Class-size "emergency"

Florida lawmakers gave their first public hint of how they might scale back the 2002 class size amendment without going back to the voters during a House committee meeting this morning. The vehicle would be legislation creating a class size "exigent flexibility exception."

The exception would allow districts that have unexpected enrollment growth after the school year begins to have individual classrooms exceed the mandated student counts by up to five students, for one year only. It would deem three actions as "not practical or educationally unsound and disruptive to students" - breaking up a class mid-year, establishing a new class at the school and transferring students to another school in the district.

The idea was part of a larger discussion on how the state will comply with the law, which sets class size limits of 18 for kindergarten through third grade, 22 for fourth through eighth grade and 25 for high school grades. Classroom counts are scheduled to take effect in the fall.

To see the proposed exception amendment, click here. To see the full packet that was discussed, click here (and be patient, it's long and takes a while to load). To see an Associated Press report on the session, click here.

Comments

[terminator]

11:43
thanks for the additional info!

Actually, according to Rep. Simmons, the Constituion doesn't actually require that classes sizes be reduced at all. The only requirement is that the LEGISLATURE provides enough FUNDING to allow classes to be reduced to the minimum levels established. So, if the Legisalture wants to provide the appropriate amount of funding (for the whole deal) but only mandate that districts comply on the average plus five, this is ok. In fact, the REASON that the amendment was allowed on the ballot in the first place was because it only significantly impacted ONE branch/agency/area of government (the Legisalture). Read the language closely yourself. The only things that are actually MANDATED to happen are for the legislature to provide appropriate funding each year.

That being said, it was Simmons' staff that produced a paper in the package that suggests that billions could be "saved" by the change. The reality is that if the Legisalture doesn't spend the right amount of money than they deserve to get sued under the Simmons view of the CSR requirements. The Legislature doesn't have to mandate strict caps on actual class sizes, but they MUST provide enough funding to make those caps possible.

[terminator]

6:32
the actual language in the constitutional amendment doesn't require the class size caps until 2010 while the implementing bill the legislature passed several years ago was more strict in requiring phase in of the caps this coming school year.
the cap +5 idea was ours going back several years ago (Jeb rejected it so he could push his $35K minimum starting salary).
The idea makes sense in that we're heading for a huge down budget year and most employees wouldn't get raises if class size was fully implemented this coming year.
We just can't give the districts too much wiggle room in that these guys can't be trusted.

While I feel their pain, can someone explain exactly how this is contitutional?