classroom of a daycare center without children and teacher Credit: Shutterstock
Democratic lawmakers in each chamber of the Florida Legisature have re-introduced a bill that would establish a protocol allowing schools to search for students with autism who wander off.
The bills requires public schools to create plans and a cohort of personnel to address situations in which students with autism “elope,” or wander away from safe areas.
“This long-overdue measure would finally bring Florida in line with states that have already taken action on this issue,” Sen. Kristen Arrington, a Democrat from Kissimmee, said in a news release.
“By establishing clear, statewide guidelines, we can equip school districts with the tools and support they need to protect our most vulnerable children. It also gives parents confidence that, in an emergency, their child’s school will be prepared to respond quickly and effectively.”
The bill calls for creating school elopement plans involving immediately contacting the parent of the student, conducting “an immediate, coordinated on-campus search and contacting emergency services only when the student is reasonably believed, based on verified information or direct observation, to have left school grounds and to be at risk of harm.”
The School Staff Assistance for Emergencies teams would annually update the school elopement plan, respond to all elopements, and train school personnel on response. The bill would require a student-specific “quick reference guide” for students prone to eloping.
“As a society, we need to be more assertive in protecting the needs, safety, and dignity of the neurodiverse population. All special needs students in Florida deserve the same protection,” Monica Carretero said in the news release. Carretero is the mother of a child with autism who once was found at an outdoor basketball court after eloping from his classroom.
The identical bills, HB 423 and SB 494, were filed by Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, and Arrington.
Nearly half of children with autism attempt to elope from safe environments, according to the National Autism Association. Some of those children have accidentally drowned.
“With nearly half of children with autism attempting to elope from safe environments, these safeguards are urgently needed,” Eskamani said in a news release. “Every student deserves to be safe at school, and every parent deserves peace of mind.”
Arrington filed the bill in the 2024 and 2025 sessions. Neither received a committee hearing.
Eskamani filed the bill in 2023, 2024, and 2025. The 2023 and 2025 bills made it through one subcommittee but died, while her 2024 bill did not receive a hearing.
Lawmakers last session took a particular interest in addressing problems faced by Floridians with autism and their families.
During the 2025 session, the first bill to pass the Senate increases early detection opportunities and educational interventions for children with autism, a top priority for Senate President Ben Albritton, a Republican from Wauchula. That bill, SB 112, is now law.
That bill was among others last session that created a workforce credential for students with autism, and another relating to employers covering benefits for children with autism.
The session starts Jan. 13.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
The declaration lists a series of principles such as parents being the primary educators of their children and public education money always following the children.
The principles also call for:
— Schools to be fully transparent with parents.
— Schools to prioritize proven teaching methods “rooted in foundational subjects over fads or experimental teaching methods.”
— Education to be “grounded in objective truth, free from ideological fads,” while also being focused on “America’s founding principles and roots in the broader Western and Judeo-Christian traditions.”
— Students to be prepared for challenges and responsibilities of adulthood and taught “the whole truth about America — its merits and failings — without obscuring that America is a great source of good in the world.”
Also Thursday, the board approved new standards tied to a 2024 law (SB 1264) that requires instruction on the history of communism.
Among other things, students will be asked to compare the Communist Manifesto and the Bill of Rights; communist and socialist thought; the effects of anti-communists on American communism between 1917 and 1956; the harm done by communist espionage; and the roles of anti-communist politicians, including the late President Harry Truman, the late President Richard Nixon, the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee, and the late U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
While at the Freedom Tower in Miami last Friday to mark Victims of Communism Day, Gov. Ron DeSantis said that while America won the Cold War, the communist ideology hasn’t gone away.
“It comes back and it’s repackaged, and they try to do it under various different banners. And so you have to understand what’s at stake here,” DeSantis said.
“I think it’s important to talk about it in a very clear eyed way, the destruction, the lives of 100 million dead at the hands of Marxism, Leninism,” DeSantis said. “But I think it’s also important that we just recognize the whole absurdity of it all, of the whole idea of communism and Marxism, Leninism.”
Alex Rodriguez Silva moved into his family’s dream home in Hialeah in South Florida three years ago. In August, he handed the keys to the new owners and packed his family’s belongings into a moving van for a four-day drive to Denver.
“We couldn’t take it anymore, the constant fear that one of us could be disappeared by ICE,” Silva said in an interview translated from Portuguese. “We wanted to stay in Florida where we’ve built our life, but my kids deserve a place where they feel safe and welcome.”
Silva, 40, is a natural-born American citizen engaged to Ana, a Brazilian woman who came to the U.S. in 2009 and overstayed her tourist visa. Ana has one child from a previous relationship who also lacks legal permanent status, and their youngest child is an American citizen.
Silva’s children were enrolled in a public elementary school when the Trump administration rescinded rules that blocked immigration enforcement in schools in January. He said his family weighed the life they had built with the risks of increased immigration enforcement and opted, like thousands of other immigrant families, not to enroll their kids in a Florida public school this year.
Education leaders watching how immigration policies affect schools expect classrooms to get emptier every year, but this year, they were caught off guard by falling enrollment rates in some of Florida’s largest districts.
In Orange County, the school district saw an enrollment decrease of around 6,600 students this year, more than double the 3,000 students the district predicted would leave for charter schools, said school board member Stephanie Vanos. She said the majority of the unexpected departures were children in immigrant families. The district’s total enrollment is just over 182,400.
“Allowing immigration enforcement activities near schools sets up a culture of fear among immigrant families,” Vanos said. “There’s this narrative that non-white people don’t belong here.”
