by Kathleen Haughney
The News Service of Florida
The Florida Senate voted Thursday to try to roll back a 2002 constitutional change that would ensure Florida schools had small classes, but the proposal still needs to win approval from the Florida House and 60 percent of Florida voters.
The move to change the class size provision, which phased in a class size capping system, began almost immediately after voters overwhelmingly approved it in 2002. But the Senate has long struggled with the issue. While the House passed a measure to roll back the class size requirements in 2009, the Senate didn’t have the votes.
That changed this year, when lawmakers said that schools, with diminishing funds and fewer resources, needed flexibility within the class size law. Under current law, classes are capped at 18 students for kindergarten through third grade, 22 in fourth through eighth grade, and 25 in high school.
Smaller classes have been phased in since 2002, but at the start of the 2010 school year, every classroom would have to meet those hard caps.
The bill, SJR 2, would ask voters to go back into the constitution to allow schools to meet a grade level average of those numbers, rather than an individual classroom cap. It passed by a 26-10 vote in the Senate, garnering two more than the 24 votes it needed.
Proponents of the measure have argued that the smaller classes achieved by the caps have indeed helped students, but that there would not be much change if one or two students were added to a classroom. What would cause chaos, they said, is if a student moved into a district in the middle of the year and pushed a classroom over the cap. State lawyers have said that would put a school in violation of the law.
To avoid those problems, several lawmakers have said that allowing a grade level average cap would still create small classes without tying a school principal’s hands.
“There is no repeal, no roll back,” said Sen. Don Gaetz (R-Niceville).
But the state teachers’ union has railed against the change, saying there was no need to alter the constitution. Instead they have proposed statutory changes that would allow for a school to meet the class size caps at the beginning of the year, but not be penalized if students move into the district later in the year.
Schools have also received an immense amount of funding specifically dedicated to ensuring small class sizes and some school advocates have cautioned that the funding could decrease.
Democrats, who largely voted against the measure, debated at length on the issue, and said that voters were clear when they voted in favor of the class size amendment in 2002. They wanted small classes, opponents of the class size tweak said.
“We’ve seen test scores improve and we believe it has to do with class size because students who have problems now get the attention that they need,” said Sen. Eleanor Sobel (D-Hollywood). “Class size is a fundamental educational tool.”
The attention now turns to the House, where the proposal will likely win easy passage. Rep. Will Weatherford (R-Wesley Chapel), who has championed the change for the past few years, said the House will likely take up his class size change in the next few weeks.
“We love having small classes in the state of Florida,” Weatherford said. “It’s very important to our children. All we’re doing is trying to create a little bit of flexibility so that our administrators and our teachers and our principals can run their schools.”
The bigger challenge is getting the proposal past the voters. In order to change the constitution, 60 percent of the voters need to approve it in the November 2010 election. Weatherford said he believes the numbers are shifting in the favor of the change, but said that it might take a little campaigning to reach the 60 percent threshold.
“It will probably take some campaigning between now and November, but we’ve got to get it on the ballot first,” Weatherford said.
Ron Sachs, a prominent Tallahassee publicist, said his firm has done some work with proponents of the measure and expects to be involved in the effort to convince voters.