{"id":20876,"date":"2013-12-06T08:52:57","date_gmt":"2013-12-06T13:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=20876"},"modified":"2013-12-06T08:53:24","modified_gmt":"2013-12-06T13:53:24","slug":"gov-rick-scott-really-wants-florida-school-districts-to-spend-teacher-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/12\/06\/gov-rick-scott-really-wants-florida-school-districts-to-spend-teacher-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Rick Scott Really Wants Florida School Districts To Spend Teacher Money"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"School<\/a>

nuchylee \/ freedigitalphotos.net<\/p>

School districts must come up with their own distribution plans for teacher raises.<\/p><\/div>\n

Back in May, Gov. Rick Scott took a victory lap<\/a> after the Florida Legislature approved $480 million for teacher pay raises.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great day for teachers. It\u2019s also a great day for students,\u201d he said at the time.<\/p>\n

Seven months later, Scott\u2019s wheedling school districts to actually spend that money.<\/p>\n

The raises\u2014intended to start at $2,500 per teacher<\/a>\u2014have to be negotiated through unions and the districts must come up with their own distribution plans. It\u2019s been a protracted process in many counties and Scott, who is up for reelection in 2014, would like to see it sped up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith only about four weeks left until the end of the year, we urge every school district that has not finalized negotiations to implement\u00a0teacher\u00a0pay raises to do so immediately,\u201d Scott wrote in a letter to Florida superintendents on Monday.<\/p>\n

The next day, Scott\u2019s office sent out an update of which counties<\/a> are close to distributing the money:<\/p>\n

Eight Additional School Districts who recently finalized a\u00a0teacher\u00a0pay raise<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bay, Broward, Collier, Gilchrist, Hardee, Hillsborough, Lafayette, and Suwannee<\/p>\n

All 34 School Districts who have finalized payments for a\u00a0teacher\u00a0pay raise with the Florida Department of Education<\/strong><\/p>\n

Baker, Bay, Broward, Calhoun, Citrus, Clay, Collier, Dixie, Duval, Escambia, Flagler, Gilchrist, Gulf, Hardee, Hendry, Highlands, Hillsborough, Holmes, Jackson, Lafayette, Leon, Manatee, Okaloosa, Osceola, Pasco, Pinellas, St. Lucie, Sarasota, Sumter, Suwannee, Taylor, Union, Volusia, and Wakulla<\/p>\n

All 14 Schools Districts who have finalized negotiations for a\u00a0teacher\u00a0pay raise<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alachua, Brevard, Charlotte, Gadsden, Jefferson, Lake, Lee, Liberty, Madison, Polk, Putnam, St. Johns, Santa Rosa, and Seminole<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The governor\u2019s tally did not name the counties that are nowhere near an agreement on how to spend the money.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Scott and state lawmakers were criticized by education advocates for cutting $1.3 billion in education funding Roughly $2 billion has since been added back to the education budget<\/a> over the past two legislative sessions\u2014though per-pupil spending is still less than what it was before the recession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in May, Gov. Rick Scott took a victory lap after the Florida Legislature approved $480 million for teacher pay raises. \u201cIt\u2019s a great day for teachers. It\u2019s also a great day for students,\u201d he said at the time. Seven months later, Scott\u2019s wheedling school districts to actually spend that money. The raises\u2014intended to start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":20877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[1027,1079],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20876"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20884,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20876\/revisions\/20884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}