This reporting is part of a new collaboration organized by Carnegie-Knight schools of journalism to produce intensive, public service news coverage of immigration issues, including the U.S. immigration courts. Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, interviewed education officials across the state.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had been blocked since 2011 from detaining people in “sensitive areas” like schools and churches, and the Biden administration expanded those restrictions four years ago.
Immediately after the policy was rolled back in January and immigration agents got the green light to operate on school campuses, Vanos said, Orange County schools saw sharp increases in absenteeism, particularly in schools with large immigrant populations. Absenteeism has since steadied, but she said the enrollment decrease is just as concerning.
There have not been any confirmed immigration raids at public schools in the United States since the January policy change. Immigration agents attempted earlier this year to enter two public elementary schools in California to interview students, according to an April press conference held by Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, but they were denied entry. Carvalho was the superintendent for Miami-Dade County Public Schools for 14 years before he moved to Los Angeles.
“It is extremely disturbing that these students aren’t coming to our schools,” Vanos said. “We don’t know if they are going to school at all.”
Enrollment also took a hit in Broward County’s public schools, which reported a decrease of more than 11,300 students this school year. The enrollment decrease seems focused in immigrant communities, said Broward School Board member Sarah Leonardi, but it’s hard to know for sure. Broward’s district-wide enrollment, not including charter schools, is about 187,850 students.
“We’ve seen it anecdotally, in pockets of communities and certain schools,” she said. “But families and communities where there is a lot of immigration tend to not speak up about these issues in public ways because they’re scared.”
Debbi Hixon, the chair of the Broward County School Board, said immigration agents have not come to any schools in Broward, but the threat of detentions on campus has a pronounced impact on students.
“Students should feel safe in schools,” she said. “We live in a world where they don’t. We have active shooter and lockdown drills once a month. To add that as an additional concern for safety is disheartening. I feel very un-American.”
A similar enrollment situation emerged in the past few weeks in Miami-Dade County, which oversees more than 400 schools with majority Hispanic enrollment, according to data from the Florida Department of Education.
Overall enrollment decreased by more than 13,000 students this year, according to an August presentation by Superintendent Jose Dotres. The district – with about 328,000 students – predicted a decrease of 5,000 students.
The county averages 7,000 new students from out of state every year, peaking at 20,000 new enrollments around 2020, said school board member Luisa Santos. This year, that number is less than 2,000 students.
“Data does back up this sharp and clear trend that people from outside the state are not coming here,” Santos said. “There’s a general sense of fear and distrust that now, at any moment, school can be disrupted by agents coming in and pulling families apart.”
Dotres said in his presentation at the start of the school year that the enrollment decline could not be directly attributed to immigration enforcement. He cited the state-sponsored mass exodus of students to charter schools as another cause of shrunken school populations in Miami-Dade County, a factor that likely contributed to decreased enrollment numbers around the state as well.
Santos said immigration enforcement agents were seen interviewing a contractor in a school parking lot before the semester started. Agents haven’t had contact with students or staff in schools, but school employees have been caught in the net of deportations.
Wualner Sauceda was a first-year science teacher at a Hialeah middle school when he was detained in January and deported to Honduras about a month later. Sauceda, who came to the United States as a child and held Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, was detained at one of his scheduled immigration hearings.
Andrew Spar, the president of the Florida Education Association, said events like Sauceda’s deportation distract from a school’s primary purpose: nurturing growth and encouraging learning. affect students even if they don’t happen on campus.
“Schools need to be safe spaces for students and families,” he said. “Any time we impugn the sanctity of our schools and their ability to carry out their mission, we do harm to the future of this state and country.”
Deportations and the threat of immigration raids, Spar said, affect students even if they don’t happen on campus.
“When a teacher who is beloved by the community is detained and deported, it certainly weighs on the minds of students and staff at the school,” Spar said. “Especially for first generation students, who hope to achieve the American dream here, they are certainly more concerned. If their teacher can be taken, what kind of protections are there for their families?”
Silva said he and Ana made the decision to move when their oldest child started refusing to leave the car at school drop-off in the mornings. Their child cried nearly every day, Silva said, asking for Silva to drop the kids off instead of Ana because she doesn’t have legal permanent status in the country.
“All she wanted was to be involved and spend those precious moments with our kids in the mornings before she went to work,” he said. “But she’s brown, and she speaks English with a thick accent, so she’s the first target when ICE comes knocking on car windows in the drop-off line to check for papers.”
The family’s move to Colorado felt like a small relief, Silva said in an interview with Fresh Take Florida in November, but the United States doesn’t feel like a safe place for him to raise a child without legal permanent status.
“The life that I should be enjoying with my fiancée and my kids feels like it’s passing right by me,” he said. “Every moment I should be spending with them, I’m thinking about the day that Ana gets arrested in front of our kids in the grocery store or our oldest kid gets pulled out of class by ICE. I am constantly scared that I am going to lose my family.”
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This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at blunardini@ufl.edu. You can donate to support our students here.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is directing Florida’s top higher education board to prevent state universities from hiring foreign specialty workers, he announced Wednesday.
At a Tampa press conference, DeSantis said the Board of Governors should fully “pull the plug” on the visas that allow foreigners in a specialty occupation to temporarily work in the United States, called H1-B visas. This comes a month after President Donald Trump announced a $100,000 fee for future H1-B visa applications amid his administration’s broader efforts to stop illegal immigration and roadblock non-Americans from working in the U.S.
