In February, the telehealth company , including clinicians who worked directly with students and families, leaving about 500 employees. 

The company lost one of its biggest customers, the Los Angeles County Office of Education, last year. It shortened its contract with the Chicago Public Schools because of “challenges securing funding,” a spokeswoman said. And several districts across the country have also either ended their business with Hazel or have contracts that expire later this year. 

they are “restructuring” the company to put it in a better position as it pursues more stable sources of funding, like billing Medicaid and private insurance, now that the federal relief funds some districts used have expired. Company spokeswoman Emilie Fetterley said no additional layoffs are expected “at this time” and that many states and districts plan to renew their contracts. 

But according to internal memos, by a news outlet covering mental health, CEO Iyah Romm said the company was losing “too much money” to meet its goals. Since the expiration of the Los Angeles contract, the company has even, at times, absorbed the cost of services, Fetterley said. 

Some say the company faces a difficult road ahead.

There is a “massive need” to address student mental health and behavior issues, said Adam Newman, co-founder of Tyton Partners, a consulting firm focused on the education sector. Until the relief funds ran out, “there were enough dollars in the system for schools and districts to find ways to underwrite these types of programs. But the risk has always been: What’s the durable funding model?”

In Missouri, the Ferguson-Florissant district, outside St. Louis, ended its business with Hazel last year.

“They were great to work with,” said spokeswoman Onye Hollomon. Hazel served about 2,000 students in the district, which used COVID relief funds to pay for the program. “Once that phased out, we had to make that cut.”

Los Angeles spent more than $28 million in one year to make Hazel available to the county’s 80 districts, according to GovSpend, a data company tracking payments to government agencies. It funded its deal with the company by tapping a $389 million . Between March 2022 and May 2024, 804 schools in the county referred 9,337 students for services, according to data Hazel provided to the county. Of those, 4,162 students received at least one visit, with students participating in an average of six visits. Fetterley said once a student is referred to Hazel, parents don’t always follow through with a visit or may seek help elsewhere.

In addition to taking a loss on services for some students since last year, Hazel has relied on billing insurance, including Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, and contracts with individual districts. Leaders are currently negotiating contracts with districts for next school year. 

Hazel is also one of eight providers approved for a new program that allows 700 districts throughout California to be reimbursed for services by Medi-Cal or private insurers. It participates in a similar in Iowa, and in Nevada, the Clark County School District uses Medicaid funds to pay for Hazel services, but that ends in June. A spokesperson said the board has not yet decided whether to renew it.

‘Made their mark’

Telehealth programs, delivered through schools, were expanding long before the pandemic. They offer families convenient access to a remote doctor or therapist while preventing students from missing school for appointments that often turn into full-day absences. Hazel Health, founded in 2015 by health care executive Josh Golomb, was part of that growth. 

“Telehealth providers have made their mark in school-based health care,” said Nirmita Panchal, a senior policy manager at KFF, a nonprofit focusing on health policy. “They eliminate transportation barriers, where students may not be able to physically get to a provider.”

During the pandemic, when learning and work suddenly went virtual, telehealth programs for schools . of school-based health centers showed that during the 2020-21 school year, more than 80% of respondents offered telehealth services, up from 19% in 2016-17. 

The financial landscape has since changed. A lot of districts are now cutting budgets to close deficits. GovSpend, which doesn’t capture all district spending, shows a decline in payments to , a similar company, since 2023, while , another virtual mental health provider, saw a more stable influx of funds from 2024 to 2025. 

Among providers, however, Hazel Health stands out. The company, which serves 6,000 schools in 21 states, initially focused on primary health care, with physicians prescribing over-the-counter medications for routine symptoms like stomach pain or headaches. In 2021, the company broadened its model to provide mental health services and respond to “rising unmet student needs and limited access to care,” Fetterley said. 

In Florida’s Duval County schools, Brittany Beimourtusting reached out to Hazel last school year when she was going through a divorce. Her middle child, she said, was having trouble adjusting.

“It was a single-parent household all of a sudden, and I thought, ‘How am I supposed to get him to get help because I think he could use therapy,’ ” she said. The provider, she said, met with him about five times and helped him open up about what he was feeling. “It was definitely worth it.”

But when Superintendent Christopher Bernier looked for ways to save the district some money last year, a $1.4 million payment to Hazel was on the list.

‘A connected system’ 

Four years ago, the startup’s future looked bright.

It attracted over $50 million from investors, including Fiore Ventures, founded by Walton family heiress Carrie Walton Penner. As recently as last year, Hazel was still eyeing growth. It made two acquisitions, including , which offers family therapy, to further expand mental health services. 

“Together, we are building a connected system that supports children from their classrooms to their kitchen tables,” wrote Andrew Post, then �Ჹ�����’s president, in October. But he has since resigned, writing this month that it was time to turn to the “next chapter” in his career.

�Ჹ�����’s was supposed to run through the end of 2027. Now it will end on June 30. Still, district officials said the layoffs have had no impact on the services students receive. In a pilot program that began in March 2025, the district made mental health services available to 84 high schools. As of January, 420 students had taken advantage of the program, the district said.

In December, Destiny Singleton, the honorary student member of the Chicago Board of Education, told members that students don’t always feel comfortable talking to school counselors about personal issues because those staff members are often focused on academic performance and preparing for college. That’s why talking to an outsider can be helpful. But she added that students at the district’s larger high schools are often unaware that Hazel is even an option.

Some Chicago parents, however, are wary of Hazel and say families don’t always know what they’ve agreed to when they consent to allowing their child to meet with a Hazel provider. In to Chicago district leaders last year, student privacy advocates said they were concerned about whether Hazel properly secures students’ private information. 

The company’s acquisition of Little Otter, , raises red flags because Rebecca Egger, its CEO, formerly worked for Palantir, a federal contractor known for using AI to assist the Department of Homeland Security in its . 

In a response to Chicago officials, Romm, the CEO, wrote that Hazel does not “sell, share, or use student data for any commercial purpose,” and that it “does not have any relationship with Palantir, commercial or strategic.”

Fetterley, the company spokeswoman, also said Hazel is in the early stages of rolling out chatbots to “simplify administrative tasks like scheduling for parents and clinicians,” but that AI will never be a “substitute for our human providers.”

Even so, some districts see a much higher demand for in-person rather than virtual clinicians. In Broward County, Florida, where Hazel provides medical services, but not mental health support, 179 students completed a telehealth visit between August and December last year, according to district data. Over that same time period, more than 134,000 students visited a school clinic.

“Parents want nurses,” Cynthia Dominique, chair of the District Advisory Council and a parent in the district, told the school board in March. As a nurse practitioner, she questioned how a provider working remotely can diagnose and treat most common symptoms, like congestion or a sore throat.

“I can’t ask the registrar from the front desk, ‘Can you look in the kid’s mouth and tell me what you see?’ ” she told The 74. “They don’t know what they’re looking for.”

For district leaders, however, �Ჹ�����’s ability to keep kids from missing school provided an effective selling point.

During a 2023 meeting, Duval County School Board Member Darryl Willie said the program had saved the district 4,000 “classroom hours” during the 2021-22 school year.

“We’re talking about making sure we’re focused on reading, writing and math,” he said. “The only way we can do that is if students are in school, in classrooms, sitting in seats.”

Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation provides financial support to The 74.

Pacheco is one of approximately 15,000 residents in what is known as America’s first solar-powered town, defined by its environmental vision, hurricane and strong sense of community. Since welcoming its first residents in January 2018, Babcock Ranch’s population has soared, with plans to reach 50,000 in the years ahead.

As this future-focused community grows, its K-12 education landscape is expanding alongside it, shaped by the same spirit of innovation. With a rising assortment of public schooling, homeschooling and micro-schooling options, Babcock Ranch offers a distinct snapshot of today’s evolving education offerings and the families who choose them.

“It’s kind of like choose your own education adventure,” said Laura Felker, who moved to Babcock Ranch from Colorado last spring. She enrolled her son in kindergarten at the Babcock Neighborhood School, a public charter school that opened in 2017, just a few months ahead of the community’s first residents. Babcock High School, also a public charter school, launched in 2022.

Felker was attracted to the school’s commitment to project-based learning, which is embedded into the curriculum. Her son has excelled at Babcock Neighborhood School, but when she heard about a new school opening in Babcock Ranch this fall, she was intrigued. Her son is academically advanced and in need of a more challenging learning environment, while also thriving with project-based learning. “I wanted some kind of meet-in-the-middle microschool,” said Felker, explaining that she was looking for a school that would blend the flexibility of homeschooling with the structure of traditional schooling, while prioritizing hands-on, project-based learning.

“Primer is able to do that,” said Felker, referring to the venture-backed K-8 private school network that is opening a Babcock Ranch location this fall. Founded in 2019 by Ryan Delk, expects to have 19 teacher-led campuses across Alabama, Arizona, Florida and Texas in the upcoming school year — including Babcock Ranch. The company did not disclose its network-wide enrollment numbers or current registration figures for Babcock Ranch, but Felker says that many of her neighbors are excited about this new model.

“Hands-on learning is going to become incrementally more and more important,” said Felker, who leads data and AI strategy for a Silicon Valley-based company. She sees first-hand how emerging technologies are impacting the workplace and shaping the jobs of the future, and she wants a schooling environment for her son, and his two younger siblings, that mixes core academics with ample time for creative, community-based projects. “I want that to be part of his schooling, so when Primer came, I think I was one of the first people to reach out because this is the exact thing that I’m looking for,” she said.

Emerging schooling models like Primer are taking root in communities across the country, as families look for more personalized education options. In states such as Florida, expanding school choice policies make these models financially accessible to more families. Felker expects most of Primer’s tuition to be covered by the state’s education savings account programs.

While some parents like Felker use ESA funding toward private school tuition, today’s programs often enable much greater customization of learning. In Florida, for example, families are eligible for funding through the state’s Personalized Education Program, an ESA enabling them to tailor their children’s education in myriad ways, including covering homeschooling expenses, tutoring services, curriculum resources, online learning and part-time school fees.

This flexible funding, averaging about $8,000 per student per year, is what Pacheco uses to educate her 13-year-old daughter, Bella. When the family moved to Babcock Ranch in the summer of 2024 following that enchanting Friday night visit, Pacheco began homeschooling Bella, who had previously attended a public elementary school from kindergarten through fifth grade. 

Pacheco liked the school, but she wanted something more for Bella as she entered her middle school years. “I always felt like the public school wasn’t the best fit,” said Pacheco, a nurse practitioner who helped to co-found a family medicine practice with three Florida locations, including a new one opening soon in Babcock Ranch. “It’s like a one size fits all, but that’s not how people are,” said Pacheco, who was particularly concerned about the frequent focus on standardized testing in the public schools and the anxiety it created for her daughter.  

When she moved into Babcock Ranch, Pacheco discovered a large and vibrant homeschooling community. “There are so many homeschooling groups,” she said, often gathering for park meet-ups, enrichment activities and field trips to the aquarium and similar spots. Parents also take turns hosting lessons at their homes, which supplements the online curriculum that Bella uses for her core academics. “It’s like a little homeschool village here. I love it,” said Pacheco, adding that Bella is much happier than she was in a conventional classroom.

Babcock Ranch was designed to be a modern-day village, where community life is intentionally built. That same intentionality is shaping how Babcock Ranch families choose to educate their children. From project-based charter schools to homeschooling to emerging models like Primer, families have a growing array of learning options to consider.  

In Babcock Ranch, this variety isn’t only reserved for K-12 education. options are sprouting, and the community recently a partnership with Florida Gulf Coast University to create a new sustainability-focused campus center at Babcock Ranch.

“There is a lot of educational opportunity here, and it just keeps evolving for every layer of education,” said Felker. “It’s cool to see that type of vibrancy.”

Student demographics are shifting so that in just six years, districts have lost nearly 2 million students nationwide. Meanwhile, charter schools gained about half a million, private schools added thousands more, and homeschooling rates remain higher than pre-pandemic levels. These shifts look different depending on where you live, but almost no district is immune. The result: Traditional district schools are serving a shrinking share of a shrinking market. 

In many states, options that used to be considered fringe alternatives are now much more accessible. Policy shifts favor charter schools and open enrollment across district lines; and education savings accounts and tax credit scholarships incentivize alternative school options. 

This means the traditional assumption that most students in a district’s boundaries will attend its schools no longer holds. It also means districts need to rethink how they can continue to successfully serve their students and communities. And it means that it is more important than ever to think about how districts and states serve students with disabilities so they don’t fall through the cracks. 

Enrollment declines create immediate pressure. Districts still have to maintain buildings, transportation systems and central office functions even as student numbers fall. Political realities often make it difficult to close under-enrolled schools. And districts must continue to meet legal obligations, especially for students with disabilities.

Over time, this leads to hard tradeoffs. Resources shift away from classrooms just to keep systems running. Meanwhile, are often the first to leave. That can concentrate marginalized students and students with disabilities in the schools with the fewest resources and the least capacity to adapt. Staffing becomes harder. Financial strain grows. Academic outcomes can suffer.

Left unchecked, this becomes a downward spiral that, in some places, ends in state intervention or financial insolvency. States will increasingly face a choice: develop a new playbook for districts or manage the consequences of decline. 

Two paths districts must pursue at the same time

For decades, districts operated as vertically integrated systems: They ran the schools, delivered the services and served nearly every student in their area.

That model no longer reflects reality. Today’s districts face two distinct but connected challenges:

First, they must compete for students by offering schools and programs that families will actively choose. That means understanding what families want and building options that respond to those preferences.

Second, they must support a broader ecosystem of public education,finding ways to serve students, families and schools beyond those they directly operate. 

Districts that succeed will do both.

Competing today isn’t about marketing existing schools more effectively. It’s about rethinking what schools look like.

Some districts are already moving in this direction. Orange County, Florida, is facing enrollment declines for the first time in decades. To meet new demands, they’re exploring screen-free microschools and other specialized programs. Elsewhere, districts have launched classical education schools modeled on approaches gaining traction in the private sector. In Houston, a district-run virtual academy now serves more than 11,000 students, helping offset losses elsewhere.

The most effective efforts share a common thread: They start with understanding what families want and build new models from the ground up.

Other cities like Denver, New York City, Indianapolis and New Orleans have expanded school options while maintaining common enrollment processes, accountability frameworks and access to services like transportation and special education.

States can accelerate this work by removing barriers. Creating more flexibility around staffing, seat-time requirements and program rules can make it easier for districts to launch microschools, hybrid programs and career pathways that reflect how families want their students to learn.

At the same time, districts can no longer afford to disengage from families who choose other options.

In many places, families are piecing together education across multiple providers: a few district classes, an online program, tutoring or homeschooling. In Florida, more than half of districts now offer classes or services to students using scholarships or education savings accounts, often on a fee-for-service basis. This keeps districts connected to students and creates new revenue streams.

