Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to quicken the timeline for school districts to convert a failing traditional public school into a charter school. Time is of the essence when improving schools, he said.
“If you drag your feet for three or four years, that’s three or four years of students who aren’t getting the education they should be getting,” DeSantis said at a press conference in Escambia County.
He was highlighting a provision within HB 1285. The section requires school districts who opt to convert a failing traditional public school to a charter school to have a contract with a charter school company by Oct. 1 of the final year of control of the school. That would give the company enough time to prepare a turnaround plan.
But DeSantis hasn’t signed the bill yet because the Legislature hasn’t formally sent it to his desk. He plans to sign it once he receives it.
Another piece of the bill that garnered much attention is a measure to restrict the challenges to books in public school libraries. Under current law, anyone can file numerous challenges to books, which must then be reviewed for compliance with a state ban on sexually explicit material. Once DeSantis signs HB 1285, those without children attending schools in a given district will only be able to challenge one book per month.
DeSantis bemoaned the string of challenges made by some “activists” against books written by Shakespeare and other esteemed writers to demonstrate how restrictive the existing law championed by DeSantis is.
“For many, many decades, school was school,” DeSantis said. “Then it seems like more recently it’s all become fodder for people to try to do the agenda.”
Education Commissioner Manny Diaz also noted that the books successfully challenged and removed from school libraries aren’t “banned,” they’re still available to adults.
“There’s this false narrative about banning books. No, what we’re looking at is removing books that don’t belong in a school,” Diaz said.
DeSantis didn’t specify when he would receive the bill from the Legislature, but did say he expects to get it “very soon.”
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