“I’m directing today the Florida Board of Governors to pull the plug on the use of these H1-B visas in our universities,” DeSantis said, likening their usage to “indentured servitude” and deriding how “troubling” it is that Florida universities are relying on cheaper labor — especially as workers nationwide are experiencing increased layoffs due to artificial intelligence, a DOGE-style of thinking, and federal furloughs.
“We can do it with our residents in Florida or with Americans, and if we can’t do it, then man—we need to really look deeply about what is going on with this situation,” he continued.
He then rattled off a list of assistant professors, coaches, data analysts, coordinators, marketers, and more university workers on H1-B visas from areas like the United Kingdom, China, Spain, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, Russia, Poland, Albania, Argentina, and the West Bank, appearing increasingly incredulous at how these various positions were deemed specialty occupations.
The Phoenix was unable to independently verify the list of professors and their countries of origin.
“Why aren’t we producing math and engineering folks who can do this?” DeSantis questioned, after claiming one college had a power systems researcher from Wuhan, China. “[There’s] a clinical assistant professor from supposed Palestine. Why are they—is that just social justice that they’re doing?”
As of June 30, 2025, there were more than 1,900 Florida employers sponsoring over 7,200 H1-B visa holders, according to the USCIS. There were a total of 78 employers and 677 beneficiaries in the education sphere, with the University of Florida boasting the most H1-B beneficiaries at 156, followed by the University of Miami with 90, and the University of South Florida with 72.
These schools also have the three largest medical programs in the state. Thousands of H1-B visas nationwide are used by foreign physicians, although the majority of H1-B recipients are in the tech industry.
H1-B visas have become a flashpoint in Republican circles, as party leaders like Trump and DeSantis urge less reliance on foreign labor while others insist that businesses need workers, NOTUS reported.
The conversation erupted as an offshoot from the larger discussion on illegal immigration and America-first businesses, two of Trump’s top priorities during his 2024 presidential campaign and the subject of many of his day one executive orders. In the immigration sphere, Trump has ordered mass deportations, increased ICE presence, and allocated federal dollars to states assisting in detention efforts of migrants illegally in the country — led by Florida under DeSantis.
This comes after Trump — in the early days of his term — stood alongside Elon Musk as they touted the new Department of Governmental Efficiency to cut down on alleged excesses in spending. This led to thousands of firings across federal agencies.
Just as Florida reflected the national model on immigration onto the state level, DeSantis also created a state-level DOGE to audit state universities and local governments to search for waste, fraud, and abuse. That torch has been taken up by Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, who’s unofficially renamed the task force the Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight, or FAFO.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
A bipartisan group of state lawmakers heard from nearly a dozen doctors on Tuesday who called on them to reject any proposed legislation that would remove vaccine mandates from Florida schools.
Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo and Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last month in Hillsborough County that they intend to drop all required vaccine mandates for children, including those required for school attendance such as polio, diphtheria, measles, mumps, and chickenpox.
Ladapo already holds authority to remove some vaccine requirements by simple rule changes. That means that starting in early December (taking effect 90 days after the Sept. 3 announcement), school vaccinations will no longer be required for hepatitis B, chickenpox, haemophilus type b (Hib), and pneumococcal conjugate virus. That’s according to a statement sent by the Florida Department of Health that was reported by ABC News.
Others, however, including poliomyelitis, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, and rubella are still in place and won’t be removed unless the Legislature opts to do so when it convenes for its 2026 session in January.
But a group of doctors – many of them pediatricians from the Tampa Bay area – urged members of the Hillsborough County legislative delegation on Tuesday to oppose any such proposals if they come before them early next year.
“We as physicians took an oath to do no harm, and I do think that silence in the face of preventable harm is, in and of itself, a kind of harm,” said Brandon urologist Dr. Neil Manimala, who is also a Democratic candidate for county commission in 2026. “We are here because we do not want to be silent when politics is injected into our children’s healthcare.”
“Vaccine requirements are not about government overreach, they are about public responsibility,” said Dr. Lisa M. Rush, a pediatrician with Health Care Alliance.
“They’re protecting the vulnerable and ensuring that our schools, businesses, and healthcare systems remain strong and resilient in the face of infectious disease. The question before us is not whether we support vaccines. That debate is, frankly, settled science. The question is, do we have the courage to uphold policies that have kept our state safe even when it’s politically inconvenient? True freedom isn’t the absence of regulation. It’s the presence of safety, opportunity, and the ability to live without fear of preventable illness.”
Dr. Ed Homan served as a member of the Florida House as a Republican representing parts of Hillsborough and Pasco counties from 2002 to 2010. He noted how highly contagious a disease like measles is and feared what could happen if an unvaccinated child spent time at Disney World or Universal Florida.
“It wouldn’t be long before this measles outbreak starts popping up all over the country, and then it wouldn’t be long after that before we figured out where is the source of this epidemic [is] in Central Florida. So think about the economic impact of our tourism industry,” he said.
Dr. Marcy Solomon Baker, director of pediatrics at BayCare Medical Group, said that after practicing for 25 years she knows that vaccines are what’s best for children and for “our vulnerable children.”
“Children that are too young to be vaccinated; children who have cancer; children who have immune problems. They depend on herd immunity. So, if other people don’t vaccinate, it puts them at risk,” she said.
Both Ladapo and DeSantis acknowledged during their Sept. 3 press conference that they had yet to speak to any lawmaker before they went public. And although legislators are filing bills daily in advance of the regular legislative start date of Jan. 13, none has filed a bill to remove vaccine mandates.
