K-12 schools

Negotiations typically stretch into the fall or even spring semester. But, this year, teacher union leaders and school officials landed a swifter compromise.

For decades, Pizzo K-8 operated on the University of South Florida Tampa campus. But the terms of a new lease agreement between the district and university could push the school to move.

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Monday his commitment to raise state funds for teacher salaries to $1.25 billion, an increase of almost a quarter-billion dollars. Public education advocates said that won't alleviate the teacher shortage.

More than 386,000 applications for the upcoming school year have been submitted, surpassing the number of vouchers awarded last school year.

The closures are part of a broader restructuring plan that will save the district annual costs. But parents and some officials say the disruption to families is not worth it.

The board went against previous review committees' recommendations to keep more than half the books.

Pinellas and Pasco County schools released bell schedules for the upcoming school year. They remain largely unchanged as the districts figure out how to push back start times by 2026.

The district is taking students and parents to truancy court to find the most hard-to-reach families in the midst of a national absenteeism crisis.

The Florida Education Association's lawsuit says the Florida Department of Education went beyond the scope of HB 1467 in its training, which led some districts to cover shelves.

The Sarasota School Board voted 3-2 against paying $28,000 for Vermilion Education to examine a range of district policies.

The controversial vote on Tuesday would grant the consultant access to a range of district policies, practices and textbooks, and includes in-person visits to three schools.

Opponents of the proposed contracts say Vermilion Education has no track record and were brought forward without any competitive bidding process.