Florida school voucher bill passes first committee but Republicans disagree on funding source

 

It was only the second day of the legislative session, but Tuesday already saw a packed committee room and spirited debate over an education package bill that could be one of the most consequential bills of the 2019 session.

 

Senate Bill 7070 passed the Senate Education Committee along party lines on Tuesday.

The bill proposes to:

• create a new school voucher, called the Family Empowerment Scholarship, that would allow general revenue tax dollars to be used for private schools to eliminate the wait-list for the existing scholarship for low-income families
• change and expand the Best and Brightest teacher bonus program to remove teachers’ SAT and ACT test scores from their eligibility requirements and create new financial awards for teachers and principals based on student performance
• create a new grant program for schools to have more funding for health care, extra food, social services and other programs for needy students
• give school districts additional flexibility with how they use locally collected tax dollars to build new buildings
• ease some of the requirements surrounding teacher certification, such as giving prospective teachers more time to pass a required exam

Allowing general revenue dollars typically set aside for districts to go toward vouchers would be a major change in the way the state views public education. But Sen. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah, the chair of the committee, said it’s moving Florida into the future.

 

“Our duty is to educate the children,” he said. “Our duty is not (dependent on) where they are educated. It the fact we are providing the resources to be educated for the ultimate goal of providing citizens that are capable and responsible for upholding our republic and this is the way to do it.”

 

READ MORE: Ron DeSantis and GOP poised to redefine public education

 

The biggest surprise of the meeting came from Sen. David Simmons of Altamonte Springs, an influential Republican who is second-in-command to Senate President Bill Galvano.

 

A passionate advocate for the community grant program, he said that he supports the bill, but thinks the new voucher should not be funded out of general revenue. A similar proposal was struck down as unconstitutional by the state supreme court in 2006, which Simmons said could be a problem for this bill.

 

“All we have to do is expand that system ... within the corporate tax scholarship umbrella that already exists,” Simmons said. “It’s not essential to take it out of the (per-student allocation).”

 

Simmons said the state could give corporations tax credits in exchange for them directing their corporate income tax, insurance tax and others to the voucher fund, which is similar to how it is funded now. That way, the dollars would be dedicated to the program before they reach the state’s coffers and are set aside for schools.

 

Diaz said he is “not adverse” to the idea.

 

More than 50 teachers, parents and advocates attended the committee to weigh in on the bill. Some parents applauded the new voucher, which is designed to eliminate the wait-list for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, which grants money to low-income families for private or religious schools.

 

Giselle Gomez, a mother from Ocala, said she sent her son to a Christian school because she thought it would be more equipped to handle his behavioral issues.

 

“I’ve been unable to make payments, it’s been really embarrassing,” she said. “I implore the Senate to end the waiting list.”

Scores of teachers also spoke, most of them opposed to giving public money that’s typically set aside for districts instead to these vouchers. Several also said the state needs to go beyond the bonus program and offer raises across the board.

 

“We cannot bonus our way out of a severe teacher shortage,” said Andrea Cochran, a high school teacher from Port Orange.

Democrats on the committee, voted against the bill but also withdrew their amendments, saying there is still time for the committee to achieve compromise.

Koch group launches TV ad calling for universal school vouchers

A screen grab from the ad on Youtube

The Legislative session doesn’t kick off until Tuesday but it’s already clear that the education policy debate will be different this year. With a new, conservative state Supreme Court and Gov. Ron DeSantis pushing for allowing tax dollars to subsidize students more going to private schools, many long-time education advocates have said 2019 feels like a big moment for the school choice movement.

 

One major advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, which is supported by billionaire Charles Koch, launched a TV ad on Monday that will run in Tallahassee for two weeks to convince lawmakers to support universal school vouchers, also called “education savings accounts" or “education scholarship accounts.”

 

This policy would upend the way public school has been funded for generations. It would mean the state grants vouchers to all Florida families so they can use public money to attend school wherever they choose, whether that be a district, charter or private school, or even homeschooling.

 

That ambitious goal may not be accomplished this year, but the group is hoping it’s in the cards for the near future.