But doing this well requires clearer rules. Questions about pricing, accountability and safety are often unresolved. States can help by setting expectations for part-time enrollment and unbundled services, making it easier for districts to participate while protecting students.

There’s also an opportunity to simplify choice. Many families just want an education that works; they don’t want to have to navigate a complex marketplace of options.

Even as student enrollment declines, districts will continue to control significant assets: buildings, buses, food services and specialized expertise,especially in areas like special education. 

Those assets don’t have to sit underutilized. Districts that partner with charter schools offer a template for how to use these assets in new and novel ways. In places like Miami, Indianapolis, Camden and San Antonio, charter schools have been able to lease space, opt into transportation or food service or purchase maintenance and security services. This lowers barriers for new providers, improves use of taxpayer-funded infrastructure and creates revenue streams for districts. 

Districts can also play a larger role in delivering specialized services, particularly special education. Smaller schools often lack the capacity to provide comprehensive support for students with disabilities. With the right funding and flexibility, districts can offer these services across multiple schools and providers. 

States set the conditions for success

Districts didn’t become rigid by accident. State policies that impact funding formulas, staffing rules, accountability systems have shaped the current model. Now those policies need to evolve.

States can help districts adapt by:

• Funding students, not systems, while maintaining strong accountability
  
• Removing barriers that limit innovation and flexibility, such as seat time requirements or teacher certification rules
  
• Clarifying rules for part-time enrollment and shared services
  
• Ensuring districts are compensated for serving non-enrolled students
  
• Modernizing facilities policies to support shared use
  
• Stepping in when districts cannot or will not adapt

The era of school districts as monopolies is over. But their core mission remains: ensuring every student has access to a high-quality education.

The question is not whether districts will change. It’s whether they will change fast enough, in ways that strengthen, rather than weaken, public education.

Districts that embrace both being a competitor and a connector have a path forward. With the right support from states, they can remain central, trusted institutions in a more dynamic and diverse education landscape. 

Disclosure: Travis Pillow wrote this commentary while working as the director of thought leadership and growth at Step Up For Students. He has since taken on a new role as a spokesperson for the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program at the Texas Comptroller’s Office.

Voters in Florida could have a chance to enshrine religious protections in schools in the Florida Constitution, the same protections already established in statute.

The measure, , pitched as establishing a constant constitutional law as opposed to more-often-altered statutory law, passed the House Education Administration Subcommittee Wednesday. It has another committee date before heading to the full House.

Bill sponsor Rep. Chase Tramont, a Republican from Port Orange, called it “a very common-sense resolution.”

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“All of this is in state statute right now, so it is current law. My argument would be that protecting religious liberty and expression is arguably the most necessary thing to do. Laws are constantly being shifted, repealed, amended, and all sorts of things that happen,” Tramont said during the first committee stop Wednesday.

Lawmakers are proposing language for voters to approve that would prohibit school districts from discriminating against students, parents, and school employees based on religious viewpoint.

“A school district shall treat a student’s voluntary expression of a religious viewpoint on an otherwise permissible subject in the same manner that the school district treats a student’s voluntary expression of a secular viewpoint,” it states in part.

Schools must allow religious expression in coursework, artwork, clothing, and prayer, as already protected under the 2017 Student and School Personnel Religious Liberties Act.

Tramont pointed out that the resolution does not mention any one religion and does include all faiths.

“That’s part of free speech — part of freedom of expression is the ability to be acceptance of all faiths,” Tramont said.

The resolution passed with one vote in opposition, Democratic Rep. Angie Nixon, who voiced concerns about how it could alter curriculum. She indicated a willingness to support the measure on the floor.

Devon Graham from American Atheists said the resolution is not necessary.

“The sponsors and supporters will say that nowhere in this bill is any specific religion mentioned, but this will just boost religious protections. This is not our first rodeo. This is all double speak that we’ve heard before,” Graham said during public comment.

Graham pointed to the that provides moment of silences in public schools, pitched initially as being a chance for self reflection and later lauded by the governor as a religious freedom measure and signed by him at a synagogue.

“Without supporting or discouraging student prayer, each public school must require teachers in first-period classrooms in all grades to set aside at least one minute, but not more than two minutes, daily for a moment of silence, during which a student may not interfere with other students’ participation,” the proposed amendment reads.

Graham also referenced that Satanists would not be permitted to participate in the school chaplain program passed in 2024 as “cherry-picking” religions.

SJR 1104, identical, has two committees to pass, too. It is sponsored by Sen. Ralph Massullo, a Republican from Lecanto.

For the joint resolution to be placed on the ballot, each chamber must approve it by a three-fifths vote.

The resolution, if passed, would be put on the ballot for the Nov. 3, 2026 election. It would require approval by at least 60% of voters to pass.

Of course, the U.S. Constitution provides religious protection, too. It requires teachers to remain neutral in treating religious matters in school.

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

Rather than treating district buildings as contested territory, communities, districts and charter operators should view underused public space as an opportunity to expand access for students and make better use of the public’s investment in education infrastructure.

Experience from across the country shows that, even in a state at the forefront of education choice like Florida, legal frameworks aren’t enough to guarantee the equitable use of public resources. Charters’ access to public facilities also depends on local solutions and genuine collaboration between districts and charters.

In a co-authored by our organizations, the Florida Charter Institute and Momentum Strategy & Research, we analyzed 20 Florida counties that contain 90% of the state’s charter schools. Our findings show that enrollment in traditional district schools has steadily declined throughout the past decade, leaving over 645,000 seats available in district facilities. Charter school enrollment, meanwhile, has grown by more than 136,000 students over the same period. 

We estimate that 12% of all district facilities currently have the space available to house an average-sized Florida charter school. In fact, while falling student enrollment is a growing financial problem for Florida’s school districts, our research shows that the number of district-operated buildings slightly increased across the state during this period. 

Publicly available data shows that newly opened charter schools in Florida spend nearly one-quarter of their annual budget acquiring and maintaining suitable facilities. The state provides limited facility funding to defray capital expenses, but that covers only a portion of what charters pay toward their buildings. As a result, Florida charter schools rely on an industry of building developers, landlords and lenders, often placing them in commercial spaces that don’t meet students’ needs — even as hundreds of district facilities operate under capacity. 

We recently surveyed over 100 charter school leaders in Florida. Their responses indicate a growing need for solutions to the state’s facilities problem: 76% said their school was at or near enrollment capacity, and 52% responded they are exploring or planning to grow beyond their current facility. “Facility issues are the number one issue facing our ability to maintain or expand,” said one charter school leader in Naples, while an Orlando-based charter school referred to facilities funding as its “main source of concern.”

However, charters don’t appear to view district space as an option, as only 18% of survey respondents reported ever exploring the availability of underutilized district space. Those who do are met with resistance: The same Naples-based school noted that there was available capacity in nearby district schools but that “district leadership seems closed to the idea.” A charter leader in Miami commented that the district is “very averse” to facilities arrangements with charters. In fact, while Florida’s charter schools account for 14% of all public school enrollment in the state, only 4% operate in district-owned buildings.

Florida law lacks enforcement mechanisms that would obligate districts to share space with charter schools, instead provide “surplus” or “unused” facility space for charters “on the same basis as it is made available to other public schools in the district.” Research shows that, across the country, laws intended to expand charter access to district facilities often due to similarly vague language.

This year, Florida’s legislature partially addressed the issue through a measure that allows specially designated, high-performing charter schools to . However, the new law provides virtually no incentives for districts and no process to resolve disputes with charters or among competing charter operators. Districts are as the law goes into effect. 

Shared facilities arrangements between districts and charters require more than legal nudges from the state. Several cities, in fact, have demonstrated that such partnerships can effectively support resource-starved public schools. In New York City, for example, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his first chancellor, Joel Klein, promoted co-location to encourage charter growth, guided by the premise that available public school space should . Close to half of New York City charters now operate out of district buildings, and suggests that these arrangements have not negatively impacted student performance. 

In San Diego, the citywide school district established a to support the planning and placement of charters in district facilities. In Washington, D.C., the city developed a successful to house new charters. In Indiana, the 2014 establishment of allowed districts to attract independently run schools, including charters, and promoted facilities sharing. More recently, the Indiana state legislature has pushed Indianapolis to share facilities and buses among charter and district schools. 

Starting in 2008, Denver Public Schools leadership pursued a strategy that encouraged charter growth by sharing the district’s underutilized facilities. By 2017, the district had more charter and “innovation” schools — district-run schools that are afforded increased autonomy —, a strategy that led to “significant, sustained, systemwide improvements in learning.”

While our research revealed untapped opportunity in sharing school facilities, public data does not tell the whole story of whether a given building is suitable for a specific charter — making local agency even more necessary for working out where these opportunities lie.National charter leader Nelson Smith once school districts’ “monopoly” over public school facilities as “an accident of history.” In states like Florida, where charter schools are an enduring part of public education, sharing unused district space with charters is an untapped opportunity, but weak laws and local obstinacy remain obstacles. Stronger legal mechanisms from the state can open the door for change, but it is up to local leadership to implement those changes and, ultimately, rethink how we manage the public schoolhouse.

Florida professors, university faculty, and teaching assistants could soon be able to openly carry firearms on campus, thanks to a sweeping new measure filed by a Republican lawmaker.

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Crestview, is sponsoring the legislation, entitled “School Safety,” to address security concerns in higher education. If passed, the bill would remove college campuses as gun-free zones — marking a significant shift in how Florida handles gun issues.

It would become one of the few Second Amendment expansion bills adopted in Florida since the Parkland massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, which prompted a higher gun-purchasing age and red flag laws.

In an interview with the Phoenix, Gaetz called his legislation “sadly timed,” adding that he “never wanted” to file a bill like this.

He referred to a slate of violent incidents in the past few months, including a shooting spree at Florida State University in April, the assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University in September, a shooting at Brown University over the weekend, and, most recently, an anti-Jewish shooting in Australia that left 15 dead.

“We’re living in a world where our institutions are being threatened,” Gaetz said, adding that he’s already filed another bill aimed at outside of churches, mosques, and synagogues. “I’m sorry that I’m having to do this, but it just seems as though places in our society that we thought were safe, even sacrosanct, are now becoming targets.”

Although he anticipates objections that teachers may abuse the ability to bring a gun to school, Gaetz pointed out that there have been no instances of a school shooting sprouting from an unwell volunteer in the guardian program. This school safety initiative allows trained and vetted school employees to carry concealed weapons on K-12 campuses.

“None of the parade of terribles have happened that the opponents to the guardian program tried to advance,” he said. “While none of that has happened, people have been killed.”

What else is in the bill?

Gaetz isn’t this first Florida lawmaker to try to promote campus carry. At the start of the 2025 legislative session, then-Sen. Randy Fine brought his all-encompassing to its first committee — unlike Gaetz’s, Fine’s bill would have allowed all students to carry — but it was voted down. Fine later left to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Gaetz said that the heart of his bill is hardening Florida’s state colleges and universities by requiring better threat assessments, better responses to threats, and better communications between first responders and faculty in emergencies.

would allow university employees, faculty, and students who are also working for a college to either openly carry or carry conceal weapons on campus. It also would expand the school guardian program to the university level and create an offense of discharging a firearm within 1,000 feet of school.

Gaetz said his measure also would require universities to ensure all classroom doors lock during an emergency — especially after FSU students during the April school shooting that their doors could not lock. He estimates that around $60 million will end up being appropriated for the effort, in line with what Gov. Ron DeSantis requested in his last week.

An identical bill has been filed in the House by Rep. Michelle Salzman.

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

If such a change goes into effect, “pediatric hospitals will be overwhelmed with [childhood] infections that have virtually been non-existent for the last 40 years,” said Florida-based infectious disease specialist Frederick Southwick. Southwick attended a Dec. 12 public comment workshop on the issue hosted by the Florida Department of Health. 

“We’re in trouble right now,” he added, pointing to and the likelihood that some diseases could become endemic. “We’re getting there, and this [ending the mandate] would just do-in little kids.”

The session delved into the proposed language the department has drafted for a rule change that would do away with vaccine mandates for four key immunizations: varicella, more commonly known as chickenpox; hepatitis B, pneumococcal bacteria and Haemophilus influenzae type B, or HiB. Currently, children cannot attend school in Florida without proof of these four immunizations, among others, including the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. 

Although Florida is not considering removing the mandate for the MMR vaccine, health experts see the move it is contemplating as eroding childhood immunization generally. It comes when in South Carolina because of a burgeoning measles outbreak.

Rana Alissa, president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, was also in attendance to express her concerns. She told The 74 this week that thanks to the success of vaccines, she’s never had to treat some of these “horrible diseases,” including HiB, which can lead to meningitis.

“Don’t make our kids — Florida’s kids — guinea pigs to teach me and my classmates and other pediatricians how to manage these diseases,” she implored.

Tallahassee parent Cathy Mayfield lost her 18-year-old daughter, Lawson, to meningitis in 2009, a few months before she was supposed to leave for college and just before she was due for a booster shot. (At the time, the booster was not recommended until college, according to Mayfield.)

“You just don’t realize until it happens to you,” she said.

She hopes others will learn the importance of vaccinating their own kids from her family’s story. 

“All the information I learned through our tragedy about vaccinations made me very supportive of the safeguards [they] offer,” she said.

“You’ve also got to realize,” Mayfield added, “that your decisions affect your community, and that’s something I think has gotten lost in … all this conversation and hesitancy about vaccinations.”

Equating vaccine mandates to slavery

The workshop, which was announced the day before Thanksgiving, was held in Panama City Beach, in the Florida Panhandle, far from the state’s main population centers. About 100 people showed up to the session, which was characterized by attendees as but civil. Northe Saunders, president of the pro-vaccine advocacy organization and who was there, estimated that about 30 people spoke in favor of keeping the current vaccine mandates, while approximately 20 spoke in opposition.

Some speakers opposed to vaccine mandates included conspiracy theories in their arguments, according to news reports and numerous people present at the workshop, echoing language heard from the federal government since Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time vaccine skeptic, took over the Department of Health and Human Services.

One attendee argued that giving children multiple jabs in a 30-day period “accounts to attempted murder,” according to . A number of others questioned if this year’s reported measles outbreaks, which resulted in the in Texas, had actually occurred.

Florida leaders’ desire to become the first state to was announced in September by its surgeon general, Joseph A. Ladapo, standing beside Gov. Ron DeSantis in the gym of a private Christian high school. In sharing their plan, Ladapo claimed that “every last [mandate] is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.” 

Only four vaccines are mandated through a Department of Health rule and are therefore under Lapado’s purview. The remaining nine, which in addition to the MMR shot include polio, are part of state law and can only be changed through legislative action. 

