue.

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Noting the “escalating waves of hostile actions and legislation coming out of Florida,” the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) is ditching its scheduled annual conference at the Hyatt Regency Miami later this year and instead will hold it in Chicago.

In a letter sent to ACSP educators, researchers, and students posted on Friday, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, the ACSP president, said the group had made “this difficult decision” to move their convention to stay in alignment with the ACSP’s values statement.

The organization is a consortium of more than 100 university departments and programs offering planning degrees.

“Despite myriad assurances from the Florida hospitality industry, members of all ACSP interest groups expressed significant concerns regarding travel to Florida,” Ramasubramanian wrote.

“While no place can be 100% safe, Florida this fall did not feel like the best place to gather for our annual conference. As with the state of Florida, other states curtail what can and cannot be taught in high school and college classrooms. Planning educators have a lot of issues we should be concerned about, including how we prepare future planners to work in environments hostile to the ideals and principles of planning.”

Organizations representing Black, Hispanic, and LGBTQ+ communities in Florida have in recent months, citing “open hostility” to those groups manifested in laws passed during the recent legislative session, as noted by Ramasubramanian in a  sent out to members last month.

In another letter dated May 26, Ramasubramanian  that, “Like you, I have been following the escalating waves of hostile actions and legislation coming out of Florida but also other states that are following a political playbook. It is disheartening, painful and it makes me angry. As president of ACSP, I write today to acknowledge the anxieties, hurt, and anger that you may be feeling and experiencing.”

‘Anti-humanitarian legislation’

The Orlando Sentinel  last week that a number of conferences slated to be held later this year or in future years in Orange County have been moved or cancelled due to the political environment in Florida, including a convention for Game of Thrones fans, with ” organizers citing the “increasingly anti-humanitarian legislation in the state.”

No such cancellations have happened yet in the Tampa Bay area, according to officials.

“The Tampa Convention Center is fortunate to have not experienced any contracted client cancellations due to political climate,” says Kirstin Albert, communications coordinator for the facility. “Tampa is a welcoming and diverse city, and we are proud to be a part of that atmosphere.”

A spokesperson for Visit Tampa Bay, the tourism marketing organization for Tampa and Hillsborough County, told the Phoenix that it has not experienced any conventions pulling out of the area, either.

A spokesperson for ACSP anticipated about 1,200 conference attendees who will now make the trip to the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago in October.

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In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which parents and educators reevaluated their relationship with public schools, lawmakers across the country have eagerly embraced state-funded voucher programs, giving public money to students to attend private schools.

So far this year, at least 10 states have implemented or expanded programs for vouchers and other state private education subsidies, according to��, an education-focused website. The states are: Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah, along with a pilot program in Tennessee.

But in North Dakota, the Republican governor vetoed such a plan, and bills failed in California, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Texas and Virginia.

There are currently voucher and similar programs in 32 states and the District of Columbia, according to EdChoice, a free-market organization that promotes public money for private education. Voucher programs often are characterized in state legislation as “scholarship programs,” but whatever the name, the policies result in a transfer of public money to private institutions. Some even subsidize home-schooling.

Some states are establishing what they call “education savings accounts.” The state puts money in such accounts for every student under 18, allowing parents to spend it on public, private, religious or home-schooling costs.

Some programs have seen extensive growth: Indiana’s private school voucher program����in the past school year, its largest boost in a decade. And in Arizona, a voucher program projected to cost $65 million in the coming school year����at more than $900 million because of an expected spike in applicants.

Some of the Republicans pushing the programs claim broad public support for them. But recent polls suggest that people’s opinions shift depending on the specific details of the program, the phrasing of the questions and who is asking them.

Polls funded by pro-voucher advocacy groups or state Republican parties show the public in many states favoring them. Polls commissioned by��Democratic-leaning��teachers unions often show the public opposed.

Meanwhile, a Reuters/Ipsos poll����found that 36% of respondents supported vouchers and 51% opposed them when they were asked if they supported “[l]aws allowing government money to send students to private and religious schools, even if it reduces money for public schools.”

“It’s going to continue to be a real focus in the legislative process in a lot of places for some time to come,” said Norín Dollard, senior policy analyst at the Florida Policy Institute, a progressive think tank that opposes vouchers.