 

The ad strikes a bipartisan note, at a when when Americans for Prosperity is striving to make more alliances in both parties after years of being associated chiefly with Republicans.

 

The ad uses sound bytes from Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Gov. Jeb Bush and presidents Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump all speaking generally about the need to reform education.

 

“Every student deserves access to educational opportunity,” the ad’s narrator says at the end of the 30-second spot. “Ask your legislator to create education scholarship accounts for every student.”

 

The ad’s release on Monday coincided with a “Day of Action” announced by the Florida Education Association, the statewide teachers’ union that has long been opposed to vouchers. The union said teachers and school staff would be holding rallies across the state to advocate to lawmakers to adequately fund district schools.

Bill filed to require 80 percent of school funding spent ‘in the classroom’

A bill filed to fulfill Gov. Ron DeSantis' campaign pitch that 80 percent of education funds be spent "in the classroom" would include student materials, like textbooks, in that calculation. [Times (2014)]

 

On the campaign trail, Gov. Ron DeSantis pitched the idea that 80 percent of education funding be spent “in the classroom,” claiming that there is too much wasted on administration and not enough spent on kids’ learning.

 

Questions have surrounded that proposal from the start, but it’s also taken its first step toward becoming law.

 

READ MORE: DeSantis’ education committee talks challenges of K-12 spending campaign promise, teacher pay

 

Sen. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, filed a bill that makes that percentage a requirement and also takes a stab at defining what “classroom” spending would include. The bill says teachers’ salaries and bonuses, classroom supplies, technology for students and tutoring would all fall into this category.

 

Still, even Republicans have expressed doubt that making it to the 80 percent threshold is possible, considering the costs of guidance counselors, school buses, cafeteria staff and the myriad of other expenses that are related to student success and not included in the administration.

 

“This is clearly a bill that is going to need a lot more work. This is a starting point and a tip of the hat to governor’s desire (to get to 80 percent),” Diaz said.

 

He added that the Legislature will need to work to further define “classroom” spending and may also need to completely remove from the percentage calculation some, non-classroom expenses that are deemed essential by lawmakers, such as those related to school lunches.

 

“Our funding system is so complex most people, even in the Legislature, don’t understand it,” Diaz said. That means it’s time to be “having that conversation and digging deep into the weeds … (to find) which one of these (expenses) was put in because it was politically viable.”

Florida Supreme Court approves DeSantis’ ask for grand jury on school safety

The Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee. [Scott Keeler Tampa Bay Times]

 

The Florida Supreme Court justices unanimously agreed to impanel a statewide grand jury to broadly investigate school safety, in an order issued Monday. The decision came after Gov. Ron DeSantis filed a petition on Feb. 13 to ask for the grand jury, which he said should have sweeping powers to oversee both the government failures leading up to last year’s Parkland school shooting as well as any ongoing misdeeds committed by districts that are not following the school safety law passed after the tragedy.

 

“I am pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision,” DeSantis said in a statement. “This grand jury will work to investigate practices, identify failures and recommend solutions to keep students, teachers and staff safe in our schools.”

 

Mirroring the language in DeSantis’ request, the court’s order said the grand jury will investigate whether districts’ “refusal or failure” to follow school safety laws put students at risk, whether government officials committed “fraud and deceit” by using public money designated for school safety for other purposes or whether schools intentionally under-report criminal incidents to the state.

 

The grand jury, which will have jurisdiction over the entire state, will have its presiding judge be in the 17th Circuit — which is Broward County. It will meet for a year and will have the regular powers to issue subpoenas and indictments.

 

It’s a highly unusual use of a statewide grand jury, but DeSantis has said it will compliment the work of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, which investigated the shooting and made recommendations to the Legislature.

 

Except the grand jury will have much more legal might to investigate the Broward school district and others statewide. Both the commission and several Parkland families have complained publicly about what they say is continued incompetence in Broward to implement school safety measures even now, more than a year after the shooting.

 

Florida Senate Republicans propose new voucher, changes to teacher bonus program

Thirty-five kindergarten students pack the rug for a story and lesson as teachers Ann Renee Evans, center back, and Cassandra Hinson, right, lead the way at Connerton Elementary. Times | 2013

After a string of announcements from Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiling his proposals for a new school voucher and other changes to education policy, the Florida Senate responded with its own plan to shape the state’s schools — which had some differences.