Experts told The 74 this is a much more difficult feat, one that state legislators — even conservative ones — don’t seem to have an appetite for. Richard Hughes, a George Washington University law professor and leading vaccine law expert, said such a legislative attempt would “warrant legal action.”

‘We really need to turn this around’ 

The debate in Florida and other states over mandatory childhood immunization comes as the country teeters on the edge of losing its measles elimination status. This year alone has seen nearly confirmed cases, the most since 2000, when measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. by the World Health Organization. Just over 10% of cases have led to hospitalization. The current South Carolina outbreak has infected at least , and among those forced to quarantine are students from nine schools. 

Significant educational implications from the outbreaks emerged in a by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, which found that absences increased 41% in a school district at the center of the West Texas outbreak, with larger effects among younger students.

The spread of measles is also a warning of the ramifications of dropping vaccine rates, according to William Moss, executive director at Johns Hopkins’ International Vaccine Access Center.

“Measles often serves as what we [call] the canary in the coal mine,” he said. “It really identifies weaknesses in the immunization system and programs, because of its high contagiousness.”

“Unfortunately, I see a perfect storm brewing for the resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases,” he added, “… We really need to turn this around.”

Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , and in the preceding months changed policies surrounding the measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (chickenpox) combination vaccine and this year’s COVID 19 booster — all based on recommendations from an advisory committee hand-picked by Kennedy. The universal birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine, in place for decades, was credited with nearly eliminating the highly contagious and dangerous virus in infants.

Lynn Nelson, the president of the National Association of School Nurses, fears that other, more conservative states will now look to Florida as an example.

“We already have seen outbreaks all over, and they’re only going to escalate if you have an area of the country whose herd immunity levels slip down further than they already are, which I think will happen if those [anti-mandate rules] come into effect,” she said. “That, in combination with some of the other misinformation that’s coming out, people will feel validated in decisions not to immunize their children.”

Florida’s Department of Health appears to be moving ahead to end requirements for the four vaccines it controls, despite indicating nearly two-thirds of Floridians oppose the action. Proposed draft language presented at the Dec. 12 workshop would also allow parents to opt their kids out of the state’s immunization registry, Florida SHOTS, and expand exemptions. 

Currently, all 50 states have vaccine requirements for children entering child care and schools. Parents across the country are able to apply for exemptions if their child is unable to get vaccinated for medical reasons and most states — including Florida — also have religious exemptions. Part of the proposed changes presented at the Dec. 12 meeting would add Florida to the 20 states that additionally have some form of , further widening parents’ ability to opt their kids out of routine vaccines. 

The public comment period remains open through Dec. 22, after which the department will decide whether or not to move forward with the rule change. In the interim, advocates are pushing state health officials to conduct epidemiological research around the impact of removing the vaccine mandates and studies on the potential economic costs. Florida is and out-of-state visitors. 

Without that information, pro-vaccine advocate Saunders said these critical public health care decisions will be made “at the whim of an appointed official.” 

“The nation,” he added, “is looking at Florida.”

Texas has launched a partnership with Turning Point USA to create chapters of the right-wing organization on every high school campus in the state.

Gov. , Lt. Gov. and Turning Point USA Senior Director Josh Thifault revealed the initiative during a news conference at the Governor’s Mansion on Monday. They did not outline any plans that would require schools to initiate the clubs, but Abbott said that he expects “meaningful disciplinary action” to take place against “any stoppage of TPUSA in the great state of Texas.”

“Let me be clear: Any school that stands in the way of a Club America program in their school should be reported immediately to the Texas Education Agency,” the governor said, referring to the name of the high school clubs.

The announcement comes after Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who stood behind Abbott at Monday’s gathering, privately met with Thifault in early November to discuss expanding the organization’s presence in the state’s schools, which was by The Texas Tribune. Four days after that meeting, Patrick said he would $1 million in campaign funds to help bring the project to fruition.

Turning Point USA was founded by Charlie Kirk, the late right-wing activist who was often praised by conservatives as a champion of free speech and criticized for comments that many other Americans found hateful toward LGBTQ+ communities, non-Christians, people of color and women. Kirk was killed in early September while speaking on a college campus in Utah.

Following Kirk’s death, Abbott and Morath accused some teachers of posting social media remarks promoting violence and mocking the conservative activist. The state has since begun investigating submitted to the education agency about educators’ alleged comments — a move that considering teachers’ First Amendment protections. The agency has typically conducted such investigations for violations like threats or abuse.

Kirk’s organization has traditionally operated on college campuses, promoting itself as a hub for young people committed to conservative values. The group is also known for having created a so-called professor watchlist, which allows users to search for educators perceived as supporting and promoting liberal viewpoints in the classroom. Turning Point’s work has at times caused tension, particularly among who have because of the negative spotlight placed on them by the organization.

The group’s “Club America” chapters, meanwhile, operate in high schools. The clubs aim to “build strong networks, spearhead impactful initiatives, help students register to vote, and inspire meaningful conversations about the foundations of a free society,” according to .

Turning Point organizers say they have received about starting local chapters since Kirk’s death, while claiming that some students wanting to launch chapters have faced pushback from their schools’ administrators.

Republican officials in Oklahoma and Florida have also announced partnerships with Turning Point to expand the organization’s presence. Those partnerships rely on interested students to initiate the clubs, while Turning Point provides them with organizational support.

Oklahoma’s former right-wing superintendent, Ryan Walters, had to go after the accreditation of schools that refused to welcome the conservative group.

Petitions calling for of the school chapters have also emerged, with some students and parents the national organization for what they describe as “racist, homophobic, and sexist hate speech on college campuses across America.” The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group that tracks extremism, Turning Point as an organization with a strategy of sowing fear “that white Christian supremacy is under attack by nefarious actors, including immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and civil rights activists.”

Texas’ partnership with Turning Point marks the latest attempt by Republican officials to push education further to the right, after years of them accusing public schools of indoctrinating students with left-leaning beliefs about race and gender. The state, for example, has passed laws schools to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms — an effort currently facing — and on how educators teach America’s history of slavery and racism.

Abbott on Monday sought to distance Turning Point from any particular political party, comparing it to organizations like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes currently present in many public schools.

“This is about values,” Abbott said. “This is about constitutional principles. This is about a restoration of who we are as a country.”

The governor acknowledged that it is highly unlikely he would endorse a similar initiative for more progressive, left-leaning causes, but added that “it would not be illegal” for them to exist in public schools. Abbott signed earlier this year, a sweeping state law that with an LGBTQ+ focus.

Existing partnerships between Turning Point and other states have already about the constitutionality of state governments using their resources to promote political causes in public schools, with legal experts saying it’s unclear whether the initiatives cross any lines but that they do warrant further observation.

Abbott and Patrick said Monday that Texas already has more than 500 high schools with Club America chapters. Thifault said Turning Point’s goal is to have 20,000 chapters in high schools across the nation.

The president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, Zeph Capo, recently told the Tribune that groups with a divisive political presence like Turning Point may have a place on college campuses. But he does not think that they belong in high schools, where students are more impressionable.

Disclosure: Southern Poverty Law Center has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete .

This first appeared on .

They were right.

In Tennessee, the nonprofit Wilberforce Academy is suing the Knox County Schools in federal court because the district refuses to allow a Christian charter school. Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is on the school’s side. He issued last month that the state’s ban on religious charter schools likely violates the First Amendment. 

“Tennessee’s public charter schools are not government entities for constitutional purposes and may assert free exercise rights,” he wrote to Rep. Michele Carringer, the Knoxville Republican who requested the opinion. 

The legal challenge in Tennessee comes as a Florida-based charter school network prepares to submit an application to the Oklahoma Charter School Board for a Jewish virtual charter high school. Peter Deutsch, the former Democratic congressman who founded the Ben Gamla charter schools, began working on the idea long before the case over St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School even went to court. The 4-4 tie in May means that an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision blocking the school from receiving state funds still stands. 

“The prior decision shows that there’s an open question here that needs to be resolved,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a law firm representing the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation. “We hope the court will get it right this time. We hope the federal courts get it right without having to go to the Supreme Court.”

Idaho also confronted the issue earlier this year. The state’s first charter, Brabeion Academy, initially the school as Christian. But it in August as a nonreligious school and will open as such next fall. 

Deutsch, Skrmetti and other supporters of faith-based charter schools base their argument on three earlier Supreme Court rulings allowing public funds to support sectarian schools. They say that excluding religious organizations from operating faith-based charter schools is discrimination and violates the Constitution. But leaders of the charter sector and public school advocates argue that classifying charter schools as private would threaten funding and civil rights protections for 3.7 million students nationwide.

“Unless and until the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a future case and rules otherwise, we advise all charter school associations and public charter schools to adhere to the letter and spirit of the law in their respective states,” Starlee Coleman, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said in a statement.

‘Not on our watch’

When the Supreme Court considered St. Isidore, Deutsch, was prepared to advocate for Jewish congregations to open schools that not only teach their language, but also their faith. He called the case “a historic opportunity” to bring Jewish education to thousands of children.

To Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, the debate is settled, for now. In November, he said his office would “oppose any attempts to undermine the rule of law.” 

Americans United, which advocates for maintaining church-state separation, has also issued a warning over the new school. The organization represented parents and advocates in a separate case over the school. 

“Religious extremists once again are trying to undermine our country’s promise of church-state separation by forcing Oklahoma taxpayers to fund a religious public school. Not on our watch,” Rachel Laser, president and CEO, said in a press release.

The legal fight over religious charter schools began in 2023, when the Oklahoma Virtual Charter School Board voted 3-2 to approve a charter for St. Isidore, setting off a closely watched case that spanned two years. At the time, the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City, a nonreligious group, called the charter board’s decision unconstitutional. Rachel Johnson, the group’s executive director, didn’t return calls or emails requesting a comment on Ben Gamla’s proposal.

None of the members who originally voted on St. Isidore serves on the state’s new Oklahoma Charter School Board. But for one person involved with Ben Gamla’s application, this is familiar territory. Brett Farley is on the proposed school’s board, according to a letter of intent the foundation submitted to the charter board in November.

Farley once held a top position with the and is also executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, which focuses on public policy issues involving the church. While preparing the St. Isidore application, with Notre Dame law Professor Nicole Stelle Garnett, whose scholarly work formed the basis of the legal argument for the school.

�Ҳ����Ա�ٳ�’s is that nonprofits running charter schools are like private contractors, and as with other publicly funded programs, can’t be excluded just because they are religious. She’s also close friends with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who recused herself from the St. Isidore case. Experts speculated that Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the three liberals on the court, resulting in the 4-4 tie.

‘Passion for religious freedom’

The virtual school, the intent letter says, would initially enroll about 40 students, focusing on “college readiness, while developing deep Jewish knowledge, faith and values within a supportive learning community.”

But some are surprised Deutsch isn’t making his bid for a Jewish charter school in Florida, where his existing, non-religious charter schools have thrived.

“I think Florida could be a good option given the new attorney general’s passion for ,” said Daniel Aqua, the director of special projects at Teach Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for Jewish education

The demand for a Jewish charter school would be much higher in Florida, which has Jewish population of nearly 762,000, compared with about 9,000 in Oklahoma. 

Charter founders in Florida submit their applications to local school districts first. The state recently added as authorizers, but Oklahoma, where organizers directly with the state charter board, offers a more streamlined process. 

‘Public Christian school’

But efforts to create publicly-funded religious schools are not limited to the charter sector. A new school in Colorado, Riverstone Academy, calls itself the state’s “first public Christian school.” Now serving 30 students in Pueblo, south of Colorado Springs, Riverstone is what is sometimes referred to as a “contract” school because districts sign agreements with private organizations to provide education services. In this case, Education reEnvisioned, one of the state’s 21 boards of cooperative educational services, or BOCES, authorized the school. 

In October, the Colorado Department of Education warned Ken Witt, the BOCES’ executive director, that the school’s per-student funding is at risk because it is “not operating in a nonsectarian nature.” The letter also went to District 49, near Colorado Springs, one of Education reEnvisioned’s member districts. 

In a response, Witt wrote that he was “alarmed at the threat” that the school might not receive funding. “We did not and legally cannot discriminate against this school on account of its religious affiliation,” he wrote. Examining Riverstone’s curriculum to determine if the school is truly sectarian, he said, would be “unconstitutionally entangling and discriminatory against different forms of religion.”

Witt told The 74 that funding usually doesn’t flow from the state to a new school until January, so it’s too soon to know whether officials will withhold funds.

‘Keep coming back’ 

“You’re going to see those within the charter sector and outside of it basically taking the same approach” — arguing that private groups delivering religious instruction can’t be denied public funds, said Preston Green, an education professor at the University of Connecticut. 

To Green, Riverstone’s identity as a “contract” school calls to mind a 1982 case, one that Garnett and other proponents of religious charter schools often highlight when they say that charters are not “state actors.” In , the Supreme Court said a Massachusetts private school that received public funds for educating teens with behavior problems did not act under the “color of state law” when it fired six employees. 

The question, experts say, is not if, but when the Supreme Court will eventually see another case about religious public schools Justice Barrett won’t have the same reason to recuse herself, Green said, and he’s not convinced that Roberts would side with the liberals a second time.

The advocates, he said, “keep coming back at this because they think that they’ll get the votes.”

Despite decades of research, arts education is still treated as a “nice-to-have” when education budgets allow. From 2015 to 2019, the conducted a four-year study across 1,700 New York City public schools serving over 1.1 million students. They found that schools offering music and arts programming had lower rates of chronic absenteeism and higher overall school-day attendance than those that didn’t. Similarly, a found that dropout rates fell from 30% to just 6% among students participating in consistent arts programming.

Clearly, the arts are a for academic engagement, resilience and, most importantly, graduation. For example, after tracking more than 22,000 students for 12 years, the found that those with high levels of involvement in the arts were five times more likely to graduate from high school than those with low involvement.

But while over feel the arts are important for education, only , and access remains uneven. Charter schools, the fastest-growing segment of public education, have the lowest availability of arts courses: Just offer arts instruction. Students in charter schools, military families and homeschool programs are too often the ones with the fewest opportunities to engage with the arts, despite needing them most.

This is an issue that the Cathedral Arts Project in Jacksonville, Florida, is trying to solve.

In partnership with and with funding from the Florida Department of Education, our program piloted a year-long arts education initiative during the 2024-25 school year, reaching more than 400 students in charter schools, homeschools, military families and crisis care. Our teaching artists visited classrooms weekly, providing instruction in dance, music, visual arts and theater. Throughout the year, students in kindergarten through high school found joy, confidence and connection through creative learning. Homeschool students brought history to life through art projects, children from military families found comfort and stability during times of deployment and young people in crisis discovered new ways to express themselves and heal. Each moment affirmed the power of the arts to help children imagine what’s possible.