A James Madison Institute survey released in late September of 1,200 registered Florida voters found 62% against elimination of all vaccine requirements, with just 29% in support. And a survey of 631 registered Florida voters conducted by Bendixen & Amandi International taken Sept. 7-9 found 60% opposed ending vaccine mandates and just 37% supporting it.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
A bill filed Monday by state Rep. Tom Fabricio would require teachers to take an oath to the Constitution and nonpartisanship.
The bill, HB 147, would require teachers to, “before entering upon the duties of a classroom teacher,” take the oath.
The language is similar to oaths taken by lawyers, doctors, and public officials.
Fabricio, R-Miami Lakes, is an attorney and has been in office since 2020.
Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas sent a letter last month to superintendents after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated. That letter targeted teachers’ social media conduct that he deemed “despicable” and “vile, sanctionable behavior.”
The Legislature and governor in the past few years have also passed laws making illegal teaching about “divisive concepts” and “identity politics.”
Fabricio does not sit on any education committees. He is vice chair of the Ways & Means Committee and sits on the Judiciary Committee, Rules & Ethics Committee, Information Technology Budget & Policy Subcommittee, Natural Resources & Disasters Subcommittee, and the Transportation & Economic Development Budget Subcommittee.
Chapter 876 of Florida statutes require state employees, including those serving on school boards and working for state or county school districts, to take an oath that they are a citizen of Florida and to support the U.S. and Florida constitutions.
Other states require oaths to federal and state constitutions, including California, Georgia, and New York. According to Encyclopedia.com, almost two-thirds of states since 1863 have adopted teacher loyalty oaths.
Florida law now requires educators to self-report to their employers within 48 hours an arrest for a felony or certain misdemeanors.
The list of offenses ranges from sexual misconduct with mental health patients, felony fraud, murder, aggravated assault, human trafficking, weapons on school grounds, prostitution, felony voyeurism, threats to kill, and more.
Educators also now have to self-report to their schools convictions, commitments to pretrial diversion programs, or findings of guilt for “any criminal offense other than a minor traffic violation within 48 hours after the final judgement.”
The change is a result of SB 1374, passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year. The Florida Board of Education approved inserting language from that law in the Principles of Professional Conduct for the Education Profession in Florida.
Previously, teachers were required to self-report within 48 hours arrests or charges related only to the abuse of a child or sale or possession of controlled substances.
The law requires school boards to develop a policy for temporarily removing teachers from classrooms within 24 hours of notification of a felony or certain misdemeanor offenses.
Violation of the principles of professional conduct for teachers is ground for suspension or revocation of a teaching license.
The measure passed the Senate and the House unanimously, although some lawmakers raised concerns about how the measure could compromise due process.
Sen. Clay Yarborough, R-Jacksonville, sponsored the Senate version and Rep. Will Robinson, R-Bradenton, sponsored the House version.
The law acknowledges that teachers notifying of an arrest is not an admission of guilt.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
Closures are planned for parts of traffic-heavy roads including Pine Street, Church Street, Central Boulevard and more
As always, the takeover tradition is in high demand
Previously, teachers were required to self-report arrests or charges related only to the abuse of a child or sale or possession of controlled substances
Citing state policy on tenure, elimination of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and the cost of living, Florida faculty laid out their frustrations in a recent survey.
In a Faculty in the South survey conducted by various conferences of the American Association of University Professors, 31% of Florida respondents said they have applied for a job outside of Florida since 2023. That number was 25% among all survey respondents in the South.
The same, 31% of Florida respondents, said they plan to seek employment in another state during the next hiring cycle.
“The governor of Florida threatens at every turn to take funding away so administration at colleges don’t stand up to him or board of education. I no longer have any motivation or creativity to make courses better,” a tenured professor at a public community college wrote.
The survey focused on policy affecting employment, including whether faculty would recommend working in their state to up-and-coming academics, and trends in applications for faculty positions. It included nearly 200 responses from Florida faculty among its nearly 4,000 responses across Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
The survey concluded with an open-ended question asking faculty to provide examples of how “attacks on higher education are directly impacting your work.” It did not report respondents’ identities beyond basic demographics like gender, race, tenure status, years of experience, and type of institution they teach at.
‘Walking on egg shells’
“Students report any classroom discussion they don’t like directly to the Governor’s office. Everyone is afraid all the time,” one woman teaching at a public four-year school wrote. “I have stopped teaching books that might be in any way controversial. I don’t open up general discussion in class but ask only direct questions that will elicit non-controversial answers. I need health insurance so I can’t just quit.”
The state scanning course materials for disfavored viewpoints was a widespread stressor for many faculty.
“Most of the courses I’ve taught for decades now violate state and university mandates,” a man teaching at a Florida tier-one research university said.
As of earlier this year, Florida institutions’ general education courses no longer contained “indoctrinating concepts,” State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues proclaimed in January.
Florida universities have conducted a review, required by a 2022 law, of general education courses to ensure that they do not “distort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics.”
“I’m continually worried that the content of my clases [sic] will be flagged as “DEI” because I am a historian of the Caribbean, a region mostly populated by non-white people,” one professor said.
One women’s studies professor described the effect as “Constant anxiety, walking on egg shells trying to anticipate what would be used against me/us.”
More than a third, 34%, of Florida respondents said administrators have questioned syllabi or curricula choices for their courses. Among all states surveyed, half as many, 17%, indicated administrators questioned their curricula.