Several Republican-dominated states pushed ahead with voucher programs this year.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running for president, signed a bill in March establishing a voucher program for any family, regardless of income. The allocation per student is expected to be about $8,000 a year — more than some private schools were charging for annual tuition.

As a result, some private schools raised their prices. At least one Catholic school, after deciding to raise tuition, reversed course in the face of parents’ objections when the��Tampa Bay Times����the decision. The newspaper reported some other schools are sticking with the decision to raise tuition, but did not name them.

Dollard said she did not know which schools in Florida were moving forward with plans to increase their rates.

But she said in a phone interview that her group would continue to oppose the voucher system because,��she argues,��many schools in Florida��don’t have enough money now. According to one recent analysis, Florida����among the states in per-pupil spending.

“If those schools had been properly funded to begin with, we might not be in the situation where students are inclined to leave public schools,” she said. “Public schools serve the public good.”

An annual Gallup poll on education trends����55% of respondents last year were unhappy with��K-12��education in the United States, up from 48% in 2020.

Robert Enlow, president��of EdChoice,��said the organization thinks it’s “fair and more equitable for money to follow families than to have the money follow one type of school. [Families] shouldn’t have to pay twice, once in taxes and once in tuition. Why is that fair?”

In Iowa, more than 17,500 parents already have applied to join the state’s new education savings accounts, thousands more than state officials had budgeted for,����to the��Des Moines Register. Families have until the end of June to sign up; it’s unclear how the state will fund all the applicants.

Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds’ success in pushing the school choice program through the legislature came arguably as a result of her work last fall to elect new, pro-voucher Republican lawmakers after a voucher bill had previously failed. As was the case in Florida, several private religious schools in Iowa����after the measure there passed.

In Utah, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox in January signed into law a measure that will spend $42 million to set up a statewide universal voucher program. The law gives out $8,000 per student to pay private school tuition. The state’s largest teachers union, the Utah Education Association, said it would challenge the law in court.

Most of the efforts to set up or expand voucher programs have come in conservative-led states. But some supporters are liberal groups representing underserved communities who are fed up with low-performing public schools.

In Maryland, Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat and the state’s first Black governor, faced a barrage of criticism earlier this year when he called for cutting back the state’s small voucher program for some underprivileged kids. Some of the criticism came from liberal Black organizations in Baltimore upset over decades of public school deficiencies in the city and parents who wanted their kids to be afforded something different.

Writing in the��Baltimore Afro-American, Ralph E. Moore Jr., a longtime Baltimore educator and activist, supported students and others who descended on Annapolis to protest the governor’s proposal.

“Wouldn’t it be fair to continue to let some low-income children have an otherwise unreachable private school experience?” he wrote. “And even though private educational institutions do not pay state (property or sales) taxes, their operations reduce the number of children that state government would be responsible for educating by federal and state law.”

Rather than cut the program by��$2 million as��Gov. Moore��proposed, the Maryland legislature, in a compromise, added $1 million back as part of the state’s budget.

Despite the defeat, Gov. Moore is not giving up on his plan to cut back on the program.

“I still believe that public funding should go to public education,” he said in an email to��Stateline. “I respect the General Assembly’s position on providing more funding for the program in the FY23 budget.”

American Federation of Teachers-Maryland President Kenya Campbell, in an email to��Stateline, supported the governor’s efforts, calling the voucher program, known as BOOST, “unproven, discriminatory and wasteful.”

This story was published earlier by Stateline, a partner of the nonprofit States Newsroom network, which includes the Florida Phoenix.

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GOP lawmakers say that partisan school boards would provide greater transparency for voters, but Democrats and other critics argue that nonpartisan boards should serve all families in Florida’s massive education system, .

The voters would be the ones to make the decision — through a Constitutional amendment on the ballot — if proposed legislation is successful in the 2023 session.

The legislation, SJR 94, is now heading to the full Senate for consideration. The state House has already approved the measure.

Florida voters would determine if the races for non-partisan district school board members should instead be partisan affairs, potentially teeing up for partisan politics in 67 school districts across the state.

The bill would be presented as a constitutional amendment on the ballot of the next general election or at an earlier special election to make school boards races partisan and signify whether a candidate is a Democrat, a Republican, a different party all together, or even not affiliated with a party.

