The freedom to advocate for students' needs is one of the most important freedoms educators have. Unfortunately, that freedom is under attack by the Florida Legislature.

HB 835 will make it more difficult for educators to join together to advocate for their students. HB 835 is one of the bills on today's packed agenda for the House State Affairs Committee and educators from around the state have shown up today to testify against this bill.

The Senate Rules Committee has a packed agenda this morning. We'll be monitoring the meeting and will provide live updates when they take up SB 1014. @FLAFLCIO interviewed educators as they were waiting their turn to get into the committee room.

While waiting for the committee to take up SB 1014, you can hear directly from the educators who will be impacted by the bill here:

https://twitter.com/FloridaEA/status/1382309650662629379?s=20

Nearly 100 teachers, paraprofessionals, school secretaries and other professional educators made a long drive to Tallahassee last night so they could address the Senate Rules Committee today to tell them to Vote No on SB 1014. "My union membership allows me to advocate for the special needs students I teach without fear of reprisal," says @mikespeaksout a teacher with almost three decades of experience who drove up from Palm Beach County last night.

"As you know it's budget day," Senate President Wilton Simpson tells his colleagues at the open of today's session.

Among the budgetary issues in front of the Senate today is SB 84 which would undermine retirement security for Florida's educators feaweb.org/news/take-acti… We'll be monitoring the Senate all day long and will provide live updates in this thread when SB 84 is taken up. The bill is on 2nd reading which means there will be questions today, but not debate or a vote on final passage.

Debate and final passage will occur on 3rd reading.

At 9am, SB 1014 will be up in committee. This bill attacks freedoms that educators currently enjoy, and educators are fighting back.

Teachers and staff from all over Florida have cut short Spring Break & arrived in Tallahassee to voice their opposition to the committee. Upon the conclusion of the meeting, there will be a press conference featuring some of the educators who made the trip up to Tallahassee to address SB 1014.

In the meantime, we'll be following along the committee meeting when it starts at 9am and provide updates in this thread.

10am this morning, the House Government Operations Committee will take up two bills aimed at limiting the freedom of Florida's educators who have gone above and beyond the call of duty this past year. 1/x There is still time before the meeting to email the committee and ask them to stop the attack on workers' rights! feaweb.org/news/take-acti… 2/x

Rather than addressing the needs of the 90% of Florida's students attending public schools, SB 48 shifts more public funds to unaccountable private and religious schools.

We'll be watching at 11:30am when this bill comes up, and we'll provide live updates in this thread Before the meeting starts, there is still time for you to let the Senate Appropriations Committee know why you oppose SB 48: feaweb.org/news/take-acti…

This afternoon at 4pm, the Senate Education Committee will take up SB 886 which would remove the high-stakes consequences from this year's statewide standardized tests.

Live updates will be in this thread. ICYMI, we recently sat down with @KarlaMats, Ceresta Smith and @emceeleman to hear from their perspective what should happen with testing this year and beyond.

While waiting for the committee meeting to start, you can listen to this month's podcast here: feaweb.org/episode-4-lets…

11am today @GovRonDeSantis will give the State of the State Address. We'll be monitoring & will provide live updates in this thread

While waiting for Gov. DeSantis to give his remarks, here are the issues FEA's 150,000+ members want lawmakers to focus on feaweb.org/wp-content/upl… Unlike last year’s State of the State Address which spent a significant time discussing education, today it was mentioned just briefly in passing. @GovRonDeSantis did “reject reductions in funding for K-12 education.” On that, we agree. 1/4

SB 78 has its third and final committee stop this morning at 9am in the Senate Rules Committee. This bill increases government bureaucracy and makes life more difficult for frontline workers like educators, police and firefighters. The first two committee stops for SB 78 are most notable for their predictability. Educators, police, firefighters and other public workers spoke up against the bill in large numbers—without a single public worker advocating for the bill.

