The lawmaker behind a 2023 law requiring later school times that could get repealed this Session believes his original bill wasn’t a “fruitless exercise,” and supports efforts to overturn it.

Republican Sen. Danny Burgess sponsored the 2023 measure that requires middle schools to begin no earlier than 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. for high schools. The law gives school districts until July 1, 2026, to comply.

Burgess said Monday he had a “total love-hate relationship” with his bill and said he supports Sen. Jennifer Bradley’s proposal to give local districts control when they start.

Bradley said the law is forcing Superintendents to scramble across the state.

School districts need to buy more buses and hire bus drivers, which are hard to find, she said. She added that children as young as 6 years old could be stuck waiting outside for the bus in the dark at 6 a.m., and parents are worried about their adjusting their work schedules.

“A state mandate on school start times would present incredible challenges, financially and otherwise,” Bradley said as the Senate Committee on Education PreK-12 approved SB 296 with little debate Monday and a 6-1 vote.

Burgess said he “100% believed in the science, as we all do” about the importance of sleep for young people, but admitted his 2023 measure didn’t end up exactly how he wanted.

“What ultimately made me feel OK was that we had a three-year glide path,” the Zephyrhills Republican said at the meeting. “Because of that responsible approach, if it turned out that this would be a bridge too far, we could always pull back.”

Burgess argued his legislation “wasn’t just a fruitless exercise. I think it was responsible.”

As school districts began preparing to change their start times next year, some officials warned that the law is going to cause havoc on districts because of all the logistics of staggered bus times and challenges with elementary school start times, which weren’t included in the law.

“The transition is also difficult for parents’ work schedules. Many parents rely on older students to return from school first and supervise younger siblings,” said Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican. “These families would be forced to find and pay for child care. Later start times would also mean many parents in rural communities or those with longer commutes need to leave for work early.”

Bradley’s bill had support from several school districts, including Orange County Public Schools, which is the fourth-largest district in the state with more than 200,000 students.

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Sen. Shevrin Jones’ SMILES Act would expand dental care services for people on Medicaid.

“The impact our dental care legislation could make in our great state is the reason that I became a lawmaker in the first place,” Jones, a Democrat from Miami-Dade, said in a statement Monday. “Making lives better for Floridians of all backgrounds — in this case, helping them connect to health care to make sure they’re not living with preventable pain because of issues of affordability and access.”

The bill — known as the “Strengthening Medicaid in the Interest of Low-Income Economic Self-Sufficiency” — would also increase the reimbursement rates for covered services for Medicaid providers in a state falling behind compared to the rest of the country, Jones said.

“Florida ranks 49th in the nation for Medicaid dental reimbursement rates, paying only 42% of the average fees charged by dentists, according to the American Dental Association,” according to a press release put out by Jones and House Democrats who are sponsoring legislation to try and change that.

Currently, Medicaid only covers emergency dental work and services to prepare someone for dentures.

But under the new bill, those receiving Medicaid — particularly those with disabilities, the Democrats said — could access other expanded dental care.

“The minimum benefits provided by the Medicaid prepaid dental health program to recipients 21 years of age or older must include services necessary to prevent disease and promote oral health, restore oral structures to health and function, and treat emergency conditions, including routine diagnostic and preventive care, such as dental cleanings, exams, and X-rays; basic dental services, such as fillings and extractions; major dental services, such as root canals, crowns, dentures, and other dental prostheses; emergency dental care; and other necessary services related to dental and oral health,” the bill said.

Jones filed SB 1048, while Reps. Marie Woodson and Angie Nixon are filing the House companion HB 975.

“While Congress debates cutting Medicaid, this legislation strengthens the program in Florida for our most vulnerable residents,” Woodson said in a statement. “By codifying these basic dental services into our Medicaid program, the Florida Legislature is telling Floridians that we are making increased health outcomes a priority.”

If passed, the bill would take effect July 1.

The Legislature reconvenes on Tuesday.

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This year’s results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed a troubling trend for Florida: our students are falling behind. When the scores came out, state and national politicians expressed shock and awe, asking, “How could this happen?” But I think we know the answer. Over the past 25 years, Florida has adopted policies and laws that have driven teachers out of the profession, created enormous bureaucratic red tape for teachers and districts to follow, and, worse, limited the curriculum and learning opportunities for students.

So, the important question now is: what do we do about it?

No matter what party line you follow or what your background is, we can all agree on a few simple principles: that every child in our state deserves a free, world-class public education that prepares them for success and that every Floridian should be able to afford to take care of their families.

In order to move public education forward in our state, we must address the hard truths and facts about where we are today. The numbers don’t lie – Florida’s children are being failed year after year by bad policy. We can’t selectively celebrate graduation numbers and progress monitoring assessments while ignoring the reality: plummeting SAT scores, thousands of students left without a qualified educator in their classroom, and almost rock-bottom average teacher pay. The latest NAEP scores are only a symptom and help expose the long-term consequences of underfunding public education.

In Florida, anti-public education politicians have set up a lose-lose environment for many public school teachers and education staff professionals. Talk to any educator, and you will hear how they must work two, three, or even four jobs just to make enough money to provide for their own families. No one wants to see members of their communities struggling to survive. Low salaries and an over-politicization of the profession have led to the exodus of experienced educators and have meant fewer educators are even willing to enter the profession. This isn’t just a problem for teachers; it’s a crisis for our entire community.

The teacher shortage crisis is more than a statistic. It’s a daily reality for students across the state. Thousands of students are sitting in classrooms without a qualified teacher halfway through the school year. Over the past three years, the number of courses taught by out-of-field teachers—those who do not have training or certifications in the subject they are teaching—has jumped 16%. Even as classrooms are being staffed, they are increasingly being filled with interns, long-term substitutes, or international teachers brought in to patch the holes.

Florida is one of the wealthiest states in the nation yet ranks 50th nationally in average teacher salary. Without a competitive salary, experienced educators leave, and fewer young professionals enter the field, worsening the cycle. When our state limits teachers’ effectiveness by robbing them of the stability and security of earning a living wage, the same limits are placed on our students. As any teacher can tell you, a student’s success on the NAEP, the SAT, or any other test is not determined on test day itself but by the work and preparation that led up to it. When our state underpays teachers, underfunds schools, and overloads classrooms, our students pay the price.

We must work together to ensure that our children have fully funded public schools and that our educators have the support they require.

That means fully investing in and funding public schools in a state where a universal voucher system drains $4 billion from desperately needed public education funds. The majority of voucher recipients never attended public schools in the first place, meaning public tax dollars are being used as private tuition assistance for families who could already afford it. This isn’t about expanding opportunity; it’s about defunding public schools at the expense of the majority of Florida students who still rely on them.

The reality is that 80% of parents still choose to enroll their kids in our neighborhood public schools, and they still believe in investing in our public education system. Last year, voters across the state and across party lines overwhelmingly passed local school funding referenda, choosing to invest in their neighborhood public schools even when the state wouldn’t.

This legislative session, the Florida Education Association, led by dedicated teachers and education staff professionals across the state, is calling on and working with lawmakers to fully fund public education, ensure fair wages for educators, address multi-year contracts, and so much more. The state of Florida has spent more than two decades experimenting with various policies to improve education, but these experiments have been done without much research and without the experts — the educators. And what do we have to show for it? Maybe it’s time to listen to the experts in our schools. We can change the course of public education in Florida for the better by recommitting to building the world-class public education system our students deserve.

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Andrew Spar is president of the Florida Education Association.

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