To better understand the impact of this work, we partnered with the Florida Data Science for Social Good program at the University of North Florida to analyze reports and survey evaluations collected from 88% of program participants. Here’s what we found:

Students grew not only in artistic skill, but also in self-confidence, teamwork, problem-solving and engagement. After completing the program, over 86% of students said they “like to finish what they start” and “can do things even when they are hard” — a key indicator of persistence, which is a strong predictor of long-term academic success. Students rated themselves highly in statements like, “I am good at performance.”

Families noticed, too. In the age of screens, nearly three-quarters reported that their child had increased in-person social interaction since beginning arts programming and had improved emotional control at home. Nearly one-third saw noticeable gains in creative problem-solving and persistence through challenges.

According to the survey conducted by 50CAN, parents view the arts as a meaningful contributor to their child’s learning, and they want more of it. In Florida, where families have been given the power of school choice, they’re increasingly seeking out programs that inspire creative thinking and meaningful engagement while promoting academic success. But finding them isn’t always easy. When funding allows, traditional public schools may offer band or visual arts, but these options are often unavailable to families choosing alternative education options for their children.

Now in its second year, our program fills this critical gap by working directly with school choice families across northeast Florida, bringing structured arts instruction to students who otherwise wouldn’t have access. 

What makes the arts such an effective intervention? It’s structure, expression and connection. When students learn through the creative process, they navigate frustration, build resilience and find joy in persistence. These are not soft skills — they’re essential for survival, and increasingly important in today’s workplaces.

Arts education is a necessary investment in student achievement. It’s time for other states to treat it that way and follow Florida’s lead.

The state’s school voucher program has exhibited “a myriad of accountability problems” and caused a funding shortfall for public schools, a state audit released this week shows.

The audit, encompassing the 2024-2025 school year, was presented this week to lawmakers, who are spending the weeks leading up to the legislative session learning the woes of the universal school voucher system in which, contrary to how it was marketed, “funding did not follow the child.”

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Matthew Tracy, deputy auditor general for the state, presented the to each legislative education budget committee Thursday. Tracy’s team recommended the Legislature change the timing of scholarship application windows and provide more financial support to avoid funding shortfalls.

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Crestview, said that at any given moment the state does not know where 30,000 students are in terms of school categories — traditional public or voucher-supported private or home schools — together worth $270 million in education support.

Gaetz spearheaded an unsuccessful bill last year, , to change various parts of the voucher system.

In 2024-2025, the department paid $655 million to middleman scholarship funding organizations, as statutes prescribe, before school started. That’s part of the questioned accounting practices.

“Any improper payments, any ineligible amounts, you’re paying and chasing those amounts, because the dollar’s already gone out the door,” Tracy said.

Last month, the House held committee meetings during which members asked scholarship funding organizations and the department about miscalculations and processes. Those meetings provided initial numbers of how many students were double-counted or lost in fuzzy accounting. For example, the state’s largest scholarship funding organization sent at least $7 million to families before verifying whether their students were attending a private school or homeschooling.

Earlier this month, legislators approved a $47 million budget amendment to make up for traditional public schools shortchanged by the accounting inaccuracies at the end of the previous fiscal year, even after tapping into $118 million from the education stabilization fund, through which the Legislature can cover voucher-related budget overruns. In the meantime, some districts were caught off guard after education funding from the state ran dry.

Foreseeable for some

Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island, said the audit showed “a lot of concerning information.”

“I wouldn’t say wholly unforeseeable, given the rapid expansion of the program in the last couple years — which has been a point of concern that I’ve had for many years here — is how are we going to make sure that we track students, have budget accountability, have budget predictability,” Bradley said.

In the past four years, the voucher program has grown rapidly, serving about 500,000 students during the past school year. In 2021-2022, the program had served about 200,000 students. In 2024-2025, the program dished out $3.17 billion in Family Empowerment Scholarship vouchers and recorded another $804.5 million in scholarship programs funded through corporate tax credits, totaling nearly $4 billion dollars.

In some respects, the state went “beyond” state law, but also missed “various opportunities … to further accountability over the use of State education funds and timelier and more effectively identify and halt duplicate payments and recoup ineligible amounts.”

“I’m disgusted; this is another, in eight years I’ve been here, ‘I told you so,’ and they’re just getting more and more expensive,” Sen. Jason Pizzo, NPA-Sunny Isles Beach, said.

The audit found that as of June 30, the end of the last fiscal year, $36 million sat in scholarship accounts unspent as did more than $367 million in scholarship accounts for students with disabilities.

At the end of the 2024-25 school year, nearly 300 accounts for students with disabilities held “excess balances,” or more than $50,000 each in unspent money. The sum of the excess alone was $2.3 million.

Pizzo focused on “float,” the lost value of interest that could be collected on money that is not in state hands when it could or should be.

“Certainly, you could never close out books for a company or an organization the way this is,” Pizzo said, adding that “a bunch of [Department of Education] bureaucrats just don’t understand finance. This is so bad.”

Tracy said it “was not evident that the department had sufficient staff resources to perform its critical duties.”

“I think that this is a cautionary tale to what can happen if you don’t phase things in and you don’t take the appropriate and adequate amount of time with something as transformational as this program truly was,” Senate Appropriations Committee on Pre-K-12 Education Chair Sen. Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills, said.

The Department of Education said it has addressed concerns raised in the audit that directly implicate the department.

“We’re trusted with these dollars, and we kept using, ‘Does the department have the authority, the authority, the authority.’ I’m left myself asking, ‘Does the department have the ability to actually reconcile these issues?’” Pizzo said.

Separate silo

Gaetz said he will introduce a bill in the coming days to address these concerns.

His bill, to be co-introduced by Burgess and Committee on Education Pre-K-12 Chair Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, would separate the school choice scholarships from the Florida Education Finance Program (FEPF), the mechanism that funds traditional public schools, and would expand the education stabilization fund.

The auditor’s report recommended separating scholarship payments from the FEFP, making it a separate “silo” in the budget.

“The auditor general said in his meeting with the chair and myself that whatever can go wrong with this system has gone wrong,” Gaetz said.

The bill would establish monthly payments to families and schools and provide student IDs to private school students, too, a focus of House committee hearings last month.

“We do not have a perfect bill to introduce, but we have a bill which fixes these issues, which, left unaddressed, will continue to worsen and threaten to disrupt and imperil school choice in Florida,” Gaetz said.

There seems to already be a difference in House and Senate approaches.

House PreK-12 Budget Subcommittee Chair Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, said moving scholarship funding outside of the FEFP “would be a huge mistake and that would end universal school choice in the state of Florida.”

Persons-Mulicka said the problem is not the funding model, but instead the implementation of the program.

“If you change the funding model, create a new funding model, who’s to say there still won’t be implementation problems?” Persons-Mulicka said.

Included in the audit is the Department of Education’s response, which agreed with separating the the school choice programs from the FEFP.

“The Department acknowledges that, while the popularity and growth of the scholarship programs evidence their value and need, the administrative systems supporting these programs must keep pace with their implementation,” Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas wrote.

Gaetz said the program must be “partially reengineered.”

“We can’t just rearrange the deck chairs, we have to make sure that we change course in the ways that the auditor general has recommended,” Gaetz said.

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

Teresa Brady, who spent 24 years as president of Duval Teachers United in Jacksonville, pleaded guilty in federal court Oct. 9 to multiple counts. Co-defendant Ruby George, who was the union’s vice president for 24 years, pleaded guilty in August.

The pair were accused of swindling roughly $1.3 million each by selling supposedly unused vacation days back to the union and approving each other’s paperwork to avoid scrutiny.

Brady faces a maximum of 70 years in prison when sentenced. George faces up to 60 years. Lawyers for Brady and George did not respond to requests for comment.

Duval County Public Schools declined to comment. The union didn’t return multiple requests for comment but in January that said, “this will never happen again.”

“Duval Teachers United will pursue all legal channels to recoup lost funds and hold those responsible accountable,” the union said. “We want to be clear: Members and current leadership of Duval Teachers United and affiliated unions do not tolerate the undermining of our members or the misuse of valuable membership dollars.”

The union collects $5 million annually in dues from its 6,500 members. Roughly half is forwarded to state and national affiliates.

Federal agents raided the headquarters of Duval Teachers United in September 2023 to investigate potential misappropriation of funds. Brady and George resigned soon after. 

Duval County Public Schools employees accrue 42 vacation days per year, and the time can be rolled over, according to Brady’s . There’s no limit to how much accrued leave employees can sell back to the union at a rate equivalent to their hourly pay. 

From 2013 to late 2022, Brady and George concealed their actual leave totals from the union and its auditor, and falsely stated the amount of accumulated leave they said they needed to sell back “to avoid the leave being a liability to Duval Teachers United,” the indictment said. 

They would sign each other’s leave buyback checks so the union’s treasurer wouldn’t see them. The checks were deposited into their personal bank accounts, many in the amounts of $10,000 to more than $30,000, according to court documents. They would also request reimbursement for expenses that weren’t related to the union and pay each other bonuses without the authorization of the union board.

The leave payouts were hidden in general budget line items for salaries and payroll taxes in the union’s financial statements, the indictment said. Brady and George defrauded the union out of around $2.6 million over almost 10 years. Both were ordered to pay back the amount they stole, but because the money was already spent, the federal government will be seeking other assets, according to court documents.

Public records show that pay for both union leaders fluctuated wildly. Brady’s salary ranged from $160,000 in 2006-07 to more than $326,000 in 2019-20. She received $251,868 in 2021-22. George received $134,000 in 2018-19 and almost $327,000 the following year.

“I accept full responsibility for my actions and their consequences,” Brady . “I am truly sorry for my wrongdoing and the harm I caused to Duval Teachers United and its members. Understanding the seriousness of my offenses, I accept the outcome with humility and sincere remorse while deeply regretting breaching the trust placed in me by [Duval Teachers United], my community and my family.”

In the union’s January press release, it said several steps had been taken to protect membership dues. The organization hired an independent outside bookkeeper and now requires reimbursements to be approved by several union leaders and an outside accountant before payments are processed. The selling of vacation time also has to be approved by the union’s board of directors. 

“The board of directors has received training to empower it in their role as the governing body of Duval Teachers United,” the union said. “Board members have formed specialty committees that oversee the critical functions of Duval Teachers United operations, so transparency and accountability are always a part of our culture moving forward.”

But I don’t want a hotel that excels in only one area. I want every hotel I stay at to have clean sheets and towels, hot water and a quiet environment.

What about schools? Are they more like restaurants or hotels? At the high school level, they might be more like restaurants in that they can offer varieties of experiences that allow students to start to develop specialties. But elementary schools should probably be more like hotels and provide consistently strong services — and outcomes — for all kids.

When it comes to the basics of reading and math, how much within-school specialization is there at the elementary levels? That is, are there schools and districts that do a great job of teaching kids to read but maybe aren’t so good at teaching math?

To find out, I started by looking back at our projects last year identifying districts that did an exceptional job of teaching kids to read by third grade and be proficient in math by eighth grade. Among those positive outliers, I found 140 districts that appeared on both of our lists. That is, these districts were producing outstanding results across subjects and grade levels.

In contrast, we identified 14 districts that were exceptional in one subject but significantly underperformed expectations in the other. Among those, 12 of the 14 were strong in math but weak in reading.

To look at school-level results, I pulled up the 2025 test scores in the state of . Mississippi has some of the best schools in the country, so I figured it would be a good test to see whether they specialized or were consistently strong.

First, I looked to see whether reading scores were correlated with performance in math and science. A correlation of 1.0 would mean the two trends were moving in perfect lockstep, while a correlation of 0.0 would suggest that the two variables were not associated with each other at all. As you can see in the table below, there were very strong correlations across academic subject areas. For example, the correlation across school-level reading and math scores was 0.87, which suggests a very strong relationship. 

These results suggest that schools with high test scores in one content area are very likely to also have high test scores in another subject. (And the opposite.) But that doesn’t necessarily reflect how much the school contributes to a student’s scores. It could just be that the school happens to enroll higher- or lower-performing kids.

So, next, I looked at growth rates. In Mississippi, the state using a model called a value table. Essentially, the state created eight performance levels, and schools receive points if they help students advance to higher tiers from one year to the next.

Do schools with high student growth rates tend to see improvement across multiple subject areas? The answer in Mississippi is yes. In the graph below, each dot represents a school that is graphed according to its reading and math growth rates. The closer the dot is to the diagonal line, the closer the relationship between the school’s growth rates in reading and in math.

Although there are a few outliers on both sides, a “good school” tends to be good across subject areas. That is, there are no schools at either the bottom right or top left corners of the graph, where they would be if they were extremely strong in one subject but not the other. For example, among the 50 Mississippi elementary and middle schools that made the greatest gains in reading last year, none of them were below the statewide average in math growth. 

The opposite was also true: Among the 50 schools with the lowest reading score gains, only two reached the statewide average in math.

Florida operates a similar as Mississippi. When I ran their numbers in the same way, I found similar correlations across subject areas.

Both Mississippi and Florida showed strong relationships between a school’s proficiency and student growth scores. However, that could be a function of the specific way those states have chosen to measure student growth, and it’s not always the case that a school with high proficiency scores will also have high growth. In fact, because proficiency rates are highly correlated with socioeconomic status, prefer growth measures that attempt to truly isolate a school’s impact on student learning.

While questions about how best to measure school performance can be thorny and technical, it does seem to be the case that schools that are strong in one subject tend to be strong in others as well. In an increasingly specialized world,  it’s fortunately rare to find a school that’s doing a great job in one subject area and letting kids down in the other.

The state’s third graders saw a nearly 5 percentage point jump in just one year, with 87.3% of students now reading proficiently. It’s the largest single‑year gain since the test launched, returning the state to pre-pandemic levels. 

To put those outcomes in context nationally, a 1 to 2 percentage point increase in any state would be considered strong. Indiana’s improvement is proof that well constructed policy combined with bold leadership nets tangible outcomes for students.

Two years ago, Indiana leaders recognized that too many children were falling behind. Instead of implementing modest reforms, they responded with urgency. Former Gov. Eric Holcomb, current Gov. Mike Braun, Secretary of Education Katie Jenner, legislative leaders and education stakeholders across the state partnered to design a strategy rooted in research and shared learning. 

They leaned on a time‑tested pioneered in Florida and adapted successfully in Mississippi that’s built on high expectations, professional learning for educators, early detection, targeted support and instruction aligned with the science of reading.

In Florida, the introduction of comprehensive literacy reform in 2002 marked a turning point. Over the following decade, the state saw NAEP fourth grade reading scores gain the equivalent of .

