Priority Issues for 2021 Florida Legislature

• Enhance the state investment in quality early learning and Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) programs by providing more robust funding, raising the qualifications of instructional personnel, improving the quality of the curriculum, and establishing uniform high-quality early childhood indicators for public and private providers.
  
  
• Maximize COVID-related funding opportunities that may be available through state legislative funding, federal funding, or DOE grant.
  
  
• Fully fund school workforce education programs each year rather than on a three-year rolling average.
  
  
• Use state assessments in the 2020-21 school year as a baseline for accountability purposes and to target students in need of intervention, but do not use assessment results for third-grade promotion, end-of-course
  calculations, teacher evaluations, graduation requirements, or school letter grade calculations.
  
  
• Increase the Base Student Allocation (BSA) in the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) by no less than that recommended by the State Board of Education to the Governor for the 2021-2022 school year ($10 per student) and must cover:
  • Any requirement for an increased employer contribution to the Florida Retirement System;
  • Enrollment Growth;
  • Workload;
  • State programmatic changes; and
  • Inflation.
    
    
• Provide additional options for the recruitment and retention of instructional personnel including expanded reemployment after retirement.
  
  
• Increase mental health program funding, VPK through high school, to provide for additional behavioral specialists/coordinators and training that includes school guidance counselors.
  
  
• Calculate the Required Local Effort (RLE) in the FEFP to include both increased property value and revenue gained from new construction added to annual county tax rolls.