The legislation finished its final committee stop Tuesday morning during the Senate Rules committee after very little discussion from the lawmakers, though some Democrats voted against the bill.

Sen. Joe Gruters, a Republican representing parts of Manatee and Sarasota counties, is a sponsor of the bill. He argues that the partisan school board elections would provide greater transparency for voters. He was formerly the chair of the Republican Party of Florida and argues that “all these elections are partisan.”

“You can say I’m an expert in partisan politics because I was the chairman of the state party and longtime chairman of my local party,” Gruters told lawmakers Tuesday. “And, I want to say, all these races are partisan now. What we’re doing is we’re pulling the bag off of people’s heads, allowing people to have full knowledge of where people stand.”

While those Democrats who opposed the bill did not discuss their opposition on Tuesday, previous opposition on the legislation argued that school board elections should remain nonpartisan.

Another concern with the bill involves No Party Affiliate voters who would be cut out from part of the election process of school board candidates, as Florida is a closed primary state.

Meanwhile, the House version of the bill has already been approved by the full House on a 79 to 34 vote, with Democrats in opposition of the legislation. Both the House and Senate will have to approve the same legislation before it goes to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

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As Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to chastise the century-old College Board and its related programs — from honors-level Advanced Placement courses to college entrance exams — eliminating those activities could create a dramatically different school experience for Florida high schoolers.

In just 2022, nearly 200,000 students in Florida took the college entrance exam called the SAT, and tens of thousands of high school students have participated in Advanced Placement courses that could lead to earning college credits ahead of schedule.

If those programs are eliminated in Florida public high schools, it’s not clear how families would react if DeSantis makes changes. The debacle arose last month over an AP African American studies course that has become a national controversy.

DeSantis reiterated his skepticism of the College Board at a press conference Tuesday while responding to�� media questions. He said that high school students should still be able to earn college credits, but the Florida Legislature may look into other vendors.

“Are there other people that provide services? Turns out there are. IB courses, they’re actually more rigorous than AP, and the colleges accept it. You have the Cambridge, which is also more rigorous,” DeSantis claimed at the press conference in Jacksonville. He did not provide any data or metric for comparisons.

DeSantis is referring to International Baccalaureate (also known as the IB program) and the Cambridge�� Assessment. He did not provide information about those other two programs.

In addition, Florida also offers what’s called dual-enrollment courses, which allow high school students to take a college-level course at their own schools or at a community college.

It’s not clear how well any of these programs would serve as a replacement for AP courses.

DeSantis continued: “So, Florida students are going to have that ability (to earn college credit). That is not going to be diminished. In fact, we’re going to continue to expand it. But it’s not clear to me that this particular operator is the one that’s going to need to be used in the future.

“So college credit: yes. Having that available to everyone: absolutely. Does it have to be done by the College Board? Or, can we utilize some of these other providers — who I think have a really, really strong track record. So I don’t think anyone should be concerned about, somehow, our high schoolers not having opportunities for that. They absolutely will. I just think it’s a matter of what’s the best way to do it,” DeSantis said.

Currently, not every student takes AP classes in public high schools. And not every school provides an IB or Cambridge program.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued a statement Tuesday after DeSantis threatened Florida students and families with the elimination of all Advanced Placement classes:

“AP classes have become an avenue for American students to get a head start to college. They provide enrichment and rigor and engage the curiosity and ambition of the young scholars who choose to enroll. Threatening to ban all AP courses because the governor is in a political spat with the College Board is the behavior of a bully, not a statesman. Gov. DeSantis has chosen to put his political ambitions over the aspirations of Florida’s students—ironically, in the same state that, to date, has incentivized educators to teach AP.

“The alternatives floated by DeSantis—the International Baccalaureate and Cambridge Assessment— don’t provide the same breadth of course offerings and are not widely accepted by other colleges and universities. As a former AP government teacher, I would hope he would stop these threats and uphold his duty to help children, not ransom their hopes and dreams for a better life.”

The rift between the DeSantis administration and the College Board started over a new AP African American studies course. The Florida Department of Education rejected the course, according to a letter sent to the College Board in mid-January, causing a nationwide outcry and concerns that the move diminishes the importance of Black history and Black culture.