�Ѿ���������������辱’s , which was inspired by Florida’s success, integrated educator professional learning, added literacy coaches in the state’s lowest-performing schools to help transfer knowledge into practice and required early screening to catch students who struggled with reading. The state’s third-grade ensured students did not advance if they were not reading on grade level. Other included summer reading camps, monitoring student progress at least three times per year to catch students before they fell behind and allowing some students to advance to the next grade for on a case-by-case basis. These reforms helped elevate Mississippi from 49th in the nation in 2013 to .

Indiana’s version of the strategy is comprehensive and smart. It includes teacher training in how children learn to decode, build vocabulary and understand texts; tools for early identification of reading challenges; and clear expectations that no child will move forward without mastering critical reading skills. Strong curriculum, ongoing coaching and supports are all part of the mix — backed by a historic from the Lilly Endowment and the Indiana General Assembly.

But great plans succeed only in the hands of dedicated educators. Indiana’s teachers, coaches, principals and support staff have embraced this work with determination and care. Across classrooms, they’re putting the science of reading into daily practice. Families and caregivers are reinforcing literacy at home and contributing to a culture where reading is both essential and enjoyable.

The payoff is clear. Schools in Indiana’s , which develops and implements collaborative professional development for K-3 educators, saw an increase of in students passing the statewide reading exam. Progress at this scale in one year is rare and meaningful.

Indiana’s achievement is both uplifting and instructive. It demonstrates what happens when clear goals, proven methods and sustained support come together behind student success. It’s a reminder that literacy policies built on evidence and collaboration can shift trajectories quickly.

This is just the beginning — for Indiana and for other states aggressively tackling the literacy crisis. 

Reading successfully by third grade is foundational, but far from the finish line. Policymakers must maintain their focus on early literacy while expanding their approach to include adolescent literacy, ensuring students continue building reading strength through middle and high school so they can engage with complex materials, think critically and express themselves with clarity. Those skills are indispensable for success in the workforce, the military and higher education.

Indiana has set a goal that by 2027, 95% of third graders will be reading proficiently, and the state has charted a clear path, proving what’s possible when policymakers enact evidence-based strategies to support students. 

Success is never final. It’s a guiding principle. The work in Indiana and across the nation must continue until every child and young adult can read, thrive and embrace their future with confidence.

Our community’s commitment ensures that third graders get a lot of attention. 

But our work starts well before third grade. 

Early literacy begins with early childhood education. In our community, families of newborns get a custom lullaby to sing to their baby. We give families free books and learning kits so they have tools and resources in their homes. We create opportunities for community learning through our connection centers, events, playgroups and more. 

This type of foundational work is imperative. Educators and nonprofit leaders cannot suddenly lean into the science of reading at first, second, or third grade and overlook the fact that what children experience from birth to age 5 can make or break these efforts.

After all, research indicates that disparities in cognitive and social-emotional development are and tend to widen by the time the child reaches age 2. By the time kids start kindergarten, children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds often in reading and math compared to their lower-income peers. 

To close these gaps and put students in an infinitely easier position to read on grade level by the time they finish third grade, and to do so without making Herculean efforts to catch students up, the solution is simple: provide more access, sooner, to high-quality early childhood education. 

In my home state of Florida, for instance, there are more than a million children ages 5 and younger. Two-thirds of these children’s parents work. For the sake of our economy, this is good news. The bad news is that federal and state early learning opportunities in Florida under age 6. Everyone else is left to pay out of pocket for home- or center-based care or cobble together a makeshift solution. Parents are scrambling to make sure their children are looked after. In these scarcity environments, the priority is finding coverage, not necessarily attaining high-quality care that builds cognitive, language, and self-regulation skills. 

This gap between the early childhood education opportunities available to parents and what parents need is kneecapping our state’s future, and Florida is not alone. As a country, getting third-grade students reading on grade level would be infinitely more feasible if more students were building foundational skills in the pivotal early developmental period. And, in a country where just of fourth-grade students are reading proficiently, we need all the help we can get. 

Here in Indian River County, we do what we can with what we have.  The nonprofit provides  high-quality early childhood education for children and training for educators. The integrates language development and health education into support services for young families. These programs and others are supported by a community of individual donors who make it possible to provide direct services to students and give parents the tools they need to be their child’s first teacher. 

Through programs like — which  prepare parents with modeling fun, loving, language-rich interactions that can be done anywhere and anytime — and Carnegie Hall’s , parents learn tips and tricks for creating a learning environment in their own homes, reading together, and connecting the senses to reading through movement, music, and more. Children who participate in these programs and pre-K are more likely to enter kindergarten ready to learn.

When children reach elementary school, I lead works with the school district to provide instructional coaches and reading specialists in every elementary school, as well as to closely monitor students’ performance on interim assessments to determine where to provide extra support. 

Effective early childhood programming is a tested strategy not only educationally but financially. Nobel Prize winner James Heckman and his team analyzed long-term data from high-quality early childhood programs, and they found a on investment per child when accounting for outcomes such as higher earnings, better health, reduced crime, increased productivity and reduced need for special education and social services.

This return is possible only with investment of not just time and money but also attention. Both the science of reading and the science of learning are based on brain development. How we interact with our youngest children, how we speak with our youngest children, and how we provide for our youngest children – starting before they are even born– will determine the extent to which young people grow up with a fair shot at a world of opportunity. 

End-of-year testing results show Florida students were more proficient in math and reading than a year ago.

Statewide progress monitoring , announced by Gov. Ron DeSantis Wednesday, detail how Florida’s students performed in reading, math, social studies, and science.

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Math scores for all students from third grade to high school improved by 3% from 2024, with 58% of students demonstrating a level 3 or higher understanding. The county with the lowest score was Gadsden, with 35% testing at a level 3 or higher, and the highest, Nassau, with 78%.

Level 3, on the state’s scale of 1-5, is considered on grade level. Level 4 is considered proficient and level 5 is considered exemplary. Students who scored below level 3 are considered below or well below grade level.

Reading scores for students in grades 3-10 increased from 53% at level three or higher in 2024 to 57% in 2025. Gadsden County had the lowest performance at 36% at level 3 or higher and St. Johns was the highest at 72%.

“Florida insists that education be factual, student-focused, and parent empowered,” DeSantis said in a news release. “Florida has led the nation in instituting progress monitoring assessments that allow for teachers and parents to provide real-time interventions that support the long-term success of their students, and our approach has paid off.”

The progress monitoring tests are administered three times per year by the state. The periodic testing is designed to allow instructors to make interventions for struggling students sooner. This is the third year of progress monitoring in Florida.

During the Spring 2025 end-of-course assessment for the civics assessment, 71% of students tested at a level 3 or higher; 47% were proficient or higher.

“Today’s results affirm that our first-in-the-nation statewide progress monitoring system is making a difference for our students. Under Governor DeSantis’ leadership, Florida will continue to provide the best opportunities for our students,” Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. said in a news release.

This year Florida on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Eighth grade math scores have dropped in the last three iterations of the test, and Florida students that age ranked in the bottom 10 states for math and reading scores. Fourth grade reading scores on the NAEP were the lowest in 2024 since 2003, while their math scores increased but remain below pre-pandemic numbers.

The data for the NAEP, collected in early 2024, were disputed by Diaz, who questioned the methodology of the exam. Diaz wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Education with “suggestions to help make NAEP great for educational progress once again.”

He took issue with the lack of inclusion of private school students and he believed urban students were included at a disproportionate rate.

Diaz will step down next month to become interim president of the University of West Florida. , the Florida Board of Education named DeSantis deputy chief of staff Anastasios Kamoutsas the next education commissioner.

That includes examining the intellectual and cultural foundations of the holiday: the people, places and events that often get overlooked or erased in social studies curriculums.

Juneteenth, the federal holiday in American history, holds special significance for many educators as it was championed by one of their own. , a former teacher — well into her nineties — led the charge for national recognition. While many schools across the country are off on June 19 in observance, the reason why is not as often taught, says Knowles.

Knowles, CEO and founder of the educational consulting firm Teach Heal Build, focuses on creating culturally affirming classrooms and communities. In April, he published the latest installment in the BOLDLY BLACK workbook series “Mathematics and Science in Ancient Africa.” The set was designed for third graders to explore topical principles and practices tied to Black culture — offering lessons they may not encounter in a traditional school setting.

Ahead of this year’s Juneteenth holiday, The 74’s Trinity Alicia spoke with Knowles about what’s shifting in social studies instruction — particularly in Florida, the power of culturally responsive curriculums in today’s political climate and what motivates him in today’s sociopolitical climate.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The 74: This year marks the 160th anniversary of Juneteenth, but it’s only been recognized as a federal holiday since 2021. Why is it so important, from an educator’s perspective, that Juneteenth became a national holiday?  

Juneteenth allows both teachers and students to explore some of the deeper, more despondent areas of American history that are often avoided. It helps us step outside traditional narratives and unpack the multiple perspectives and experiences that different people, particularly within the African-American and African diaspora communities, have had throughout American history. In this way, it gives students a chance to better understand the ongoing process of freedom.   

For example, Juneteenth is often seen as the definitive end of slavery, but that’s an oversimplification. In reality, it represents a moment in a much longer and more complex journey toward emancipation. This perspective encourages both teachers and students to engage with history in a more nuanced and meaningful way. 

It was also, for almost as many years, largely left untaught in schools. What impact does that have on America’s students and our society as a whole?  

Having been in education for almost two decades, I’ve seen that when we don’t talk about important historical events — like those highlighted and signified by Juneteenth — we miss the opportunity to open up meaningful conversations in the classroom.   

I’ve witnessed how this silence can lead to the creation of a generation of students who are apathetic, especially when it comes to social justice and socio-economic issues that disproportionately impact marginalized communities. However, when we engage with authentic stories and histories, it gives students the chance to develop empathy, compassion and a broader understanding of others’ experiences. This helps create more open-minded individuals who are better equipped to contribute positively to the diverse society we live in today. 

An educator named Opal Lee, known to be “the grandmother of Juneteenth” was a key advocate for the national recognition of the holiday. What significance does this hold for you knowing a fellow teacher led that charge?

Within the framework of American capitalism, we often fail to give educators the honor, respect and homage they truly deserve. Educators are the ones who mold the minds of our children — they have the power and potential to shape not only students’ academic paths but also their overall life trajectories. When educators are empowered to lead conversations about topics like Juneteenth — and when we recognize that the push to make Juneteenth a national holiday was led by an educator — it highlights the strength and influence we possess as a profession.   

It shows that our impact extends far beyond the walls of the classroom and can resonate throughout society as a whole. We have the ability to unlock the minds of the next generation and to use our knowledge, especially historical knowledge, as a powerful tool for change. By doing so, we not only inspire other educators but also challenge our country to examine all aspects of its past — even the ones that don’t neatly fit the traditional narrative of American history.  

Ilyasah Shabazz, daughter of human and civil rights activist Malcolm X, over 10 years ago on Juneteenth, “We’re in denial of the African holocaust.” Malcolm X would’ve been 100 years old last month, and we’re also 60 years from his assassination. On this Juneteenth, what do you want students to remember most about Malcolm X that they might not get from learning about other civil rights activists?  

As we celebrate Juneteenth this year, we must also reflect on civil rights activists beyond the immediate historical context of the holiday — especially when you think about figures like Malcolm X, who are usually misunderstood. His ideals and philosophy were labeled radical when taking a look at what he’s done overall for American history and the Black community in terms of uncovering darker truths as well as the denial of the American government and the experiences of African-Americans.

We live in a landscape right now and we’re told to move on and forget about those things we’re literally still dealing with as a community, but Malcolm X would want us to continue to advocate for our people and our students to be able to share our authentic experiences. And some of those experiences weren’t happy and joyous. But they have perpetrated so much psychological violence, which continues to happen in the classroom. And it was Malcolm X who stated that “only a fool would allow his oppressors to educate his children.”  

What Juneteenth does within Black communities forces us to step up based on the sentiments that Malcolm X expressed within that quote to be able to affirm and be able to become more self-reliant when it comes to our economic issues and social issues. But when it comes to educational issues and being more responsible and more accountable for teaching our history, we’re no longer contingent on systems to be able to teach the truth and history in the United States. 

From the bans on AP African American History courses to the pushback against DEI policies in schools nationwide, how have you navigated this climate as an educator in Florida?

Florida is one of the most prominent hotspots for controversy in education and arguably an epicenter of these debates. We’ve seen significant pushback against inclusive and truthful historical narratives, and it forces educators in schools to sanitize history and continue to perpetuate a fairytale traditional narrative of American history. This sort of censorship disproportionately impacts social studies instruction, which creates a sense of frustration and a disconnect, which leads to a disengagement with students.   

Throughout my work in public education, I have continued to push back and resist by looking at some of our state standards and benchmarks when it comes specifically to social studies and ensuring that I can tie in our stories and tie in those things that people label “controversial” or “political.” I have weaponized the language itself and weaponized some of the state standards so we can continue to tell our stories unredacted. 

Why is it important that Black parents, teachers and administrators are well represented in the decision-making process for schools?

One of the aspects of American history I don’t think that we unpack enough as a community is just some of the deleterious impacts that integration had within the Black community. A lot of the institutions, specifically the educational institution after integration, was absorbed by the dominant, more prevalent society. 

It is important, even within the current state of the system we’re in, that our voices are heard, our perspectives are heard especially when it comes to policies, processes, practices and procedures in education. Those who live in the community can have better, more viable solutions to some of the issues that we contend with within a community. I’ve seen processes within education when people outside of our community are making decisions, and those decisions are not necessarily meeting or accommodating the needs of the community. 

It is beyond critical that Black educators and educational leaders are given space to represent the issues and also the authentic, lived experiences and even some of the cultural norms that exist within those communities so they can be in a position to represent and also advocate for the things that are needed within the Black community.

In your years as an educator and advocate, what surprises you the most about trends and interests among Black students now versus when you were a kid in America? Do Black students and educators come into school — and specifically social studies classes — thinking, “What’s the point?”

Many children, especially those who are informed, are becoming activists around current events tied to identity. Students who are becoming outspoken, specifically a lot of our student-led organizations such as like Black Student Unions, for example, are able to take charge against the racism and bigotry here in Florida and amplify their voices around some of the injustice that is taking place in curriculum, which essentially violates our First Amendment.

You just a new workbook for students, “BOLDLY BLACK: Science and Mathematics in Ancient Africa.” What do you hope to achieve by releasing this series?

Information is widely more available than it was during my high school era in the 1990s simply due to the digital age we live in today. Sometimes we look at technology as being a destructive force, but it influences me to maintain a working knowledge of it in order to effectively show students how to access the information that we couldn’t when we were their ages.

Part of my activism and my solution-based approaches to things we’re dealing with within the Black community, specifically regarding American history that focuses on our experiences, is creating [this] Afro-centric workbook series that is geared towards students from grades three through 12. My third grade title is “Mathematics and Science in Ancient Africa,” and my goal is creating a curriculum that is concise and also digestible within the hands of parents and also community members.