 

At a press conference at the Capitol on Thursday, three top Republican senators said the Senate is seeking to create a new school voucher called the Family Empowerment Scholarship, which would help reduce the lengthy waiting list of students awaiting the state’s existing scholarship for low-income students, called the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship.

 

Unlike the existing scholarship, though, the new voucher would draw its funding from the pot of money typically set aside solely to be distributed to districts based on the number of students they have — a dramatic change. The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship is funded through corporate donations that the companies deduct from their taxes.

 

“My plan is to provide relief for these kids that are on a waiting list and these parents that want provide a better educational setting for their child and they are not able to simply because there are arbitrary financial barriers in place that won’t allow them,” said Sen. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah.

 

The statewide teachers’ union, the Florida Education Association, called this move dangerous for the state’s public schools.

 

“This plan represents a monumental shift of taxpayer funds to private schools,” said union president Fedrick Ingram in a statement. “What our students need is a monumental commitment to their neighborhood public schools, the schools that educate most of our kids.”

 

Diaz said the Senate's proposal is very similar to the Equal Opportunity Scholarship that DeSantis proposed last week, which relied on the same funding source. However, there is major difference in eligibility, as the Senate’s proposed scholarship would only be available to students who had previously been enrolled in public school or who were entering kindergarten. DeSantis’ plan aimed to make the voucher available for students even if they had only attended private schools, a wish-list item for school choice advocates.

 

There is also a slight difference in the income eligibility requirements between what DeSantis’ proposed, which allowed families making up to 265 percent of the poverty line, which is higher than the 260 percent provided in current law. The Senate is looking to keep that eligibility requirement at 260 percent, Diaz said.

 

The Senate incorporated DeSantis’ ask that teachers’ SAT and ACT test scores should no longer be factored into their consideration for recruitment and retention bonuses under the Best and Brightest program. But the Senators went a step further, saying they want to create a new category for teacher bonuses that could be awarded by school principals who see excelling educators who weren’t awarded bonuses based on the typical metrics of student performance.

 

Diaz also said they would follow DeSantis’ recommendation that to receive a bonus, teachers must work at a school that is improving its letter grade, with exceptions for schools that are consistently performing at the top grade levels.

 

“We don’t want to punish a school that has been at the top because they have a small blip,” Diaz said. “It’s hard to stay up there.”

 

Finally, the Senate would also like to remove some requirements for teacher certification, giving more time for prospective educators to pass the general knowledge exam, according to Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, who was also at Thursday’s announcement. And they are hoping to expand a grant program for schools in low-income communities to offer health care, social services and other aid to students who need it, said Sen. David Simmons of Altamonte Springs.

 

The policy proposals will be filed as one, large package bill by the first week of the legislative session, which begins March 5. That’s a strategy that has been used by the House in the past, which faced criticism in 2017 for combining many education bills into one omnibus, House Bill 7069, at the eleventh hour of the session.

 

Critics say package bills create a take-it-or-leave-it bargaining environment, but Diaz said filing it as a package from the start rather than bundling bills together at the end will be more transparent.

Andrew Gillum, United Teachers of Dade's pick for governor, featured on robocall endorsing union leadership

Back when the Florida gubernatorial primaries were in full swing last fall, Miami's teacher's union went out on a limb for Andrew Gillum -- against its Tallahassee union leadership's pick of Gwen Graham.

Gillum appears to have returned the favor. The former Democratic nominee for governor sent a robocall to Miami-Dade County Public Schools teachers on President's Day endorsing the incumbent leadership of UTD in Wednesday's union election.

"Hi, this Mayor Andrew Gillum calling on the behalf of UTD's Frontline Caucus," Gillum said in the message, praising the "incredible leadership" of president Karla Hernandez-Mats, vice president Tony White and secretary treasurer Mindy Grimes-Festge.

