Students at Krop Senior High in Miami wore hooded sweatshirts to remember slain classmate Trayvon Martin.
It’s been nearly a month since self-appointed neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teen in Sanford, Fla.
Martin’s death has inspired a national debate about race and justice.
But at the high school Martin attended in Miami, his death had not been announced publicly until today, when the school held a moment of silence for the slain student.
Ashley Aristide is a junior at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High in Miami, where Martin went to school.
She’s having a hard time coping with her friend’s death.
“He’s dead and his killer isn’t even arrested, it just doesn’t make sense to me,” Aristide said. “I just really want justice to be served in this case because it’s not fair.”
But for more than three-weeks, Aristide said no one in the school’s administration was talking to students about Martin.
State universities have seen construction funding nearly disappear.
Florida universities say declining money for construction and maintenance is possibly the biggest budgetary challenge the schools are facing.
As Florida homes have become more energy-efficient, the state is collecting less in taxes for the Public Education Capital Outlay fund that funds building projects.
The Florida Board of Governors will put together a a task force to study the issue, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Here’s the scope of the problem:
Legislators did manage to find some PECO money for universities by the end of the session — $30 million all told, and about $7 million for maintenance, but the board says it needs between $200 million and $400 million each year to maintain and modernize university buildings across the state.
Rep. Mike Bileca was one of a handful of sponsors of the 'parent trigger' legislation. Parent groups opposing the bill feel they have been shut out of debate.
The Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based, think tank that has been an ardent supporter of school choice, has published a piece opposing the ‘parent trigger.’
The law allows the majority of parents at chronically low-performing schools to petition for one of four methods to overhaul their schools, including replacing administrators and staff, closing the school or converting to a charter school.
Advocates argue the law would provide parents more leverage when dealing with school districts and boards reluctant to acknowledge a problem. But Neal McClusky has an issue that the law doesn’t go far enough in the eyes of the free market advocates at Cato. Parents should have control of the money that pays for their child’s education and the ability to use it at whatever school they believe is best, McCluskey writes.
Attendees at a town hall meeting hold up a photo of slain teen Trayvon Martin.
The Miami high school attended by Trayvon Martin, the student shot and killed by a neighborhood watch leader in Central Florida, held a moment of silence for Martin this morning, students and staff have told StateImpact Florida.
Students at Dr. Michael M. Krop High School say it is the first acknowledgement of Martin’s death since he was killed while visiting his father’s girlfriend’s home near Orlando.
Update at 10:15 a.m. ET Miami-Dade School District Responds
This morning, the chief communications director for the Miami-Dade County school district, John Schuster said there is a reason the school did not announce Trayvon’s death on campus.
Rep. Mike Bileca was one of a handful of sponsors of the 'parent trigger' legislation. Parent groups opposing the bill feel they have been shut out of debate.
The New York Times is hosting a debate among national education leaders about the push for so-called “parent trigger” laws in many states.
Florida’s Senate rejected the proposal on the final day of the session, so of course Florida plays a prominent role in the discussion.
Parent triggers would allow a majority of parents at schools repeatedly failing to meet federal standards to choose one of four options to restructure the school. Those options include replacing the principal and or staff, closing the school or converting the school to a charter school.
It’s the last option that has drawn the most scrutiny, with education historian Dianne Ravitch arguing parent triggers are pushed by corporate charter school management firms for their own profit.
StateImpact Florida won first place for journalism blogging in the Education Writers Association awards.
The Education Writers Association announced its national awards today, and StateImpact Florida took home the top prize for journalism blogging.
Our collaborative investigation with the Miami Herald looking at the number of charter schools enrolling students with severe disabilities took second place in the investigative broadcast category.
We’ve only been up and running since August, but the blogging award recognizes our coverage of a range of pressing education issues including how well schools serve students with disabilities, recent changes to Florida’s system of lottery-funded college scholarships, and Gov. Rick Scott’s singling out anthropologists as a means of overhauling state universities.
What's in that burger your child is eating at school?
So-called “pink slime” has joined ketchup-as-a-vegetable, peanut allergies and chocolate milk as the school lunch controversy of the moment.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Thursday that schools will have the choice of whether to purchase ground beef that contains the filler product critics have called “pink slime.”
The filler is beef trimmings from which the fat has been rendered and then pressed into blocks. The blocks are treated with ammonium hydroxide gas to kill bacteria and other food-borne pathogens.
The paddle at Holmes County High School in Bonifay, Fla. was made by students in woodshop class four years ago.
The paddle at Holmes County High school is made of ash wood. Its about 6 ounces heavy, 16 inches long, 5 inches wide, and half an inch think.
The paddle at Madison County Central elementary and middle school was made by a member in the community out of plexiglass. The paddle is about 18 inches long, 7 inches wide and a quarter of an inch thick.
The paddle at Sneads High School in Jackson County, Fla. sits on the principal’s desk.
The late comedian Richard Pryor had a classic bit about being forced to find and strip a “decent switch” so that his grandmother could administer a “decent whippin.'”
Florida students in school districts that still use a paddle to spank misbehaving pupils know the feeling.
At Holmes County High School in Bonifay, Fla., students make the paddles in woodshop class.
“You can’t buy them anywhere,” said Eddie Dixson, the school’s principal. “There’s not a market for them, so yeah, students make it.”
Florida State University Schools director Lynn Wicker
A charter school affiliated with Florida State University is building an online community to support the state’s more than 500 charter schools.
The site, developers say, will serve as a hub for curriculum, instruction and assessment assistance tailored for charter schools. The hub will build off the current CPALMS site, which offers the same types of support and resources to traditional public schools.
“They can see that other people are having the same challenges and share solutions,” Lynn Wicker, director of the Florida State University Schools, said in a statement. “It really won’t matter where you are geographically in the state: You’ll have the same access to the same resources.”
The project is funded by a $500,000 grant from the Florida Department of Education. More details here.
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