One professor said that since the state and federal government have made illegal “a wide range of Constitutionally protected components of speech and expression,” “I must break the law in order to tell the truth. Because I’m hired to tell the truth, and because I’m much more committed to the truth than to the law, I break the law. This means I am expecting to be arrested in front of a classroom any day, for actions that are illegal only as a result of the right-wing fad of the most recent decade.”
Nearly three in four, 71%, of faculty in Florida who were surveyed said they would not encourage a graduate student to seek employment in Florida.
“I am going to take early retirement despite a great job and salary. The threats are real and I am exhausted, between fighting this and fighting AI and poorly prepared, lazy, unethical students,” a tenured professor at a four-year public university wrote.
Higher education funding cuts have been the subject of nationwide political debate, including Florida State University reporting that it lost $100 million in federal grants, although $83 million of that has since been reinstated, the school’s president said last week.
About one-in-10, 11%, said they have had a federal contract ended by the Trump administration.
“The loss of vital federal grants has removed opportunities from me and my colleagues,” one professor wrote. “Attacks on LGBTQ students, immigrants, and diversity have also made it difficult to recruit promising graduate students or to guarantee their health and safety. Florida colleges being forced to remove diversity languages has destroyed years of valuable work, overturned an incredible general education curriculum, taken power and governance away from faculty, and wasted a lot of valuable time.”
Tenure troubles
Since 2023, professors in Florida with tenure have been subject to post-tenure review, graded on standards crafted by university trustees relating to research performance, teaching, service, and compliance with state laws and university policies.
Of the nearly-one-third who recently applied for an out-of-state job, tenure and DEI issues, academic freedom, the political climate, and cost of living were among the most common concerns.
Respondents said the number of applications for coworkers’ positions, as well as the quality of applicants, have decreased.
“Our department is trying to improve, but we have had several failed searches in recent years because candidates don’t want to move to Florida because of the broad political climate and the fact that tenure protections functionally no longer exist here,” a tenured public university professor said.
Some faculty said they have not experienced problems with “attacks on higher education,” one stating, “I haven’t felt any — Florida is great!.” Another said, “They’re not, and freedom in the classroom still persists, and I am at a public university in… wait for it… FLORIDA…”
“I find that I’m having to spend more time explaining to students why they need to use evidence to support their views and why clear arguments are important,” a professor at a private institution wrote.
One professor complained that “our board of trustees stacked with heritage foundation members, our president was forced out and replaced by a republican politician.” Course materials face heightened scrutiny, this professor added.
“The climate of persecution, retaliation, and ideological imposition makes it impossible to teach my discipline accurately or well without opening oneself to disciplinary measures,” that professor said. “While New College got a lot of headlines, similar invasions of public universities are happening with no national press, leaving those of us who work here isolated and vulnerable to attack.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis orchestrated a shake-up of the University of West Florida Board of Trustees in a more conservative light earlier this year and that institution is now led by a former GOP lawmaker.
Results for the survey were collected throughout August and more than 60% of respondents said they are tenured. Last year’s iteration of the survey featured responses from about 350 Florida professors.
“There is a lower threshold of critical thinking because everyone is fearful about what is ‘allowed’ vs. ‘banned’ by law. The fear and the self-censorship is widespread. Our administration, now saddled with a governor-imposed, unqualified hire as a President, is understandably more cautious rather than vocal about protecting academic freedom,” one professor wrote.
Florida House Democrats sent a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday pressing him to apply for a federal program that would provide food assistance to low-income kids next summer.
The Sunshine State was one of 13 states that passed up millions in federal funds for the summer EBT program that gave low-income families $120 for school-aged children this year, according to States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau.
Pressure from parents, anti-hunger and child advocacy groups, and now Democrats keeps mounting on Florida to notify the federal government that it plans to participate in the program next year as the Aug. 15 deadline approaches.
“Florida has an opportunity to correct the egregious error made by DeSantis in 2024 when he decided to politicize food insecurity,” House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell wrote in a press release on Tuesday.
“Floridians have had to suffer through political stunt after political stunt by this governor while they’re trying to address their affordability crisis. Struggling families can’t eat political stunts and don’t deserve to suffer the consequences imposed by the governor’s limited view of freedom. In a state that purportedly prioritizes parental rights, Gov. DeSantis must allow Floridians the freedom to access the federal benefits their tax dollars paid for.”
The USDA estimates that more than 2 million children in Florida would get around $258.9 million in federal aid through the program. Florida would only have to fund half of the administrative costs to distribute the benefits, which adds up to $13 million.
Florida Phoenix 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 Diane Rado for questions: [email protected]. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
The leader of the Florida Education Association teachers union on Wednesday criticized the State Board of Education for not reversing course on a controversial history standard approved last year.
The board, meeting in Miami, signed off on some changes to social-studies standards for public schools. But the changes did not revise a sixth-grade African American history standard that drew backlash because of a slavery-related issue when it was approved last summer.
The backlash centered on a standard that says, “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” FEA President Andrew Spar on Wednesday criticized the standard remaining part of the larger instructional guidelines.
“That is a concern, as well as making sure that our students have a complete and honest history around both the African American experience and all experiences in our country,” Spar said.
He urged members of the board to talk with teachers across the state about the standards. Board Vice Chairman Ryan Petty argued that rules and standards approved by the board are crafted with input from educators.
“The notion that we’re not out engaged with educators and engaged with teachers in developing these rules is a false notion,” Petty said.
Come July 1, school districts in Florida could authorize volunteer chaplains — those who are religious or not and with no training — to provide support and services for students in public schools, though GOP-controlled legislatures across the country are rejecting similar proposals.