In states where legislation is trying to restrict what we can say and do within the classroom, communities — and specifically Black communities — need to start building their own infrastructures and using some of the space within the Black communities. For example, community centers and also churches are safe, liberating spaces that can be found in Black communities that teach our history. 

Community members and those who may not be experts in pedagogy and pedagogical approaches can pick this up and share this information with their children. Some of those gaps and things that may be missing within the public educational system are now within the hands of the community to be able to educate and affirm all our children.

Thinking about classrooms and curriculums across the country — what keeps you up at night, and what are you most hopeful for?

In this current climate, I have such hope and optimism. I understand that Black communities have gone through far worse. Our whole experience within just the United States even before it became the United States and colonial America has been turmoil. 

But us as Black people have had agency and power to resist the oppression and repression of our voices and our experiences as well as our humanity in this country in the most profound ways. We’ve found ways to resist, push back and also provide for ourselves in order to achieve self-sufficiency in many points within our history. 

I feel hopeful moving forward that even if a public educational space is under attack, we will start to create those liberating spaces in solidarity like we’ve done throughout history in order to rebuild those institutions and infrastructures that were either destabilized or lost through integration. 

Considering all of those variables, there is very little pessimism within me around the things that have taken place and very little fear because, as Kendrick Lamar , “we gon’ be alright.”

Pinellas County Schools Superintendent Kevin Hendrick was looped in on a Feb. 24 directive from his police chief ordering campus officers to detain and question anybody they encounter with a federal deportation order and to alert U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, obtained through a public records request. Hendrick was also notified by district police Chief Luke Williams of plans to deputize school-based officers under a federal program that grants immigration arrest authority to local law enforcement agencies and that’s experienced since the beginning of Trump’s second term — in large part from new partnerships in Florida.

Immigrant rights groups and privacy advocates have for years warned that school-based police officers could share information about undocumented students and their families with federal immigration officials and that the program to deputize local cops, known as 287(g), could give immigration agents a foothold in schools. 

The revelations in Pinellas County, advocates said, offer clear evidence of collaboration on immigration matters between the law enforcement division of the country’s 28th-largest school district and outside police agencies. The instructions given to school resource officers, they assert, could violate constitutional protections against unreasonable detention and children’s legal right to a free public education regardless of their immigration status. 

“It should alarm and enrage every parent, teacher, and taxpayer in Florida that school police are being pressured to become informants for ICE and unconstitutionally detain members of our school community,” attorney Alana Greer, the director and co-founder of the Miami-based Community Justice Project, told The 74. 

Greer noted the school district police department’s directive to assist ICE, and , were voluntary decisions that undermine community trust and its mission to promote campus safety. “We don’t need or want armed cops in our schools doing ICE’s bidding. ​​These efforts do nothing to keep our kids safe.”

The Florida Phoenix that the Pinellas County school district had applied to take part in 287(g), the nation’s first K-12 school district to take that step. In response to the resulting public outcry, Hendrick, the superintendent, said the district police chief acted in error and without his or the school board’s approval. The district didn’t respond to questions last week from The 74 about emails Hendrick and other district leaders received from Williams outlining the police chief’s intention to participate. 

Records show the school district’s lawyers had planned to meet to discuss the 287(g) application before it became public and Isabel Mascaranes, the district spokesperson, was listed on the form as the point of contact for ICE “to coordinate any release of information to the media” regarding immigration enforcement actions. Asked by The 74 what knowledge she had of the 287(g) application before it was submitted to ICE, Mascaranes responded, “Can I get back to you on that?”

In a follow-up email, Mascaranes didn’t elaborate on when she first learned of the agreement, simply noting that she routinely handles “all media requests and releases.” She acknowledged the district police chief “maintains ongoing communication” with the sheriff’s office and other local law enforcement agencies and his decision to submit the 287(g) application was “guided by state and federal directives, intending to remain fully compliant with the law.” 

ICE and the Florida governor’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office also declined an interview request.

Voicemail records obtained by The 74 show it was ICE — not the district — that withdrew Pinellas school police from 287(g) consideration. 

“ICE will not be entering into an agreement” with the district, Melanie White, an ICE deportation officer, said in a voicemail to Williams, adding that the immigration enforcement agency “will not extend the program in that way” to include K-12 school district police departments “at this time.” 

‘An absolute priority of the Governor’

Perhaps nowhere more than Florida, home to an residents, has Trump’s immigration agenda been so forcefully embraced, with state and local officials looking for ways to bolster ICE enforcement. That includes Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who was tapped by Gov. Ron DeSantis to lead a new State Immigration Enforcement Council. The council was tasked with carrying out a state law extending immigration enforcement far into the realm of state and local police.

Records obtained by The 74 show Gualtieri threatened Williams and others to get on board or face the governor’s wrath.

While “immigration stuff is confusing,” Gualtieri said in a Feb. 25 email to Williams and the heads of other Pinellas County law enforcement agencies, “it is also at the forefront of Florida politics and an absolute priority of the Governor.”

“The new law puts legal obligations on all of us to ensure we do certain things and the consequences for not doing so include removal from office by the Governor, including his power to remove police chiefs, city managers, mayors and commission/council members,” he continued, adding that he would hold a call to “on how to best comply with the new Florida law.”

DeSantis, who claims he’s created for mass deportations, signed the law in February that establishes prison sentences for undocumented immigrants who cross into Florida after illegally entering the U.S. and requires jails and sheriff’s offices in the state’s 67 counties to participate in the 287(g) program and facilitate arrests. A police agencies to stop enforcing the state law in April, saying it likely violates the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and “unlawfully encroaches” on the federal government’s authority to enforce federal immigration laws. DeSantis and the Florida state attorney general are  

Florida lawmakers failed to pass a stricter bill this year which would have required all law enforcement agencies with at least 25 officers to form ICE partnerships. That law would have required Pinellas County school district police and other law enforcement agencies outside of sheriff’s and corrections departments to join forces with ICE. Even though that more far-reaching mandate did not pass, dozens of Florida law enforcement agencies voluntarily formed federal immigration enforcement partnerships, including the police departments at .

Pinellas County Schools Police Chief Luke Williams signed the 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement under pressure from the county sheriff, public records obtained by The 74 show. (Source: Pinellas County Schools)

And even though the Pinellas school police were not legally required by the law that did pass to pursue 287(g) or to act in concert with ICE when coming into contact with someone with a deportation warrant, Williams, the police chief, told the superintendent, the school board’s attorney and other districts leaders that they were.

Gualtieri “gave instructions on how deputies and officers should respond to the new law with respect to immigration and immigration enforcement,” Williams wrote in a March 5 email outlining his decision to submit the 287(g) application. “As you know we are bound to follow the law and during the conversation we were all advised that the expectation is that we do so.”

In that same email, Williams said he related Gualtieri’s directions about filing the 287(g) form to school board attorney David Koperski and “and we both agree we must follow the law.” The chief filed the form on Feb. 26.

Even without 287(g) arrest authorities, Williams told the superintendent that school-based officers would follow procedures outlined by Gualtieri to question and detain for up to an hour anyone they encounter with a federal arrest deportation order but who was not otherwise wanted on a criminal charge. 

Gualtieri’s Feb. 24 order came after ICE added some 700,000 people with federal deportation orders to the massive National Crime Information Center, a centralized database that law enforcement agencies nationwide use to track and act on criminal warrants. Without 287(g) powers, the sheriff wrote, local officials lacked authority to arrest people with deportation orders alone. Instead, local officers should contact the local ICE office “to have someone respond to the scene.” 

More than 1.4 million people nationwide have — a third of whom live in Texas or Florida and include longtime residents, people without criminal records and those with U.S.-born spouses and children. A heightened focus on people with final deportation orders regardless of their criminal histories is part of the Trump administration’s broader immigration crackdown. 

“If an ICE officer cannot arrive at the scene within one hour, then collect as much information from the person as you can and release the person and ICE will have to try to find them through their fugitive operations,” Gualtieri said. After forwarding the message to school-based officers, Williams told the superintendent that “Schools Police will do the same.” 

Schools have for decades been considered a safe haven for undocumented students and their families after the 1982 Plyler v. Doe Supreme Court decision enshrined childrens’ access to public schools regardless of their immigration status — a right Trump-aligned conservatives in several states are now actively trying to undo. 

On the second day of Trump’s second term, the president scrapped that instructed immigration agents to avoid making arrests at schools and other  

Trump border czar Tom Homan defended the policy shift in February, claiming Central and South American gang activity in the nation’s schools required there be “no safe haven for public safety threats and national security threats.”

“People say ‘Well, will you really go into a high school?” Homan said in . “Well, people need to look at the MS-13 members and Tren de Aragua members who enter this country, a majority of them between the ages of 15 and 17. Many are attending our schools and they’re selling drugs in the schools and they’re doing strong-armed robberies of other students.” 

On the same day that the Pinellas schools 287(g) application became public, Chief Williams wrote that he had no desire to ferret out the immigration status of students and families, despite his stated intention to facilitate ICE arrests.

“I do not know the status of any of our students, or parents and do not care to,” Williams said in his March 5 email to Hendrick. “I do not want to place yourself or the School Board under scrutiny because I followed my beliefs but failed to follow the law.”

‘A new chilling dimension’

A week after Trump’s inauguration, dispelling social media posts claiming immigration agents had visited a Pinellas high school and outlined how school principals should respond if they were to show up in the future. 

Certain educational records should not be released to federal officials without a subpoena, the memo noted, but ICE agents were in their authority to “bring a student to the front office for an interview” and make arrests. “We recommend cooperating” with ICE’s requests, the memo advises, and educators “should make an effort to contact the student’s parents before the school makes the student available to the Agent, unless the Agent directs the staff otherwise.”

Other districts have adopted starkly different policies. In April, the Department of Homeland Security said agents to conduct wellness checks on unaccompanied minor children who arrived at the border without their parents. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told NPR the officials were denied entry onto the campuses and that school principals followed “a fairly rigid set of protocols specific to these types of actions.”

Renata Bozzetto, the deputy director of the nonprofit Florida Immigrant Coalition which filed the lawsuit against the state immigration law, said the communications between the school district police chief and the county sheriff were “absolutely horrible” and could deter children from enrolling. She said she was particularly alarmed to learn that school district law enforcement officials had access to data about people with deportation orders and questioned to what degree “parents are being run through the system.” 

Federal law restricts the types of student information that public school districts can share with third parties. However, records , like logs of campus crimes, . 

School districts have for decades been navigating how much information they should share about students with law enforcement “but adding ICE to the mix is a new chilling dimension to that relationship,” said Cody Venzke, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union focused on surveillance, privacy and technology. 

That Williams acted on the 287(g) application without formal approval from the superintendent or school board, Venzke said, highlights a lack of district control over its police department to ensure a “student’s right to an education is protected.” The directive to detain anyone with an administrative deportation order absent evidence of a crime, he said, “raises significant equity and constitutional concerns.” 

If school-based officers are “roaming school hallways looking for students that have administrative warrants out against them,” Venzke said, “that is not an educational atmosphere in which students can feel safe and can learn.”

Through a unique collaboration between the and , the community now ranks 12th in state literacy, up from 31st just four years ago. This dramatic improvement wasn’t magic — it was the result of a systematic, community-wide approach to literacy that could serve as a model for districts nationwide.

The key to our success? A comprehensive public-private partnership that treats literacy as a community mission rather than just a school district initiative. The Learning Alliance, a nonprofit based in Vero Beach, has created an integrated support system that extends from birth through elementary school and beyond.

Its partnership with the school district works because it addresses literacy from multiple angles all in service of one goal — 90% of students reading on grade level by the end of third grade. 

To achieve this goal, the alliance funds 25 literacy coaches and reading interventionist positions within the district, ensuring that every school has dedicated expertise to implement the science of reading in grades K through 3. The district provides similar support in older grades. 

But that’s not all. The nonprofit engages families with children from birth to age 5, providing more than 5,500 age-appropriate books and 1,700 learning kits annually to under-resourced families. It also supports robust after-school and summer tutoring programs through the Moonshot Academy, where students show 50% more growth in reading compared to their peers not in the program. The afterschool program runs in the district schools, largely with district teachers compensated for their extra work by the Alliance.

The results speak for themselves. Indian River has doubled the percentage of A- and B-rated schools from 47% to 95%, and our third-grade reading scores now outperform the state average by nine percentage points (64% versus 55%). These aren’t just statistics — they represent thousands of children who now have the foundational skills they need to succeed in school and life.

Critical to this success has been the Moonshot Community Action Network, a coalition of over 150 local leaders who ensure that early literacy remains a community priority. This network includes business leaders, healthcare providers, faith-based organizations, and community advocates who understand that literacy is fundamental to our community’s future prosperity.

For superintendents and district leaders reading this, we offer several practical recommendations:

• First, look beyond traditional funding models. While public education funding is essential, strategic partnerships with community organizations can provide both financial resources and expertise that complement district capabilities.

• Second, invest in literacy coaches and reading interventionists. Having dedicated literacy experts in every school creates a support system for teachers and ensures consistent implementation of evidence-based reading instruction.

• Third, extend your teaching time. Our Moonshot Academy afterschool program creates opportunities for students to make more progress in less time. It pairs intensive tutoring with enrichment activities to boost engagement, and it works: students in the afterschool program average at least 50% more growth in reading than peers who do not participate. 

• Fourth, expand your reach beyond school walls. The family partnerships program demonstrates that literacy support must begin before kindergarten and continue outside school hours to be truly effective.

• Fifth, build community coalitions. The broader community’s investment in literacy creates a sustainable ecosystem of support that survives changes in school leadership or funding fluctuations.

For philanthropists and community organizations, think beyond traditional grant-making. The most effective partnerships involve deep collaboration with schools, shared accountability for outcomes, and a long-term commitment to the community.

Our journey hasn’t been without challenges, but it’s proven that significant improvements in literacy are possible with the right partnership model. The students’ success isn’t just about test scores – it’s about creating a foundation for lifelong learning and opportunity.

The pandemic may have created unprecedented challenges for education, but it has also shown us the power of community collaboration. In Indian River County, we’ve demonstrated that when schools and community organizations work together with shared purpose and accountability, we can achieve remarkable results.

The question isn’t whether this model can work. The question is: Who will be next to replicate it?

The increases, while modest, are being driven by Republicans. Greater percentages of GOP voters say they want students to study social safety net programs like welfare and Medicaid. While there’s still a partisan divide on such topics, 51% of Republicans support students learning about income inequality, compared to 46% in 2021. Support among Democrats held steady at 87%.

