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Orange County Public School Board wants education bill vetoed

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Superintendent Barbara Jenkins writes open letter to Governor Scott

The Orange County School Board and Superintendent Barbara Jenkins have officially asked Governor Rick Scott to veto HB 7069 and the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) portion of the General Appropriations Act. Orange County Public Schools cites:

 Inadequate average increase statewide of $24.49 (or a 0.34%) per student. This level of funding does not begin to address the basic educational services we are tasked with providing our students.

 The cut to the Base Student Allocation (“BSA”) of $27.07 per student, would result in funding less than it was ten years ago. This could affect the ability to provide raises for hard working teachers.

 The current proposal threatens the Title I provision impacting services to support the needs of students in poverty. This would limit the ability of a school district to provide district-wide services such as summer reading programs, tutoring, and parental engagement initiatives.

 Forcing school districts to share its capital outlay millage with charter schools regardless of the need. This would severely impact a school district’s ability to meet ongoing transportation as well as building and maintenance needs of Florida public schools. The letter to the Governor also suggests options which would actually increase per student funding by 2.2% ($25 million) for Orange County Public Schools for the 2017-18 school year. 1) Eliminating “Schools of Hope” charter school plan and Best and Brightest program which only provides bonuses to certain teachers and not raises for all teachers. 2) Redirecting the $354 million saved from the elimination of the two programs to provide needed educational services and teacher raises. You can read the OCPS letter to the Governor by clicking here.

The letter was signed by all eight OCPS board members and Jenkins. District 7 member Christine Moore (whose district includes Apopka), spoke out against the bill.

"Opening charter schools in high-poverty communities isn't the answer," she said. "These families need additional supports such as a longer school year, incentives for learning, high quality teachers, health services, counseling, food pantries, etc. It is counter productive for some in Tallahassee to call low performing schools "failure factories". Children need hope and opportunity."

Orange County Public School Board

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