Last year, Texas passed a first-of-its-kind law authorizing schools to pay for religious figures to work in mental health roles, and lawmakers in 15 states followed suit by pitching similar legislation.
Since then, Florida is the only state where the legislature passed the measure and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill (HB 931), though Louisiana, Oklahoma and Ohio could still pass their versions this year.
The proposals from lawmakers to bring chaplains into public schools have varied, with states taking different paths regarding the requirements for people to serve as school chaplains and their purpose.
The school chaplain measures have fallen short this year in Alabama, Nebraska, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Utah, Missouri and Pennsylvania, according to a Florida Phoenix analysis of the chaplain bills.
Florida’s Legislature is controlled by Republicans, but some Democrats supported the move. So beginning July 1, public school districts can decide whether they’ll adopt a volunteer chaplain program, and parents must provide written consent before their children participate. But there is nothing in the legislation that requires the chaplains to have any specific degrees. Those requirements are up to the school districts.
There’s already controversy
HB 931 is already stirring controversy between DeSantis and the Satanic Temple. When DeSantis signed the bill in April, he said Satanists would not be eligible to become chaplains. His comments came after representatives of the Satanic Temple, which claims IRS recognition as a church, expressed the group’s intention to sign up members to become volunteer chaplains.
The Florida bill doesn’t state what religion the chaplains must practice. In fact, the volunteer chaplains don’t even have to have a religious affiliation. However, the language in the bill states that “any school district or charter school that adopts a volunteer school chaplains policy must publish the list of volunteer school chaplains, including any religious affiliation, on the school district or charter school’s website.”
How big of a splash HB 931 will make in Florida public schools is up in the air as school districts don’t have to hold a public vote on the issue, whereas Texas required its school districts to do so.
Still, Holly Hollman, general counsel to the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, says Florida’s school leaders could also look to their Texas counterparts for how they handled the question. As of April, only one charter school in Texas had hired chaplains, according to The Texas Tribune, a partner of the States Newsroom.
“As a growing number of chaplains speak out, school districts will see that these proposals are not simple support for students but, in fact, are deeply problematic,” Hollman said in a phone interview with Florida Phoenix. “The main thing is that school districts will be thinking about what they need and how to support students, and as they look more closely, they will see that this is clearly outside of the mandate for public schools.”
Utah says no to Satanists
The threat of members of the Satanic Temple acting as chaplains in public schools was enough for Utah Republicans to turn down the proposal this year. On the final day of the GOP-controlled Utah legislative session, the state’s chaplain bill failed in a narrow 16-12 vote.
During Senate floor debate, multiple GOP lawmakers who voted against the bill said it would leave the door too wide open for people to serve as chaplains, and Salt Lake County Republican Lincoln Fillmore said the body would regret approving the bill after seeing the results.
“In the current culture that exists in public schools, bringing chaplains would be more likely to make it worse than better because we wouldn’t be able to discriminate, and so any religion that wanted to be able to place a chaplain there would be able to do so,” Fillmore said in a phone interview with the Phoenix. “So as you guys are seeing in Florida, that includes the church of satan who wants to place chaplains there. We had chaplains who testify for the bill in ours and the satanic church was all in favor of it.”
Fillmore’s advice to Florida as the law goes into effect: Be careful.
“I know there’s a worry on the right. It’s a founded worry,” he said. “It’s based on experience and the actual events that schools are trying to broaden and teach and influence things beyond math, and science and history. So be very conscious about what chaplains are actually doing in schools.”
Indiana declines to employ chaplains as counselors
Even though Texas’ school chaplain law stated that they would be hired in mental health roles, the lawmakers who pitched proposals in other states were not as overt in that intention, including in Florida. During committee hearing testimony and floor debates on the bill, Republican Sen. Erin Grall, a sponsor of the bill, said a volunteer chaplain program could be viewed as an alternative to school counselors for some families.
But in Indiana, Republican Sen. Stacey Donato leaned into the idea of chaplains serving as counselors. Her proposal would have allowed public schools to hire chaplains to provide secular guidance to students and school employees. Among the requirements, chaplains had to have a master’s degree in a field related to religion and two years of counseling experience.
Despite the GOP controlling both chambers of the Indiana General Assembly, Donato’s effort wasn’t successful this year. Lawmakers removed the language allowing chaplains to work as counselors from another proposal requiring schools to grant parents’ requests for their students to leave classes to attend religious instruction, according to States Newsroom’s Indiana Capital Chronicle.
Alabama Democrats take the lead
Most Democrats across state legislatures have opposed the school chaplain bills, claiming that it would insert religion into public schools and allow unlicensed people to deal with students’ mental health problems.
Still, Rodger Smitherman, a Democrat from Birmingham, Alabama, insisted his plan to bring chaplains to public schools wasn’t an effort to replace counselors. While the legislation didn’t face any opposition in the Senate, Smitherman was on board with a House amendment on May 1 that heavily altered his bill, according to States Newsroom’s Alabama Reflector.
Originally, Smitherman’s proposal allowed schools to hire or accept chaplains as volunteers to provide support and services if they passed a background check and completed a recognized chaplain training program. Following the amendment, chaplains can only serve as volunteers to support teachers at their request, and school boards no longer have to take a vote on whether they will enact the program.
“We’re doing this work for our teachers’ safety,” Democratic Rep. TaShina Morris said during the committee hearing. “And if they need to have someone to talk to, we should allow them that access.”
