Funding for school safety, bus transportation and even teacher salaries are at the heart of the Hernando County School Board’s 2025 legislative platform.
As part of a presentation made by the school district’s director of communications, Karen Jordan, at the Sept. 24 School Board workshop, board members discussed tweaks to be made to the platform prior to its final approval. The platform identifies key issues that the Board would like to see receive legislative support from the state government and outlines its priorities for the coming year.
First on the list was, “Assessment: Protect classroom instructional time by further reducing the requirements to conduct progress monitoring assessments as a measure of student mastery of FAST (Florida Assessment of Student Thinking) standards.”
This topic actually generated the least amount of discussion, as the board members were united in their thinking while also recognizing the likely futility in pushing for it.
“I think we’re spitting in the wind on this one. But I think it’s a good statement to make,” vice chair Susan Duval said. “I’m OK with it. Just, I don’t expect anything to come from it. It will take all the districts or a good portion of our 67 districts to get behind this to make a dent in the legislative body.”
Next up was the issue of busing, with “Transportation: Reduce the minimum distance required for elementary students to qualify for school transportation and increase funding for the youngest students living one-half mile from their school to be transported.”
Board member Mark Johnson suggested an edit to this item, asking that the word increase be eliminated.
“We’re already trying to get two students to a row and that doesn’t get any traction. I like the way it says the youngest students living 1/2 mile from the schools,” Johnson said. “I think that’s a great new approach for this.
“But I think ‘and increase,’ those two words should come out. I don’t know if it quite needs to be tweaked a little bit. But basically it’s saying ‘Hey, let’s get funding for the youngest children that live within a 1/2 mile of the schools.’ I like that. I think that might get us some traction. Maybe we’ll get funding for K-3. That would be a start.”
Johnson noted that the district could even pay the difference if it could at least receive some money from the state.
“I’d like it grades kindergarten through 8th,” Duval said. “I still think we’re spitting in the wind because the state refuses to listen to the needs of our counties in this state. Perhaps by starting with the lower grades first, maybe that’s a slight inroad into the consciousness of our legislators in understanding.”
Later in the meeting, board member Shannon Rodriguez mentioned that another addition to the transportation item would be that discretion needs to go back to the individual districts on school start times.
The third item was the one that was altered the most, originally worded as, “School Safety: Make further adjustments to HB 1473: 1) Protect district safety officers from liability for making allowable exemptions under the law and 2) Add a system of documented approval State Office Safe Schools local made in accordance with law.”
House Bill 1473, which governs school safety in the state, was signed into law in May. It was suggested that the Board go with more broad wording, asking the bill be adjusted to provide appropriate exceptions for after-school activities and most importantly allocate money needed to comply.
“We have to increase funding,” Rodriguez said. “There’s no way around being able to implement this law without more money.”
Finally the Board talked about pushing for more money from the state to pay teachers’ salaries.
“I don’t think there’s a board member who believes that teachers don’t need more money,” board member Gus Guadagnino said. “But we’re not in charge of what goes into the purse.”
Johnson suggested the district might need to reduce the amount of computerized programs it uses, particularly i-Ready, in order to free up some wiggle room in the budget.
“Optics appears out there that us as board members are not willing to give (teachers) what they deserve and what they need. And that’s not the case at all. I don’t like that feeling,” Rodriguez said. “So if it means getting rid of i-Ready, if it means stopping some of these things, whatever it takes to be able to give them what they’re worth and pay them to where they’re not working 2-3 jobs.
“Whatever it takes to tighten up our belt here at this district. We’re going to have to start looking into that and making that difference and not just talking about it.”