“As presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value,” the Jan. 12 letter said.

The College Board has since pushed back against the department’s comments on the African American studies course, calling it “slander” in a

Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Shevrin Jones Wednesday morning and a press conference about the governor’s comments regarding AP African American studies. Jones represents part of Miami-Dade County.

He was joined by civil rights activist Al Sharpton, a handful of religious leaders, students and parents to discuss the DeSantis’s administration rejection of the AP course.

Here is some data for readers, which was not included during DeSantis’s press conference.

As to Advanced Placement courses:

According to a College Board report from April 2022 on data from the year prior, there were 2,548,228 students who took at least one AP exam in 2021 across the United States. Because many students take multiple AP courses at a time, the College Board reports that there were 4.5 million AP exams taken in 2021 in a variety of course options.

In terms of the SAT college entrance exam:

In 2022, there were 190,427 Florida students who took the SAT, according to data from the College Board.

The data refers to what the College Board calls “readiness benchmarks” which means a “section score associated with a 75% chance of earning at least a C in first-semester, credit-bearing, college-level courses” in either math or English and writing courses.

In Florida, only 31 percent of students who took the SAT in 2022 met the benchmark score for the math portion of the exam and 59 percent met the benchmark for the Reading and Writing portion.

But compare that to the 1.7 million students who took the SAT nationally in 2022. Of the 1.7 million, 45 percent of students met the math benchmark score, and 65 percent met the benchmark score for the Reading and Writing portion.

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Gov. Ron DeSantis has touted a plan to earmark $1 billion towards raising public school teacher pay, calling it a “big win” for Florida’s teachers. But a statewide teacher union was skeptical about the amount of the pay hike — $200-million across school districts — which may not help the lives of struggling teachers.

The other $800 million would focus on funds for previous pay raises, primarily for teacher starting pay.

Even so, Florida continues to have one of the lowest average teacher salaries in the nation.

DeSantis quickly discussed the teacher proposal during a Wednesday press conference in the Capitol in Tallahassee, where the governor was discussing a proposal for a state budget in 2023-24.

The governor’s budget is a starting point on the proposals. Lawmakers are the ones who will craft the 2023-24 state budget during the spring legislative session. The governor approves the budget and can veto items in that budget.

The governor’s proposed budget adds an additional $200 million to last year’s efforts. According to the governor’s proposed budget: “one hundred percent of the $200,000,00 in additional funding…for the teacher salary increase allocation shall be used by school districts to increase the salary eligible classroom teachers and other instructional personnel.”

Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association said in a written statement following the press conference, is skeptical about how effective those funds will be.

“While the governor touts $1 billion for teacher pay and blames teachers for their own low salaries, the actual increase in his budget is $200 million, which would work out to be less than $20 per week for each teacher in our public schools,” Spar said in the written statement. “That’s not going to do much to move the needle, given that Florida ranks 48th in the nation for average teacher pay. Pay in the third-largest state can and should rank in the top 10 nationally.”

Spar added that the increase is going to do little to address the financial needs of Florida’s teachers, including rent, homeowners insurance and healthcare costs.

At the Wednesday press conference, DeSantis was asked by reporters whether his efforts to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion offices would be reflected in his proposed budget. DeSantis said that it would be dealt with within legislation.

“There’ll be a statute that the legislature will pass, that will basically abolish, you know, those offices,” he responded.

“We don’t dictate whatever university spend on certain things like, I don’t agree with with with everything, but we don’t micromanage every little thing. But there are certain things where you can say ‘Okay, here’s a red line. you’re not allowed to go there’ and that’s something they’ll have to respect,” DeSantis added.

He also had few details on how his proposed budget would incorporate a massive expansion on who can apply for a so-called “voucher” for students to attend private schools on public dollars. A bill filed for the 2023 legislative session would open the door for any student, regardless of income, could apply, but there are little details on how that would work out in the state budget.

DeSantis didn’t provide much clarity to reporters either: “We didn’t necessarily factor the entire thing, I think we factored in some increases … but I’m supportive of school choice.”

“The money should follow the student. I think that that is a good approach,” he added.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on and .

Florida’s top education officials on Wednesday approved new training protocols for school librarians to consider “bias,” “indoctrination,” and “pornography” when vetting books and other materials in schools.

