{"id":4748,"date":"2012-02-08T12:59:15","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T17:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=4748"},"modified":"2012-02-08T12:59:37","modified_gmt":"2012-02-08T17:59:37","slug":"should-florida-lawmakers-send-a-message-to-seminole-county-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/02\/08\/should-florida-lawmakers-send-a-message-to-seminole-county-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Florida Lawmakers Send A Message To Seminole County Schools?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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rakanb \/ Flickr<\/p>

Seminole County's school board has found itself in the crosshairs for threatening to close schools.<\/p><\/div>\n

Seminole County’s school board has found itself a political target at home, and in Tallahassee, for its threat to close down schools due to budget cuts and declining revenue.<\/p>\n

Seminole is facing a $20 million budget shortfall next year, largely due to the end of one-time federal assistance. The district has proposed everything from saving $500,000<\/a> by raising thermostats, to ending school sports and closing schools.<\/p>\n

Seminole County commissioners said Tuesday that the district had built too many schools, according to the Orlando Sentinel<\/em><\/a>, leaving empty seats and a big debt bill to pay off.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Wednesday the Miami Herald<\/em> reported<\/a> the Florida House had joined in, passing a budget amendment stating schools should cut salaries of top administrators before closing schools:<\/p>\n

Opponents said the amendment was a thinly veiled shot at the Seminole County school district, which recently threatened to close schools if the Legislature did not increase education funding.<\/p>\n

Seminole certainly fits the bill.<\/p>\n

The amendment applies only to school districts that have tried — but failed -\u2013 to levy a half-penny sales tax, and have built new school facilities despite three years of declining student enrollment. The Seminole school system has come under fire for both.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What do you think of the Seminole County school board’s complaints? And what of the response from Legislators? Are lawmakers micromanaging school districts too much?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seminole County’s school board has found itself a political target at home, and in Tallahassee, for its threat to close down schools due to budget cuts and declining revenue. Seminole is facing a $20 million budget shortfall next year, largely due to the end of one-time federal assistance. The district has proposed everything from saving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[1105,1036,1028,1069,1052],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4748"}],"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\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4753,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4748\/revisions\/4753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}