Janelle Irwin Taylor
All seven Hillsborough County School Board members and Superintendent Jeff Eakins spent Wednesday in Tallahassee, talking to lawmakers about public education issues affecting Florida students and teachers.
It’s rare for an entire board and an agency’s top executive to travel together to the Capitol to lobby lawmakers on issues, making the district’s trip a unique opportunity.
The group established a list of items to tackle on the trip, matters on which both Republican and Democratic members of the board agreed. The goal was to create a focused platform with achievable ideas by targeting Gov. Ron DeSantis and leading lawmakers ’ already established priorities.
Their goal is to further the conversation on issues by building on or improving measures already working through the 2020 Legislative Session.
The group narrowed its list to six topics and met with more than a dozen lawmakers to address them.
Those topics include school safety and mental health, personnel, local district decision-making, early learning and increases to STEM and workforce opportunities.
On school safety, board members are working to build momentum for mental, social and emotional learning. They also want funding for safer pathways to school — things like sidewalks and better crosswalks.
The group is trying to stay away from anything too politically motivated. The teacher salary issue is a different topic to tackle. DeSantis wants $900 million in the next budget year to raise starting teacher salary to $47,500 and for teacher and principal bonuses.
Critics of DeSantis’ proposal argue the teacher pay portion is good news for new teachers, but it leaves out existing teachers who have worked for years with very few raises, and in some cases, pay cuts.
A Senate committee recently included a teacher pay and bonus package in its proposed education budget that scaled back DeSantis’ proposal from $900 million to $825 million but provided more flexibility in how districts could implement raises.
The Hillsborough district supports increasing teacher pay but isn’t getting bogged down into the specifics.
The district is asking lawmakers broadly to increase general teacher compensation while also working together to identify innovative ways to recruit new teachers.
They’re also calling for more local control over revenue.
The group of School Board members, which includes Stacy Hahn, Karen Perez, Tamara Shamburger, Cindy Stuart, Snively, Steve Cona and Lynn Gray, also wants lawmakers to provide local authority to identify efficient new school locations as the district continues to grow.
That also includes improving funding for repairs and operating costs at schools and cost of living adjustments for teachers and faculty.
Another top priority includes increasing access to early childhood learning and improving kindergarten readiness.
By 10 a.m. Wednesday, Hillsborough’s board members had already talked STEM, early learning, workforce preparation and other topics with Rep. Adam Hattersley; Sen. Darryl Rouson; and Florida’s new Chancellor for Innovation, Eric Hall. Also on the schedule: face-to-face meetings with Reps. Chris Latvala, Jamie Grant, Jackie Toledo, Susan Valdes, Fentrice Driskell, Lawrence McClure, Mike Beltran, Adrian Zika, Sen. Janet Cruz, and legislative staff for Sen. Manny Diaz.