However, the legislature didn’t vote on the bill by the time Sine Die came on Thursday night.
Oklahoma’s resurrected bill
After four school chaplain bills didn’t even get a hearing in the Oklahoma Legislature, a Republican lawmaker decided to resurrect a discarded bill from 2023 to further the effort to bring chaplains into public schools in that state, according to States Newsroom’s Oklahoma Voice.
Moore County Rep. Kevin West’s maneuver cleared the House in a 54-37 vote, with 20 Republicans voting against it. The Senate has not voted on the bill yet, but amendments in the House strengthened requirements for volunteer or employed school chaplains, according to Oklahoma Voice.
The bill states that school chaplains can’t attempt to convert anyone to their religion and must get an endorsement from their faith group. Additionally, they must hold a bachelor’s and graduate degree in theology or religious studies.
Florida Phoenix 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 Diane Rado for questions: [email protected]. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Florida education officials from enforcing a law requiring a transgender teacher to use pronouns that align with her sex assigned at birth, saying the law violated her First Amendment rights.
The 2023 law restricts educators’ use of personal pronouns and titles in schools. Violations of the law — one of a number of measures backed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis targeting the LGBTQ community over the past few years — can result in teachers being stripped of certifications and hefty financial penalties for school districts.
Plaintiffs Katie Wood, a transgender Hillsborough County teacher, and AV Schwandes, a nonbinary teacher fired last year by Florida Virtual School, sought preliminary injunctions as part of a lawsuit challenging the restrictions.
The challenge alleged the law violates the teachers’ First Amendment rights and runs afoul of a federal civil-rights law.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday that blocked enforcement of the law against Wood, but the injunction does not apply statewide. Walker’s decision also denied a preliminary injunction sought by Schwandes.
“Once again, the state of Florida has a First Amendment problem. Of late, it has happened so frequently, some might say you can set your clock by it,” Walker’s 60-page ruling began. “This time, the state of Florida declares that it has the absolute authority to redefine your identity if you choose to teach in a public school. So, the question before this court is whether the First Amendment permits the state to dictate, without limitation, how public-school teachers refer to themselves when communicating to students. The answer is a thunderous ‘no.’”
Attorneys for the Florida Department of Education and other defendants asked Walker to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the Legislature has discretion to “promote the state’s pedagogical goals and vindicate parental rights.”
But Walker pointed to a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision, in a case known as Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, allowing a high-school football coach to pray with his team before games.
“Both Coach Kennedy and Ms. Wood are expressing their own personal messages about their own personal identities to their students — identities that exist independent from their roles as coach or teacher,” Walker wrote.
Walker rejected the state’s arguments that the pronoun restriction was a “pedagogical” decision and, as a result, protected from First Amendment scrutiny.
“Given the personal, self-identifying speech at issue in this case, and the broad application of this restriction to every employee or contractor in the public K-12 context regardless of whether they are responsible for teaching students, this court concludes that the restriction itself is not simply a ‘pedagogical’ or ‘curricular’ choice,” the judge’s order said.
Lawyers for education officials also maintained that the pronoun and title restrictions were the “policy” of all public-school institutions and were therefore government speech, which can be restricted.
But the judge disagreed, writing that the “official ‘policy’ label does not necessarily transform Ms. Wood’s speech into a government message whenever she introduces herself or provides her pronouns to students.”
Relying in part on court rulings in a challenge to a Florida law aimed at restricting children from attending drag shows, Walker also said the injunction would apply only to Wood — not statewide, as the plaintiffs’ lawyers sought.
U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell last year blocked the 2023 drag-show law statewide, finding it violated First Amendment rights. An appeals court rejected the DeSantis administration’s request to lift Presnell’s preliminary injunction, and the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the injunction to remain in place. The lawsuit was filed by an Orlando restaurant known as Hamburger Mary’s.
Walker’s order Tuesday said that Presnell’s decision found the drag-show law was “facially content-based, unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.” But the same conclusions don’t apply to the restrictions imposed on the teacher, according to Walker.
“In Ms. Wood’s case, she has not alleged a First Amendment overbreadth claim in her complaint. Nor has she persuasively explained why she is entitled to a statewide injunction,” Walker wrote, noting that injunctions should be “limited in scope” to the extent necessary.
“Accordingly, based on this record, the scope of the preliminary injunction in this case need extend no further than prohibiting defendants from enforcing the challenged provision against Ms. Wood to protect her interests while this case remains pending,” the judge wrote.
In granting the injunction, Walker said the teacher used her preferred pronouns before the law went into effect and that the “threat of mandatory discipline” prevents her from using them now.
“This is a classic speech injury — Ms. Wood spoke in the past and wants to speak in the future, but she is deterred by a credible threat of discipline. This court concludes that Ms. Wood has submitted sufficient evidence to establish an injury-in-fact,” he wrote.
The judge also decided that neither teacher “has demonstrated a likelihood of success” on allegations that the law violates a federal employment law prohibiting discrimination.
“The record before this court does not indicate that Ms. Wood was transferred, demoted, or passed over for training or promotion. Further, Ms. Wood has not asserted that the prestige or responsibility of her position as an educator has been diminished,” Walker wrote.
Walker’s ruling also found that Schwandes, who uses the pronouns they/them, “has not submitted sufficient evidence to find that their speech is being chilled” by state education officials’ enforcement of the law.
Schwandes “has not identified any speech that they would engage in at a foreseeable time that is barred” under the law, and also has not said they are looking for employment at a school where the law would be enforced, Walker wrote.