“People are supportive of schools teaching about controversial topics from multiple perspectives,” said Morgan Polikoff, a University of Southern California education professor and co-author of the study, drawn from a sample of 4,200 adults, including almost half with school-age children. “They don’t want teachers to be putting their thumb on the scale in terms of one perspective being better than the other.”

The shift comes even as Americans of all political stripes give schools low marks on preparing students to be good citizens, with just 29% offering them an A or B grade. 

But the increasing support among Republicans for teaching issues frequently labelled divisive surprised researchers, suggesting that many conservatives don’t necessarily want to limit what children learn in school — a frequent criticism lodged by critics on the left. Most have either banned or considered legislation outlawing the teaching of what Republicans consider divisive concepts. the mandates have silenced teachers interested in presenting a full account of American history, including its darker chapters. 

The survey also shows Republicans want more attention paid to current events, such as the benefits and challenges of Medicare and Social Security (69%, up from 62% in 2021). The share of Republicans who believe schools should teach about racism also increased, from 54% to 58%. 

“Contrary to the conventional wisdom, there are still plenty of educational issues that garner bipartisan support in this polarized era,” said David Houston, an assistant education professor at George Mason University. “Finding these points of convergence is an important and necessary step toward building broad and durable support for public education in both red and blue communities and from one presidential administration to the next.”

Jonathan Butcher, a senior research fellow at the right-wing Heritage Foundation, said he prefers a “more conservative approach” to civics that would focus on the Constitution and structures like the electoral college. But he said it’s also “certainly justifiable” for schools to teach students how to interpret the news of the day — like why Democrats held up signs reading “Save Medicaid” during speech to Congress Tuesday night. 

“As we teach students about civics, they should understand how Medicaid came to be, what the relationship is between taxpayers and Medicaid,” he said. “Students should have enough background knowledge and an understanding of how policies have been formed that they can understand what was happening.” 

Teaching ‘with nuance’

Florida is among the red states that prohibit teachers from discussing topics like institutional prejudice or gender equity. bans educators from teaching that someone might be “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive.” 

The law is “commonly known for restricting instruction,” said Stephen Masyada, director of the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship at the University of Central Florida. But he thinks that characterization ignores that the legislation also requires students to learn about “the ramifications of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on individual freedoms.” 

The state mandates lessons, for example, on the in 1920, when a white mob killed dozens of Black citizens and ran hundreds more out of town in a violent attempt to keep them from voting. 

Many conservatives want schools to address those topics “with nuance,” Masyada said, and to connect “the promises of the founding era” to overcoming oppression and bias. 

‘Very nationalistic’

Some current examples of civics education remain too liberal for many Republicans. “We the People: Civics that Empower All Students,” a in grades four through eight, was among the programs eliminated in the U.S. Department of Education’s sweeping cancellations of teacher preparation grants last month. The program equips teachers to focus on topics like the Bill of Rights, but also encourages civic engagement. Some conservatives argue that such projects emphasize liberal causes like abortion rights or climate activism. grantees “were using taxpayer funds to train teachers and education agencies on divisive ideologies.”

The USC survey shows that the percentages of Republicans saying schools should teach the contributions of women and minorities throughout history — topics that could be construed as promoting diversity, equity and inclusion — were relatively flat or saw a small decline. Among Democrats, however, there were increases.

“Everybody likes civic education, but they like it for different reasons,” said Marcie Taylor-Thoma, director of the Maryland Council for Civic and History and a former social studies coordinator for the state. Democrats, she said, think students should learn about their civil rights and “critically analyze what’s going on in our country.” But Republicans’ view of civics is “very nationalistic” she said.

There’s little disagreement, however, over teaching students about the U.S. Constitution. Ninety-three percent of Democrats and 95% of Republicans said it’s important for any civics curriculum to cover the rights and principles outlined in the founding document. It’s that many chapters of Moms for Liberty, a conservative advocacy group, have taken up in recent years, and a Trump executive order calls for schools to recognize annually on Sept. 17.

There was scant support in the survey for students participating in protests during school hours — only 24% liked the idea — but the largest partisan split was over reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Forty-four percent of Democrats support that tradition, compared with 84% of Republicans. Debates over requiring students to recite the pledge have erupted in recent years in and .

Given the negative attitudes of many respondents toward the role schools play in preparing students for civic life, researchers thought support would be higher for a common political proving ground: student government. But less than three-fourths of respondents favor student participation in school elections, like voting for student council leaders.

That finding was unexpected, said Anna Saavedra, lead author and a research scientist at USC’s Center for Applied Research in Education.

“Having a class president is a pretty standard part of most schools,” she said. “Seeing such low support was a little surprising. It’s a way for kids to practice voting, running a platform and participating in a democratic process.”

Polikoff said it’s not surprising that there are differences of opinion over activities like requiring community service as part of classwork (73% of Republicans compared with 80% of Democrats) or honoring veterans and military service (92% of Republicans and 78% of Democrats). Local context, he said, will continue to influence how deep teachers can take classroom discussions on potentially controversial topics. 

“I don’t think that we would expect that the civics curriculum is going to look exactly the same in rural Republican Wisconsin as it’s going to look in Oakland Unified [in California],” he said. “In both places, there is room for diverse perspectives. The reality is, every classroom is purple to at least some extent.”

‘A challenge to teach’

Some educators, however, still tiptoe around topics in the news.

“It’s been a challenge to teach lately,” said Jenny Morgan, a veteran eighth grade U.S. History teacher in the West Salem, Wisconsin, district, which she described as “very, very Republican.” 

She’s tried to avoid discussing President Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s makeover of the executive branch, but she did recently teach a lesson on , which Trump is charging Canada, China and Mexico.

The discussion prompted a recent debate between two students on opposite sides of the political spectrum.

“The Democratic student was trying to explain why tariffs aren’t good and talked about how prices are going to go up. The other kid was saying ‘Oh no, they won’t go up,’ ” Morgan said. “It was just an interesting conversation between the two eighth grade boys. You could tell they were getting current events at home.”

A dozen state leaders, all from Republican-led states, wrote to Linda McMahon, President Donald Trump’s education secretary nominee, last week asking her to push for greater state control over federal education funds and to avoid issuing guidance they say is “not anchored in law.”

In the Jan. 28 letter, shared exclusively with The 74, they also want McMahon, former head of World Wrestling Entertainment, to send large buckets of funding for schools, like Title I money for low-income students, as a block grant. But they stopped short of stating support for abolishing the U.S. Department of Education — President Donald Trump’s top education policy goal. 

“By prioritizing state leadership and flexibility, the Trump administration can unleash the full potential of America’s schools and students,” they wrote. “Please defer to state and local decision-making as much as possible.”

The letter outlines conservative chiefs’ priorities as Trump takes aggressive steps to reshape the federal role in education. He frequently to “send education back to the states” and is expected to issue an executive order before the end of the month that would call on Congress to close the department.

The memo offers specifics that have been lacking in many discussions over how the relationship between the federal government and the states might change. But some experts wonder if the freedom GOP leaders seek will leave high-need students without services currently provided under law. Madi Biedermann, a department spokeswoman, confirmed they’d received the letter, but said officials wouldn’t share it with McMahon until she’s confirmed. 

The 12 leaders who penned the letter, both elected and appointed, are from Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming. 

Oklahoma state Superintendent Ryan Walters was not among them, despite the fact that he has been the most vocal about and at one point, threatened to . 

The proposals should provide additional talking points for committee members during McMahon’s confirmation hearing Feb. 13. While it would require congressional approval, the chiefs want to see the of funding under the Every Student Succeeds Act — like Title I and Title III for English learners — consolidated into a single block grant for “maximum flexibility.” 

They want to design their own formulas for distributing the money to districts so they can address the needs of rural areas, for example, and state-specific learning initiatives. In the meantime, they want the new secretary to grant as many waivers as possible from the accountability requirements of the law so they can “present new ideas” for how to spend the money.

‘Dilute the protections’

Rebecca Sibilia, executive director of EdFund, a research and policy organization, said she wasn’t surprised that the chiefs didn’t advocate eliminating the education department outright. Many of their states on federal funds and spend less state money on schools. The department, she said, is doing those states “a great service.”

While some state leaders might view the federal requirements as “overly burdensome,” she said their push for more control could come at the expense of students who require extra help, like those in poverty, English learners and homeless students. 

“Once you start blending all of those titles together you start to really dilute the protections that are going to individual students,” she said. 

The letter doesn’t mention the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which under , would move to the Department of Health and Human Services.

“IDEA oversight is giving some people pause,” she said. “That piece of legislation is very specific to education.”

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, say they have “serious concerns” about any attempts to shutter the department. On Thursday, they to Acting Education Secretary Denise Carter asking for more transparency on how the department plans to continue running programs it oversees, like financial aid and afterschool programs.

“We will not stand by and allow the impact that dismantling the Department of Education would have on the nation’s students, parents, borrowers, educators and communities,” they wrote.

In their letter, the state chiefs pushed back on the department’s practice of using “dear colleague” letters to enforce its priorities, which they said have often been “treated as legally binding policy.” Guidance from the department, they said, should merely be a suggestion “so as not to force behavior change.”  

During the Obama administration, for example, Republicans fought guidance that said students should be able to use bathrooms that match their and another that said districts could risk civil rights investigations if Black and Hispanic students were . 

On Wednesday, the Education Department issued stating that it would no longer enforce the Biden administration’s Title IX rule, which extended protections to LGBTQ students, and that any investigations based on the 2024 rule would be “reevaluated.” 

Nat Malkus, deputy director of education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he hopes Trump honors the chiefs’ request, but noted the “chaos” that has marked Trump’s first few weeks in office. Trump’s efforts to freeze federal funding have been . And even some have questioned Elon Musk’s authority to gain access to government payment systems and disable an agency that provides foreign aid.

“The ‘pen and phone’ approach, to quote Obama, whipsaws state leaders across administrations and is lousy federal governance,” he said. “My worry is less about the secretary nominee and more about the ‘move fast and break things’ approach we’ve seen so far in many other dimensions of this young administration.”

“It took the joy out of teaching and learning.”

McClymont became a stay-at-home mom and planned to homeschool her daughter, but she missed the classroom. In the fall of 2023, she began leading a learning pod with three children in her neighborhood. That was when she heard about microschools, or the intentionally small, low cost, often mixed-age learning communities that have gained widespread popularity in recent years. She was immediately attracted to microschooling’s focus on flexibility and personalized learning, and knew for certain that she wanted to launch her own microschool. But where should she begin? 

Most microschool founders are teachers like McClymont who previously worked in conventional schools. According to a by the National Microschooling Center, more than 70 percent of today’s microschool operators are current or former licensed educators. These founders have deep knowledge of curriculum and pedagogy and a passion for teaching and learning, but most of them have never run a small business. 

They are looking for ways to bridge the gap between being an educator and an entrepreneur, and new microschool accelerator programs are helping them to do just that.

“Put me in a classroom anywhere and I can teach all day. I got that. I was looking for all those business tips and tricks,” said Tonya Kipe, founder of in Polk City, Florida. A public elementary school teacher for more than a decade, Kipe grew her microschool from one student in January 2024 to 26 students today, including those with special learning needs. Participating in , a Florida-based nonprofit microschool accelerator, was a key part of Kipe Academy’s growth. 

Created by former public school teacher Iman Alleyne in 2022, Launch Your Kind supports the development of new microschools — especially those that celebrate diversity, inclusivity, and joyful learning. 

After launching her own microschool, , in 2016, Alleyne wished she had an affordable, model-agnostic school accelerator program available to her to provide the business skills, entrepreneurial insights, and community support that she lacked. She wanted to streamline the startup process for new founders, enabling them to avoid common pitfalls and build sustainable small businesses. “I teach them to take care of their teacher hat, but their business owner hat needs to come on too,” she said. 

The 10-week program provides online, cohort-style coaching for about a dozen new or aspiring microschool founders, and continued support thereafter. Through weekly check-ins and expert presentations, they learn the business of running a school, ranging from establishing policies and procedures and finding a suitable school location to setting tuition prices, exploring various revenue streams, and being fiscally responsible. Alleyne’s goal is to help microschools flourish and grow, and she helps founders to merge their love of teaching with a keen sense of what it takes to run a successful enterprise. Most Launch Your Kind founders launch or expand their microschools within six months of participating in the program, with each cohort community remaining in close contact long after the program ends — including through an annual in-person retreat. Launch Your Kind’s winter cohort begins later this month.

For Kipe, participating in Launch Your Kind helped her to see that entrepreneurship can be a win-win for herself and the students she serves. “We want to serve the community, but we’re also a business,” Kipe realized. 

Like most of the Florida microschools that have participated in Launch Your Kind, Kipe Academy’s students attend at reduced tuition rates thanks to the state’s robust school choice programs that enable education dollars to follow students to their desired learning setting — including microschools and homeschooling centers. Family financial accessibility is an important priority for the microschool founders with whom Alleyne works. It’s also Alleyne’s priority with Launch Your Kind. “I really wanted to put together an accelerator that would be at a price point that people could afford,” said Alleyne, who has received philanthropic support from organizations such as Stand Together Trust, Getting Smart, VELA, and the Yass Prize, which has helped to defray participant costs. 

After discovering microschooling in 2023 while running her learning pod, McClymont saw a post on social media by Kipe mentioning Launch Your Kind. She connected with Alleyne and joined the next accelerator cohort in 2024, growing her program, , from three students to 13. She serves both neurodiverse and neurotypical students in her current microschool location in West Sunrise, Florida, and is in the process of opening a second location in Coral Springs. She credits the accelerator program as a primary reason for her early success and continued growth. “To be a teacher is one thing; to be an entrepreneur and run a successful microschool is another. There were a lot of things that I didn’t know, like certain legalities, marketing, and just the logistics of how to run the company,” said McClymont, adding that the connection to a small community of founders within the Launch Your Kind cohort was also invaluable. 

One piece of entrepreneurial input was particularly helpful. “I was grossly undercharging myself and Iman had to have a conversation with me,” recalled McClymont. “She told me, ‘you are undercharging for what you have to offer and you need to raise your prices. Yes, you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart but you’re running a business now.’” For McClymont, that type of candid feedback was exactly what she needed to take her business to the next level to serve even more students throughout South Florida. Adopting a solid business mindset was how McClymont would be able to do the most good for the most students. “I think that’s something that a lot of educators probably struggle with,” she added.

McClymont has observed significant academic and social-emotional gains in her students, and plans to continue to open new microschools as parent demand grows. She is also considering the possibility of creating a franchise model to help other educators launch their own Tree Stars Learning locations without having to start from scratch. 

She said she thinks the microschooling movement is just beginning: “I feel like we are the Uber of taxis: I believe that microschools are going to take over. Especially in South Florida, parents are looking for other options because they see how the public school is not serving their child. It’s getting to a point where they have to close down some public schools here. Parents are seeking other options, and I just want to be a positive light.”