The training, in part, instructs media specialists to “err on the side of caution” when deciding whether a book is appropriate for school libraries.

This point speaks to a larger trend in limiting ideas students are exposed to in Florida public schools.

However, some conservative activists argued the rules do not go far enough in limiting content available in public school libraries and classrooms.

The state Board of Education approved the rules to implement a law passed during the 2022 legislative session, HB 1467, which critics believed would bring a wave of book bans in Florida classrooms.

One point in particular stirred dissent, even those who supported the new rule overall: language defining materials deemed “harmful to minors,” including depictions of nudity, sexual conduct, or sexual excitement.

The statute allows consideration for literary merit or other purposes, saying that to be “harmful to minors” the material must be “without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.” Conservative audience members argued that would allow books they find disagreeable or unduly graphic into classrooms.

“The language … has been used as a loophole not just here in Florida but all across the United States as a way to give permission for the harmful content to be in,” said Robert Goodman, the executive director of the Polk County Chapter of County Citizens Defending Freedom.

Many of the public commenters on hand Wednesday had connections to the group, a conservative organization that has played a major role in book challenges across the state.

The law requires new online training for “media specialists” who oversee school libraries, which the board approved during a meeting at the Nassau County School Board Office in Northeast Florida.

The training merges new and preexisting state rules involving instructional materials and library books, while offering “considerations” that media specialists should take into account when selecting books.

In addition to the age, grade level, and maturity of students, considerations should include “the accurate portrayal of the state’s broad racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural diversity, without bias or indoctrination,” according to officials who devised the protocols.

HB 1467, along with other laws like the Parental Rights in Education Act (known to critics as “Don’t Say Gay”) and Department of Education rules that ban works like The New York Times’ “The 1619 Project” have some educators and free speech groups concerned about a

Free-speech advocacy groups like PEN America have been tracking book challenges across the United States, ranking Florida No. 2 with the second highest number of book challenges and bans.

Here is a sampling of some of the most challenged book titles in Florida last school year, according to a Phoenix analysis of PEN America’s data:

“All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, a series of essays reflecting the life of the author, who is Black and nonbinary. The book has been challenged in seven Florida school districts.“Beloved” and “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, who died in 2019, have been challenged in seven  Florida counties. Morrison earned the Pulitzer Prize for “Beloved” in 1988.“Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult, which centers the events of a school shooting, was challenged or banned in seven counties.“The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, which depicts police violence against Black characters and focuses on race relations, has been challenged or banned in eight school districts.“Thirteen Reasons Why” by Jay Asher, which depicts the story of a high-school student’s suicide and was adapted into a Netflix TV show, has been banned or challenged in eight school districts.

‘Literary value’

April Morgan, a teacher aid at the private Christian school Calvary Chapel Academy, questioned inclusion of “literary value” as a consideration.

“The argument for some is that we cannot remove the questionable books because they contain literary value. I’d like to challenge that valuation of books, because not all literature is beneficial for students. The keyword is ‘beneficial,’” Morgan said.

“Educational value is not equal to literary value. Literature containing descriptive details of rape, abuse, trauma, et cetera does not bring value to 12- to 18-year-olds,” she continued.

The wave of criticism may have swayed members of the state board, but because the “literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors” language comes from statute, there was little the board could do.

“So, if this board agreed with the sentiment from many speakers today that that there is, for lack of a better word, a ‘loophole’ or that there could be better language … we don’t have the authority to do that,” board Chair Tom Grady said. “You’re telling me that this is straight from the statute, and any changes would have to be addressed by the [Florida] Legislature.”

Board member Grazie Christie asked whether the board could ask the Legislature whether that language could be “tightened up” to keep “pornographic materials out of our children’s library.”

Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. agreed that the language “certainly can be tweaked by the Legislature.”

With 2023 committee meetings underway leading to the 2023 legislative session starting in March, it’s possible the issue could be addressed then.

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After Hurricane Ian slammed against the Southwest coast of Florida, several school districts suspected that damage, flooding, power outages and other difficulties might mean students may never get back into their classrooms.

That was about five weeks ago. Now, school districts in Lee, Sarasota, DeSoto and Charlotte have slowly begun recovering from the impact of a Category 4 storm. Some schools have recovered faster, sending kids back to classes as early as Oct. 10.

