For more than four years, StateImpact Florida has put the state’s education policies to the test by reporting on the impact the decisions are having on the lives of students, parents, and educators. Our staff has changed over the years, but our public media reporters in Miami and Tampa never wavered in sharing stories that […]
Two years ago the Florida High School Athletic Association, or FHSAA, passed a wildly unpopular mandate, requiring girls lacrosse players to wear head gear. The organization said it was responding to concussion risks — but critics say policy and public perception of risk are getting ahead of the actual data. For the past two seasons, […]
Computer coding is the language that tells a computer what to do, but is it a foreign language? The Florida Senate has approved a bill saying yes; if it passes into law, high school students could substitute computer coding for required foreign language credits. It’s an attempt to get more of the state’s students into […]
Like many parents of high school juniors, I’m getting anxious about upcoming college applications and what it’ll take to get in, such as doing well on the SAT. Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that the College Board, creator of the SAT, is debuting a new test in March and these are the first […]
Remember recess? When you knew that if you just sat still for a couple more hours, you and your friends could go racing out to the merry-go-round or the hopscotch court for a daily dose of fun? In many public elementary schools in Florida, recess has become a thing of the past. And parents are […]
A State Board of Education member is questioning the number of sexual assaults reported on state college campuses. Rebecca Fishman Lipsey believes it is unlikely that there were only seven forcible sexual assaults reported by the 28-college sytem with more than 400,000 students. Those figures do not include crime data for the dozen schools in […]
If you want one of the roughly 1,800 new scholarships for students with disabilities that allows parents to mix and match services for their children, you’d better get an application in soon. More than 1,200 families applied for a Personal Learning Scholarship Account, or PLSA, in the first week of applications. The scholarships are awarded […]
School’s out for summer across Florida. In honor of the much-anticipated break, we asked teachers, students and administrators to describe that first day out of the classroom by filling in the blank: The first day of summer is like ____. For some, it’s a welcome respite. For others, it’s the beginning of the next school […]
A Senate panel has approved changes to the state school grading formula which echo those proposed by Florida schools chief Pam Stewart, the Times/Herald Tallahassee bureau reports. The bill looks similar to recommendations made last month by state Education Commissioner Pam Stewart. It eliminates the bonus points schools can earn, as well as the so-called triggers […]
The Broward County School board teamed up with a group of community partners this month to sign a collaborative agreement on school discipline. The agreement, first of its kind, establishes new guidelines for handling non-violent misdemeanor offenses on school campuses, outlining when law enforcement is necessary and when problems can be handled through school resources. […]
StateImpact seeks to inform and engage local communities with broadcast and online news focused on how state government decisions affect your lives.
Learn More »