education

More than two years after the COVID pandemic began, students — and their teachers — are still dealing with impacts. Here are the voices of some teachers, as they describe the challenges they face, in their own words.

When schools can't find a licensed special education teacher, they hire people who are willing to do the job, but lack the training. It's a practice that concerns some special education experts.

The bill would require schools to create “individualized seizure action” plans at the request of parents, with the plans providing guidelines for caring for students with epilepsy.

The lawsuit is one of a series of similar legal fights in Florida and across the country about the decisions of colleges and universities to shut down campuses and move classes online in 2020.

Kids were already facing a mental health crisis before the pandemic. Closing schools for a year only made it worse, says Rachel Kusher of the Florida School Counselor Association. And reopening hasn’t fixed all the harm.

The governor says initiatives will include reading coaches, STEM and math acceleration programs, parent mentorship training and mental health resources.

The programs will equip students for these fields, while their other courses will also prepare them for college.

Districts that defied a mask mandate ban would get a smaller funding increase under the budget proposal.

Bill sponsor Rep. Randy Fine says the reduction is only about 1% of the overall budget, which means targeted districts won’t get as much of an overall increase as others.

The proposal would redirect $200 million from 12 school districts — including Hillsborough and Sarasota — to districts that did not require students to wear masks.