At 3:30 this afternoon the Senate Education Appropriations Subcommittee will meet to discuss SB 48--which is another step in Florida's long march towards privatization of public education. The issues that directly impact the 90% of students who attend public schools have been completely absent from committee meetings during the interim committee weeks.

feaweb.org/wp-content/upl…

At 9am this morning the Senate Judiciary Committee will again take up SB 78 after it was temporarily postponed in the committee's last meeting. We'll keep you updated in this thread. As always you can watch live, or later on demand, via @floridachannel thefloridachannel.org As a reminder, SB 78 is a bill that offers a solution in search of a problem.

It creates additional governmental bureaucracy and hurts frontline workers including educators, police and firefighters.

Here are some examples of what professional educators think of SB 78

At 2:00pm today, the Senate Education Appropriations Committee will take up SB 264.

Like many of the bills related to education that seem to be gaining traction this session, SB 264 is a solution in search of a problem. 1/x SB 246 attacks academic freedom on college & university campuses under the guise of an "intellectual diversity" survey.
When testifying on the bill in its last committee stop on Jan. 26, bill sponsor Sen Rodrigues admitted he had no evidence of a problem that justified this bill

At 2:30 this afternoon the Senate Judiciary Committee will meet and SB 78 is on the agenda.

Click the link to see what professional educators had to say about this latest attempt at governmental overreach and union busting: feaweb.org/wp-content/upl…
1/x As always, you can watch the meeting live, or later on demand, via @floridachannel. And when the committee takes up SB 78, we'll continue this thread with live updates.

Have you heard?? @FloridaEA is announcing our lawsuit against @GovRonDeSantis, @EducationFL, @richardcorcoran et al at 1pm this afternoon.

You can tune in live on Facebook facebook.com/floridaea/ and follow this thread for live updates if you can't watch live. @FloridaEA President @FedIngram is first to speak, he says through the lawsuit we are "Seeking to return control to where it belongs, to locally elected school board members and superintendents."

Soon, the Florida House will take up HB 7067 on 2nd reading (meaning it's not up for final passage today, but for questioning & amendments). This bill would funnel even more taxpayer $ to unaccountable & discriminatory private, religious schools.

Follow along for updates 1/x While waiting for 7067 to be heard (it is the next bill up), here's some good background on the types of schools the House is looking to direct even more taxpayer $ to orlandosentinel.com/news/education…

At 8am today the House State Affairs Committee will meet to discuss #HB1 a bill which is an attempt to silence the voice of working people in Florida. We'll keep you updated on this thread. As always, you can follow along live on The Florida Channel thefloridachannel.org Chair Rep. @BlaiseIngoglia is laying out the ground rules. Says there are some bills that he expects will have a lot of people who want to speak and asks they consider waiving in support/opposition.

Looks like they'll hear quite a few bills before #HB1. We'll keep you updated.

8:30 this morning the House Oversight, Transparency, and Public Management Subcommittee will take up the union busting #HB1
feaweb.org/news/bills/hb-… We'll provide live updates on this thread during the meeting, and as always, you can watch the meeting live via @floridachannel thefloridachannel.org

The Senate is now taking up the amended version of #HB7123. Senator @kellistargel has recommended that the Senate accept the House's modifications. Sen. @TomLeeFL has asked for clarification on how the bill is currently different from what the Senate passed earlier this morning.

#SB7030 is up for final passage in the House right now. You can watch here thefloridachannel.org

This will be the final stop before the bill reaches the governor's desk.

As with yesterday's #SB7070 this bill will have structured debate 15 min. per side. First to debate is Rep. @CindyPoloFL103 who says she had a speech ready weeks ago but that last night's questioning and debate changed that speech. "I'm trying to find a balance btw being angry and keeping you accountable," she says.

Later today, the Florida House will take up #SB7070 a bill to expand voucher programs. Those who support the bill will talk about the need to eliminate "waitlists" and how the vouchers over the past decade have helped to "expand opportunity." 1/6 It's worth examining that claim to see just how much opportunity expansion there actually has been.
In 2005, private school enrollment comprised 11.6% of total public and private school enrollment.
Since that time billions of dollars have been spent on vouchers. 2/6