But schools in other hard-hit areas struggled, going weeks without any instruction, constructing new teaching facilities, learning at home with virtual instruction and attending different schools while repairs continued.

Lee County

Some school buildings are not operational yet, but students are largely back in an in-person learning environment, according to Irma Lancaster, director of strategic communication for Lee County public schools.

“Students returned to a learning environment in phases during the week of October 17. The first group started on Monday, and by the end of the week on that Friday the 21st, all students were in a learning environment,” she said in an email to the Phoenix.

But with some of the damages to school buildings still being assessed, the Lee County school district had to get creative with how to get students back into a learning environment as quickly as possible.

For some students, that meant attending different campuses. And for others, that meant temporarily switching to remote learning.

“Students from Fort Myers Beach Elementary and the Sanibel School are currently attending the campus of San Carlos Park Elementary,” Lancaster explained. “Diplomat and Lexington Middle Schools needed additional remediation. Students were placed in virtual learning from Oct 21 to Oct 31. They returned to campus on Nov. 1.

She continued: “Students of Hector Cafferata (Jr. Elementary school) are currently split onto two campuses due to their building still undergoing significant remediation due to damages. K-2 students are at Hancock Creek Elementary, 3-5 are at Pelican (Elementary).”

That said, the district is working on building temporary school structures to bring the displaced students and staff onto one site, and the district will have a school board meeting to discuss those costs for the district.

Lancaster said that some individual families may not yet have returned to school “due to transferring out of the area, or perhaps storm related situations have prevented their families from returning.”

In order to make up for some of the lost school days due to the hurricane, the Florida Department of Education have approved a new calendar year for Lee County schools, which swaps out two early release days for full days and adds three hurricane make-up days including on Veteran’s Day.

Sarasota County

Sarasota school district was the first of the heavily impacted school district to have a tentative return to school schedule, with 32 of the closed schools reopening by Oct. 10, and 12 schools planning to reopen by Oct. 17.

While most of the schools were able to open by that projected timelines, two schools were delayed.

“Due in part to supply chain delays and other unforeseen circumstances, Cranberry Elementary School in North Port and Englewood Elementary School in Englewood had to reopen on Tuesday, October 18,” Kelsey Whealy, communications staffer with the Sarasota County school district, told the Phoenix in an email.

“All traditional public school students missed at least nine days of school, with those attending a school with a delayed reopening missing either 15 or 16 days.”

Unlike Lee County, students in Sarasota schools did not revert to remote learning,

“The district made learning resources available online for those able to utilize supplemental materials – much of the county was without power & internet for a significant amount of time after the hurricane hit,” she said.

She says that some school buildings still have structural damage, and that students and staff are only working in parts of the building that are safe for learning.

Whealy also noted that some in the community are still in recovery but that their traditional public schools are “have reported strong attendance numbers.”

The district website reports that the 2022-23 school calendar has not been changed as of now.

DeSoto County

Many schools in DeSoto were able to reopen by Oct. 17, according to their website. But two schools, DeSoto County High School and Nocatee Elementary Schools, were expected to reopen as late as between Oct. 24 and as late as Nov. 7.

But according to district updates, the elementary school was able to reopen by Oct. 18, and the high school reopened on Oct 26.

According to an update last week: “We are excited to confirm our high school will reopen on Wednesday, October 26! To bring students back sooner, part of our high school building will be blocked and off limits as repairs are finalized. Classrooms near the office, nurse’s station, and towards JROTC will be temporarily relocated to other classrooms in the high school.”

Charlotte County

According to a community update on Oct. 27, Charlotte County’s last closed building, Port Charlotte Middle School, was able to reopen on Nov. 1. That said, the district says there will be a temporary school structure built in any case.

“Port Charlotte Middle School staff and students will be returning to their normal classrooms initially. In the coming days the Port Charlotte Middle family will begin to see a temporary campus being constructed,” according to the Oct. 27 update. “Once completed, the staff and students will relocate into the temporary facility.  The staff and students will be housed in the temporary facility until PCMS is either permanently repaired or rebuilt.”

The Phoenix has reached out to the district for clarity on why students can return to the school building but still need a temporary structure and is awaiting response.

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