School administrators provided mostly positive feedback to lawmakers curious about implementation of a 2023 law prohibiting students from using their phones.

School officials provided the House Student Academic Success subcommittee feedback last week on , a 2023 law that prohibits phone use during instructional time, prohibits access to certain websites on school networks, and requires instruction to students to responsibly use social media.

“It’s gone very very well in many of our classrooms, especially I would say it goes really well in our classrooms with struggling learners. The teachers have seen the benefit of that increased interaction with each other, the increased focus,” said Toni Zetzsche, principal of River Ridge High School in Pasco County.

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The law, introduced by Rep. Brad Yeager, a Republican representing part of Pasco County,  support before serving as a sort of model legislation across the nation.

“The first step of this process: remove phones from the classroom, focus on learning, take the distraction out. Number two was, social media, without just yanking it from them, try to educate them on the dangers. Try to help to learn and understand how social media works for them and against them,” Yeager said during the subcommittee meeting.

An analysis shows Florida was the first state to ban or restrict phones when the law passed, with several other states following suit in 2024.

Florida schools have discretion as to how they enforce the law, with some prohibiting cellphones from the beginning until the end of the day, while others allow students to use their phones during down times like lunch and between classes.

Some teachers have taken it upon themselves to purchase hanging shoe organizers for students to bank their phones in during class, Yeager said.

Since the law took effect in the middle of 2023, Zetzsche said, students in higher level college preparatory classes have partially struggled because of the self-regulating nature of the courses and the expectation that teachers give them more freedom.

But for younger and lower-performing students, the law has been effective, according to Zetzsche and Yeager used to gain support for the bill.

“In some of our ninth and tenth grade classrooms, where the kids need a little more support, those teachers are definitely seeing the benefit,” Zetzsche said.

Orange County Schools Superintendent Maria Vazquez said schools have combatted student complaints about not having their phones by filling down time, like lunch periods, with games or club activities.

Zetzsche said she has seen herself and others use the phoneless time as an opportunity to get to know more students.

“I know I’ve spoken with teachers, elementary teachers, middle school teachers, and high school teachers that have said, ‘I’ve had to teach students to reconnect and get involved or talk to people.’ They are doing a better job of focusing on that replacement behavior now, I think. I think we all are,” Zetzsche said.

“I think, as a high school principal now, when I see a student sitting in the cafeteria and they’re on their cellphone watching a movie, I immediately want to strike up a conversation and say, ‘Hey, are you on the weightlifting team? Do you play a sport?’” Zetzsche said.

Bell to bell

Orange County schools decided not to allow phones all day, while Pasco County chose to keep phones away from students during instructional time, the extent the law requires.

“It was surprisingly, and shockingly, pretty easy to implement,” Marc Wasko, principal at Timber Creek High School in Orange County, told the subcommittee.

Rep. Fiona McFarland, a Republican representing part of Sarasota County and the chair of the subcommittee, encouraged further planning to better enforce the law.

“I will tell you, because not everything we do up here is perfect, there are some schools that I’ve heard of where, even if the teacher has a bag, kids are bringing a dummy phone, like mom’s old iPhone, and flipping that into the pouch where they’ve got their device in their pocket or if you’ve got long hair, maybe you can hide earbuds,” McFarland said.

“I mean, this is the reality of being policymakers, folks,” McFarland continued. “We make a law, we can make the greatest law in the world, which is meaningless if it’s not executed and enforced properly. We could pass a law tomorrow to end world hunger and global peace, but it means nothing if it’s not operationalized well and planned for well.”

Yeager told the committee he does not plan to seek to ban phones outside of instructional time, although other lawmakers could push for further phone prohibitions.

Department of Education obligation

The law requires the Department of Education to make instructional material available on the effects of social media, required for students to learn under the law.

“Finding the time to be able to embed that into the curriculum is really difficult. We are struggling with instructional minutes as it is, when we have things like hurricanes impact learnings,” Zetzsche said.

“We are struggling to get through the content, so it would be nice to have something from the Department of Education that is premade that we can share with students, but maybe through elective courses or some guidance on how they would expect high schools, how they would feed that information to students.”

Administrators said parental pushback has been limited, and Zetzsche added that parents have sought advice from schools about how to detach their kids from their phones.

“When we struggle with the student who’s attached to their cellphone, the parents want to put things in place.
They just don’t know what to do,” Zetzsche said, calling for the department to provide additional information to parents.

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

Updated Jan 22: As of Jan 21, the Department of Homeland Security has  its “sensitive locations” policy, allowing immigration raids where children gather including schools, hospitals and churches.

Parents showing their children where passports and other important legal documents are hidden at home. 

Mothers and fathers signing affidavits outlining who their childrens’ caregiver would be. 

Guardians making arrangements with schools for dismissal in the event they have been picked up by federal agents in a deportation sweep.

These are the daily conversations and heartbreaking realities mixed-status families — where not all kids, parents or grandparents hold American citizenship or legal status to reside in the U.S. — are rehearsing in case children come home to an empty house.

With Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan pledging to operate the largest deportation operation in American history in just days, parents, advocates, lawyers, and educators nationwide are working nonstop to protect and prepare families and school staff. 

“Students can’t focus on learning when they’re worried about whether their parents will come home at the end of the day, when they see themselves dehumanized in the press, or when representatives of the federal government come to their city to say, ‘You’ll be first in line for removal,’” Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates said last month. The union has rolled out a “Sanctuary Training Series” for staff and parents on how to protect kids from federal raids.  

The 74 interviewed dozens of people working with some of the nearly six million families facing ongoing dehumanization and to understand how deportation plans are affecting schools and students. 

School leaders throughout the country have begun sharing : Ensuring bus drivers and front office staff are trained on legal policies; providing simple scripts for what to say when interacting with federal law enforcement; explaining what’s next if the worst happens and families .

Educators, like healthcare workers, are sharing tips on for interacting with federal agents. Immigrant coalitions and parents are leading “” trainings in schools. Some schools are increasing mental health offerings as widespread increases along with anti-immigrant hate. 

“We need to let you know, if you are a student who is undocumented or a family who is undocumented, we will take care of you,” former teacher and board member Scott Esserman vowed at a Denver school board meeting in . “That’s our responsibility.”

When pressed on what the Trump administration’s plans would mean for millions of families with young children, officials have advised deported parents to take their American citizen children . If their home countries won’t accept them, the administration has reportedly where they will be permanently displaced – places where they may have no cultural, linguistic connection to.

Immigration enforcement operations will start in , Illinois and , Colorado, just outside of Denver, Trump administration officials have said.  

In response, school districts including , , , , and have reiterated resolutions passed during Trump’s first term and are training staff on how to protect families’ privacy in any interactions with immigration enforcement. 

, the nation’s largest, has a clear cut policy: If immigration enforcement officers do arrive at a school building, staff must keep them outside, notifying the districts’ legal counsel to first verify any warrants or subpoenas.

“Protecting immigrant students in and around school is not only moral – it’s the ,” said Alejandra Vázquez Baur, co-founder of the National Newcomer Network and fellow at The Century Foundation. Accessing free education, regardless of immigration status, has been protected as a constitutional right for 42 years. 

And like hospitals, schools, afterschool programs and chldrens’ bus stops have long been considered “sensitive locations,” protected from federal immigration raids without appropriate approval. Dozens of families sought refuge in while immigration arrests spread during the last Trump administration. 

Today, advocates are preparing for a different ballgame. The Trump administration’s include scrapping the Homeland Security’s sensitive locations policy, a move legal experts expect would be challenged. 

“We don’t want people with contagious diseases too scared to go to the hospital or children going uneducated because of poorly considered deportation policies,” Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union told . 

While the legal logistical challenges to operate mass deportations are predictable and being planned for – Texas, for instance, has pledged for deportation centers – immigration law scholar Hiroshi Motomura expects a wildcard: the public’s political will. 

“When you have the rhetoric and focus on the wall and on the border, it’s easy to stick with this idea that immigration law is to protect ‘us’ from ‘them,’” Motomura told The 74. 

“But it really is different when you start depriving employees of their families, and kids see their classmates deported,” he said. “It completely shifts the political vulnerability and what’s going on here.”

The 74 spoke with school staff, advocates and lawyers in states with the highest volume of mixed-status families about what they expect and how they’re preparing for the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans: 

Priscilla Monico Marín

Executive Director of the New Jersey Consortium for Immigrant Children 

Reality set in for Marín and her New Jersey-based team over the summer: Trump’s second presidency was a distinct possibility. To reach as many immigrant youth as quickly as they could, they started brainstorming, identifying a new district partner, Jersey City Public Schools.

Marín felt “called” to support families like her own when anti-immigrant rhetoric resurged, swapping her career as a bilingual teacher to become an immigration lawyer. 

“No one wants to be defined by your hardest day,” she said, adding too often undocumented students are not defined by their “humor, their curiosity, or their strength,” but instead their status and trauma.

Her team leads workshops and shares resources for classes of multilingual learners, so that they can secure immigration case support, access to social services and help others work past barriers to school enrollment.

The current situation has created a sense of urgency to what Marín and her team do. 

After she leaves the schools, older students start calling their hotline for assistance to secure visas and more stable immigration statuses, and to ask, “I’m undocumented. How do I enroll in healthcare?,” while some navigate the web of government bureaucracy as the only bilingual person in their families. 

Prerna Arora

Columbia Teachers College Faculty, New York

— a professor who studies the mental and physical health impacts of immigration on children — is witnessing a culture of fear and pain that’s limiting learning as fears of deportation loom. 

Working with 100 immigrant youth and asylum seekers throughout New York City, she has seen more hesitance and skepticism to share their emails or names in recent months than ever before. 

Many expressed feeling “underestimated… People may expect them not to have any language skills or fewer than they have.” Arora said. “…A lot of them spoke up to say, ‘we want people to know that we actually do want to try, we do care.’” 

In addition, several noted bias, hate and harassment from both children and adult K-12 school staff. “Maybe it’s a comment in passing that nobody realized how harmful it was.” Students are especially hurt when teachers say nothing at all after an  incident. 

Particularly to curb absenteeism, Arora emphasized schools need to focus on providing several tiers of mental health supports, ranging from school-wide workshops to small group and individual counseling, and establishing a sense of safety so that “parents and kids feel like the school can be trusted.” 

Miguel Bocanegra

Immigration Lawyer with Cornell University’s Path2Papers Program, California

A small team of lawyers have held over 500 free consultations since launching one year ago, quickly mobilizing to move as many working DACA recipients toward more permanent legal residency before the Supreme Court or Trump’s administration upends the program’s fate.

Their approach is “offensive as opposed to defensive … to assist people in getting visas, to move in a positive direction that would not keep them in permanent limbo,” said Bocanegra, who has been practicing immigration law for over two decades. 

Bocanegra anticipates the Supreme Court may put an end to DACA as soon as late 2025, though it . The Obama-era policy has enabled more than 700,000 “dreamers” brought to the country as children to attain temporary legal status and work authorization. 

Today, he hosts confidential consultations with teachers and on campuses and over Zoom, helping them and their employers secure sponsorship and more permanent statuses like H-1B visas.

Roughly 82% of the people they’ve worked with are eligible for more stable statuses via employment or humanitarian visas. 

“We’re advising employers to educate themselves and make decisions one way or the other about whether they can move forward with these visa options while there’s still some time.”

Alejandra Vázquez Baur

Co-founder of National Newcomer Network, New York

A former south Florida teacher who grew up in a mixed status household, Vázquez Baur has witnessed generations of kids live with fears of deportation that often led to school absenteeism. 

While the incoming administration’s agenda seems more willing to target families and threaten kids’ right to education, she urged school leaders to remember, “the law is still the law, nothing has changed yet.”

The fear school staff may experience when encountering federal law enforcement is  only mitigated by knowing what to do. Some have begun printing out and language that front office staff, bus drivers and security agents can use: “We follow district policy and cannot provide any information without consulting legal counsel.”

Maribel Sainez

Aspire Public Schools’ Director of Advocacy & Community Engagement, California

Sainez, who also grew up in a mixed-status household, is urgently spreading a resource she recently learned of: , where families can report if they’ve seen ICE agents, inquire about sightings in a given area, or get support after an interaction with the agency. 

She and her charter network that serves many undocumented students are partnering with local organizations to offer Know Your Rights trainings, which include exercises for families on how to interact with federal agents. 

“I constantly draw on my own lived experiences,” said Sainez. “… How can we counter that fear and panic and really promote a sense of solidarity, awareness, and power building?”

In Los Angeles, citizenship expert Motomura has analyzed decades of policy, and resistance to change it. He’s among thousands advocating for reforms to the immigration system, stuck in congressional limbo year after year.  

“The world has changed, the economy has changed,” Motomura said. “The only way we’re going to get out of it is to make it not about how high the border wall is, but ask ourselves why there are 11 million people in the country who are without papers.”

During the 2023-2024 school year, Florida schools removed nearly twice as many books than the year before following challenges from parents and community members.

Schools removed 732 titles during the , on top of .

Twenty-three districts contributed to the list, with Clay, Indian River, and Volusia counties making up significant portions.

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The removals stem from requiring school boards to adopt protocols for screening books deemed to be pornographic or contain sexual content.

Florida book removals have been the subject of lawsuits claiming censorship and limiting freedom of expression.

“There are no books banned in Florida, and sexually explicit materials do not belong in schools,” Florida Department of Education Communications Director Sydney Booker said in an email to the Phoenix. She added that of the more than 700 books on the list, some of the same titles have been counted in multiple districts.

The number of book challenges may have been too high in the eyes of legislators.

A law passed earlier this year, after the reporting period for the above data, could lower the number of challenges in the years to come. limits nonparents living in a school district to one book challenge per month.

PEN America report

Less than two weeks ago, of books that had been removed from Florida school libraries during the 2023-2024 school year.

By PEN America’s count, schools removed about 4,500 books from Florida libraries. The methodology between the freedom of expression advocacy organization and the state differs, though.

PEN’s list includes books temporarily removed while awaiting a final decision from the school board, and administrative removals, another method to take books off shelves.

The state’s count includes only books removed by school boards and does not include books removed pending challenges.

By PEN’s tally, Florida removed more books than any other state during the previous school year.

and several authors of removed books argues state definitions of “pornographic” and “describes sexual content” are unconstitutional and have resulted in censorship.

The publishers argue that “vagueness and ambiguity result in overbroad interpretations of [the law’s] prohibition on content that describes sexual conduct and chill protected speech.”

The Florida Department of Education stands by the limitations put on school libraries.

“Once again, far left activists are pushing the book ban hoax on Floridians,” Booker said. “The better question is why do these activists continue to fight to expose children to sexually explicit materials.”

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