"When Karla and Tony and Mindy told me they had a bold plan to campaign for the largest teacher pay raise in Miami-Dade history, I said, 'Count me in,' because you all deserve it," he said. "And wow, the Frontline Caucus delivered."

Gillum went on to call the base 12.5 percent supplement that came out of a four-year, voter-approved referendum, which he endorsed on the campaign trial, a "pay increase." In annual pay raise negotiations, UTD and the school district agreed to a raise this year that yielded 0.8 percent to 1.1 percent more for teachers.

UTD's political action committee, Teachers for Public School Excellence, donated $40,000 to Gillum's committee Forward Florida just before the November election. UTD also hosted Gillum's election night watch party in Miami.

Only UTD members can vote in Wednesday's leadership election. Member teachers vote on ballots at their school site, which will be taken to Firefighter's Memorial Building, 8000 NW 21st St in Doral, for the tally around 3 p.m. Candidates run for three-year terms.

The Frontline caucus faces opposition from UTD's Progressive caucus, which has named Mari Corugedo, Harold Ford and David Moss to its executive board slate. Candidates Ricardo Ocampo and Joseph Howard are also running for president.

The Miami Herald has reached out to Hernandez-Mats for comment.

Bill to arm Florida teachers passes first committee along party lines

SCOTT KEELER | Times 20 protesters participate in a Die-In on the fourth floor rotunda of the Florida Capitol, 3/6/18. They continue to push for an assault weapons ban. Lawmakers in the Florida House were debating a gun/school safety bill at the time.

 

A bill that would allow Florida’s teachers to carry guns in schools passed its first committee along party lines Tuesday, setting up what could be one of the most heated debates of the 2019 legislative session.

 

Senate Bill 7030 expands the “Guardian” program created by last year’s post-Parkland bill, by which school staff can volunteer to carry guns on campus and then be screened and trained by local law enforcement. In current law, teachers that “exclusively perform classroom duties" are ineligible to participate.

 

But this new expansion would remove that prohibition. An amendment to once again remove teachers from the program was proposed by Sen. Lori Berman, D-Lantana, but it also failed along party lines in the Senate Education Committee.

 

Students “deserve to have someone ready,” said Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala during the committee meeting, shortly before he voted against Berman’s amendment. “Certainly if you’re charged with their safety we should not ask them to charge hell with a water pistol, stand there and be a victim with no way to defend yourself or others from harm.”

 

The committee room was packed on Tuesday as groups including the state teachers’ union and Moms Demand Action spoke against the bill, citing the many risks associated with bringing more guns on campus. There have already been instances of guns accidentally being fired or being left in school bathrooms for students to find in other states, they said.

 

Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, said the state has not allowed enough time to evaluate the current success arming school staff but is charging ahead with expanding the program anyway.

 

"We’re at the verge of considering a monumental change in public education,” he said. "We are shifting the mission of public education from being one of teaching to being one of teaching and law enforcement.”

 

Montford did, however, successfully add an amendment to the bill that gives school superintendents the authority to approve or reject specific teachers who want to be armed in their districts.

 

The Republicans who supported the bill emphasized that this proposal is based on the recommendations of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, which has spent months reviewing the footage and failings of the Parkland shooting nearly one year ago. That commission, led by Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, formally recommended training teachers to carry weapons in school for a quick response to school shootings.

 

If the teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School “had the opportunity to be ‘guardians’ they would be alive today and so would many other students,” said Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland. “That sends chills up my spine.”

 

The chair of the committee, Sen. Manny Diaz of Hialeah, also pointed to the fact that many teachers who take on additional duties, such as being a “hall monitor” or “sponsoring a club” would already be eligible to carry a gun under the current law. This bill “simply just removes the piece that says they have to have an additional duty,” he said.

 

It was unclear Tuesday whether the bill would have any additional committee assignments. None were listed online, but Diaz speculated it could head to Senate Appropriations to determine how different pieces would be funded. If not, its next destination would be the Senate Floor. The formal legislative session does not begin until March 5 and lawmakers are only meeting in committees in the weeks leading up to that date.

 

In addition to allowing all teachers to be eligible to carry guns, Senate Bill 7030 also increases state oversight over districts’ compliance with the various school safety measures in last year’s post-Parkland bill. It also would require sheriffs to offer training to school staff if the school district decides to opt-in to the program.