“In short, Mx. Schwandes has not come forward with any evidence showing that they intend to engage in speech in the foreseeable future that would violate” the law, he added.
The Florida Senate on Friday passed a measure that could lead to the history of communism being taught in grades as low as kindergarten.
The proposal (SB 1264) was approved in a 25-7 vote, and would need approval from the House before it could go to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Under the bill, the state Department of Education would be directed to “prepare and offer” educational standards related to communism history instruction, and would require certain concepts to be included.
For example, the curriculum would have to include lessons on the “increasing threat of communism in the United States and to our allies through the 20th century” and the “economic, industrial, and political events that have preceded and anticipated communist revolutions.”
The educational standards would have to launch in the 2026-27 school year and would have to be “age appropriate and developmentally appropriate” for students.
Senate bill sponsor Jay Collins, R-Tampa, and other supporters of the bill have warned that young people are increasingly viewing communism in a positive light.
“Here’s what I know about communism: It doesn’t care what race, creed, color, gender, sexual identification, ideology you come from — it will destroy your life and your family’s life completely the same,” Collins said.
Florida students currently can get lessons on communism in high-school social studies courses or in a seventh-grade civics and government course. A high-school U.S. government class required for graduation also includes 45 minutes of instruction on “Victims of Communism Day” that covers various communist regimes throughout history.
Sen. Geraldine Thompson, a Windermere Democrat who is a former educator, said the measure is “duplicative” because instruction about communism already exists in public schools.
“If we want to have a greater emphasis on communism, let’s just infuse it into the curriculum that we have now. And because it’s duplicative and puts an additional responsibility or burden on already overworked individuals, I cannot support the bill,” Thompson said.
The Florida House on Thursday passed a measure that would allow school districts to authorize volunteer chaplains to provide “support, services and programs” to students in public schools, amid a debate about whether the bill would be constitutional.
Under the proposal (HB 931) chaplains would have to meet background screening requirements, and school districts or charter schools would have to get parental consent before students could receive chaplains’ services.
Supporters of the measure say allowing chaplains would add another tool to help schools address children’s mental-health issues.
“I think all of us agree that our children are in crisis, we agree that parents need help. We agree that there are a lot of spiritual needs that people could meet if a parent felt it was necessary for their child,” bill sponsor Stan McClain, R-Ocala, said.
The Republican-controlled House voted 89-25 to pass the measure, with some Democrats questioning whether allowing chaplains in schools would be constitutional.
“Can you point to me, in your bill, what lines and language will prevent religious proselytization and coercion of students as well as other violations of the U.S. Constitution?” Rep. Ashley Gantt, a Miami Democrat who is a lawyer, asked during a floor discussion Wednesday.
“There are none in the bill,” McClain replied.
Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, pointed to the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
“At the end of the day, when we put into place any type of established religion in a public-school setting, it does raise those flags. And I don’t want to put our school districts in a situation where they’re going to be faced with litigation on these issues,” Eskamani said during a debate Thursday.
A House staff analysis of the bill said that, in “general, the Establishment Clause prevents public schools from engaging in activities which could be construed as sponsoring or endorsing religion. Prayer and Bible readings in public schools during school hours are impermissible.”
The ACLU of Florida has argued the bill is unconstitutional.
“Courts have repeatedly ruled that it is unconstitutional for public schools to invite religious leaders onto campus to engage in religious activities, such as prayer and religious counseling, with students,” Kara Gross, legislative director and senior policy counsel for the ACLU of Florida, said in a prepared statement.
“If passed, this bill will likely create public education environments ripe for religious coercion and indoctrination of students,” Gross added.
School districts and principals that want to allow chaplains would have to meet various requirements. For example, principals would be required to inform parents about the availability of chaplains. Parents would have to be able to choose chaplains from lists provided by school districts, with the lists including “the chaplain’s religious affiliation, if any.”
Critics of the bill have also questioned why the bill would not mandate training or credentials for chaplains.
“Now we are saying that, first, we don’t have to have any qualifications for these chaplains. So any Joe Schmo who says, ‘Hey, I’m a chaplain, I want to go into these schools,’ all they need to do is a background check and claim to be a chaplain without any verification,” Gantt said during debate Thursday.
Rep. Robin Bartleman, a Weston Democrat who is a former educator, asked Wednesday if parents would be informed about chaplains’ levels of experience.
“Since you’re mandating the information be posted on a website, and this is really important, are you mandating a disclaimer to let them know that these chaplains may or may not have experience or be licensed health-care professionals?” Bartleman asked.
“The school boards would have the authority to do that if they so choose,” McClain replied.
Rep. Adam Anderson, R-Palm Harbor, argued that faith-based mentors are a valuable part of providing services to young people and families.
“Just like there’s no replacement for a licensed mental-health professional or a doctor who can write prescriptions, there’s never going to be a replacement for what a faith-based counselor — a chaplain, a pastor or a rabbi — can add to a child or to a family,” Anderson said.
The measure would need approval from the Senate before it could go to Gov. Ron DeSantis. Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, and Senate bill sponsor Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, said Thursday they think the bill would pass constitutional muster.
“Anytime somebody doesn’t like a bill … the first thing they say is, it’s unconstitutional. That’s their default objection,” Passidomo told reporters.
“I think that it actually is squarely within the Constitution. Not only would parents have to consent to the consultation with a specific chaplain. But there’s also, they can’t prevent any specific chaplain from being a part of the program either based on religion. So, these are the bare minimum guidelines to participate,” Grall said.
