From The News Service of Florida
A test given to young elementary school students will not be used this year, according to the Florida Department of Education.
The agency said the Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading, or FAIR, assessment will not be administered to students in kindergarten through second grade because of a technical issue.
“With the implementation of new technology this year related to FAIR in grades K-2, some districts have experienced challenges. ... Because of this technological glitch and based on the input of superintendents, Commissioner Stewart took action on this matter,” Joe Follick, a spokesman for the department, said in a statement.
The department also emphasized that the “diagnostic” test is used by teachers to help decide how to teach students; it doesn’t determine, for example, whether a student passes or fails.
Second nursery challenges marijuana rule
A Ruskin-based nursery has challenged the Florida Department of Health’s plan for regulating the state’s new medical-marijuana industry.
Plants of Ruskin, Inc., filed the challenge Monday in the state Division of Administrative Hearings, shortly after another grower, Miami-based Costa Farms, also challenged the rule.
Under a law passed this spring, both firms are eligible to apply for licenses to grow, process and distribute non-euphoric strains of cannabis that supporters say can help children with severe forms of epilepsy and people with
some other types of medical conditions.
The new law approved strains of marijuana low in euphoria-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and high in cannabadiol, or CBD.
But some growers object to a Department of Health plan that offers details about how the law would be carried out. In its challenge, Plants of Ruskin alleged that the department’s proposals “fail to establish even minimum criteria to evaluate an applicant’s financial, technical and technological ability to securely cultivate and produce low-THC cannabis.”
Among other things, the challenge alleges that the department overstepped its rulemaking authority with the plan.