 

Currently, it is optional for both the district and the local sheriff’s office, and the commission has reported that there are several districts who want to arm staff but the local sheriff’s departments won’t agree to implement the program.

Should high schoolers be taught how to balance a checkbook? Bill filed again to require it

The Seminole High School Class of 2018 graduation cap and tassel during Commencement Ceremony at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. DIRK SHADD | Times

 

The idea of making “financial literacy” a high school graduation requirement is far from a new idea in the Florida Legislature, but this year its foremost champion has a different face. State Sen. Dorothy Hukill, a Republican from Port Orange, sponsored the measure for years, with the idea that students should be able to balance a checkbook, calculate interest rates and otherwise know how to manage their money before they fully join the workforce.

 

But after Hukill died last year, Sen. Travis Hutson, R-Elkton, has taken up the effort.

 

“She was a good friend,” Hutson said. “So it’s an emotional bill and I’m looking forward to getting it across the finish line in her honor.”

 

The bill, SB 114, passed through its first committee, the Senate Education Committee, with unanimous “yes” votes on Tuesday. Hutson said he’s optimistic that the House, which has in the past been resistant to the idea, will be more open to it this year in part due to some fresh-faced new members.

 

“There are people in the House that are younger that believe this is important and they never had this opportunity whereas their parents did,” he said. "We got rid of this program and we’re bringing this back.”

 

After lawmakers from both parties praised the bill, several also said they should consider extending the school day or the school year as more curriculum requirements and programs pile up, plus it would help keep Florida “competitive,” said Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee.

 

“When you have a limited amount of time there’s only so much you can do,” he said, after also expressing his support for a different bill that would continue an early education music program.

 

“I’d love to join ... in a discussion of changing that agrarian calendar we go by now and figuring out how we put more hours in the day or look at extending the school year,” agreed Sen. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah, the committee’s chairman. “I think we have two examples here that are very valuable but it becomes difficult to put in the school day.”

DeSantis takes aim at Common Core in executive order

Gov. Ron DeSantis, appearing at Tampa Bay Technical High on Wednesday, announces plans to invest in Florida workforce programs. He said he wants to take Florida from 24th in the nation to first in workforce preparation. [TAILYR IRVINE | Times]

 

Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to create new state curriculum standards that would eliminate “the vestiges of Common Core,” he announced in Cape Coral on Thursday.

 

“We stuck with Common Core then we re-branded it … it’s all the same. It all needs to be looked at, it all needs to be scrutinized,” DeSantis said during the announcement at Ida S. Baker High School, flanked by commissioner of education Richard Corcoran and local school administrators.

 

DeSantis announced an executive order asking Corcoran to spend a year creating new state curriculum standards, which would then be presented to the Legislature for the 2020 session.

 

It’s true that Florida’s current standards are very similar to Common Core, even though they were tweaked and renamed in 2014. Despite criticisms of Common Core being a federal mandate, those curriculum standards were developed by private nonprofit groups and state education departments and then adopted by 45 states. Local districts then altered their lesson plans to meet those standards.

 

READ MORE: PolitiFact: Distortions on Common Core

 

But DeSantis said Common Core inspired concerns by parents who felt they were “imposed federally.”

 

“Also, you would have situations where the parents did not like some of the curriculum, I mean they had trouble even doing basic math to help their kids,” he said. “With Common Core a lot of people just didn’t feel like anyone was listening to them and I think that’s a big, big problem.”

 

DeSantis also said the new standards, which Corcoran will work to craft as long as the state Board of Education is also in agreement, should make civics education even more of a “central part” of what students learn so they can “discharge the duties of citizenship." Civics education and learning the Constitution was one of DeSantis' common refrains on the campaign trail, even though students are already required to learn the Constitution.

 

READ MORE: Ron DeSantis and others want to put the Constitution ‘back’ in Florida schools. It’s already there.

 

This was DeSantis' second education policy announcement in two days, after he made a stop in Tampa on Wednesday to propose beefing up Florida’s vocational training programs.

Gualtieri to lawmakers: schools need more armed staff, punish districts that move too slow

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri chaired the commission that investigated the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. [Tampa Bay Times]

When Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri stood up to give his presentation to the House Education committee on Tuesday, he had harsh words for school districts whom he said are “not moving fast enough” and are “playing games” with SB 7026, the law passed last year in response to the Parkland shooting that mandated sweeping school safety requirements, including requiring an armed guard on every campus.

 

“The Legislature did a Herculean thing in a short amount of time,” Gualtieri said. “I think to some degree (the Department of Education) talked about how things are being done and being done well. Well guess what? They’re not.”

 

Gualtieri chairs the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, which was created by the new law to study the Parkland shooting and issue recommendations to the Legislature aimed and preventing future school shootings, after 17 students and staff were killed in Parkland last February. In that role, he followed a presentation by Brooks Rumenik, deputy director of the state Office of Safe Schools, who updated lawmakers on the progress of schools' compliance with SB 7026. Gualtieri made a similar presentation in the Senate Education Committee a few hours later.

 

He raked school districts over the coals, enumerating what he said was: “no sense of urgency” by districts to train teachers on how to respond to active shooter situations, that staff is not taking advantage of behavioral threat assessments to identify troubled students, schools are slow to submit reports on their emergency readiness and that districts are dragging their feet to train and arm school staff to increase the presence of armed guards on campus.

 

As part of the commissions' recommendations, Gualtieri said districts need to further implement the Coach Aaron Feis Guardian program, which trains school employees who aren’t primarily classroom teachers to undergo training and carry guns. Gualtieri said only two districts so far have armed existing school staff such as coaches and administrators, while 23 others, including Pinellas, have hired new school employees whose sole responsibility is to be on-campus security.

 

Gualtieri said widespread use of the guardian program would mitigate the shortages of deputies that currently exists in Florida’s law enforcement, which is caused in part by the strong economy resulting in fewer applicants. Sworn law enforcement, called school resource officers, are also much more expensive than school guardians.

 

Other districts have chosen to use only school resource officers, but Rumenik said that some districts are using one officer for multiple campuses, while other schools have said they would like to train staff through the program but the sheriff’s offices are declining to participate. Under current law, both the school board and the sheriff’s office must agree for the guardian program to be offered.

 

“This is not hard: there’s required to be a safe school officer, a good guy with a gun, on every campus,” Gualtieri said. “What we’re recommending is if the school board wants the program and authorizes the program that the sheriff be required to implement it and train."

 

“This isn’t ... ‘arm all the teachers.’ No, I’m not saying that,” he added. “We should do it in a surgical way, a lasered way, a methodical way, a smart way with good selection for people who want to volunteer," emphasizing that teachers who are military veterans, like the athletic director at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who was killed, are ideal candidates.

 

Gualtieri also said a major problem with implementation of SB 7026 is a lack of teeth in the law. He recommended that the state Department of Education be given greater authority to punish districts with financial penalties, or even the ability to remove school officials from office if they don’t comply, had a meeting scheduled with Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran later on Tuesday to discuss this.

 

Sen. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said he is “alarmed” that there are so many issues with district compliance, almost a year after the Parkland shooting happened. He added that while the creation of the guardian program last year was a heated affair, he thinks the political climate has changed.

 

“I think the temperature has dropped on that,” Diaz said. “Everybody realizes that the most important thing is to keep kids safe.”

 

Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, who serves on the commission with Gualtieri, said there needs to be a holistic approach to tweaking the law passed last year, and she’s approaching any Legislative expansion of the guardian program with caution.

 

“I think we need to expand the Baker Act — I don’t know if, as a commission, we’ve looked at mental health pieces enough or some of our ability to seize weapons that need to be seized ... or some of the gun control measures that we should be looking at,” she said. But when it comes to the districts, especially in Broward County, “clearly people aren’t paying attention. People aren’t doing what they need to do.”

 

Rep. Jennifer Sullivan, R-Mount Dora, who chairs the House Education Committee, said the Legislature is open to all the commission’s suggestions and said they will be taking a “balanced approach” when it comes to further arming school staff.