Aiming to make public schools more competitive as parents increasingly exercise school choice, the Florida Senate on Wednesday unanimously adopted three bills designed to ease what leaders called “onerous” regulations that place districts at a disadvantage.

The House, meanwhile, debated its own less expansive version of a deregulation bill.

The idea to pare back rules and restrictions that govern public schools first came up as a provision included in the 2023 legislation expanding school vouchers.

Senate President Kathleen Passidomo made the issue a priority for this year’s session, placing the bills before the full chamber on the second day of the session.

“With universal school choice now a reality for Florida families, reducing bureaucratic red tape will give neighborhood public schools that have served our communities and families for generations a meaningful chance to compete right alongside other school choice options,” Passidomo said during her session opening remarks.

The Senate deregulation bills would make significant changes, such as returning teachers to multi-year contracts and eliminating high school graduation testing mandates in math and language arts. Such ideas have won the support of superintendents and school board members across Florida.

Before the final vote, the Senate removed a contentious provision that would have given parents the authority to override mandatory third grade retention for low reading performance. It instead added a new alternate path to promotion, including more interventions to help struggling readers.

Sen. Rosalind Osgood, D-Tamarac, praised the effort to give local school districts more flexibility in setting teacher pay, implementing school improvement plans and spending federal anti-poverty funds.

“I wish you guys would have given school board members this grace years ago,” said Osgood, a former Broward County school board member.

Miami Republican Sen. Alexis Calatayud, one of the bill sponsors, said the measures show the state’s support for public schools, which serve about 80% of all Florida’s schoolchildren.

“We believe in our neighborhood public schools, and we are making sure they have what they need to get the job done,” she said.

Florida House Bills

Soon after the Senate deliberated its measures (SB 7000, 7002 and 7004), a House subcommittee considered its own version of the same concept.

The House Education Quality Subcommittee put forth a bill (PCB EQS 24-01) with bits and pieces of the Senate proposals. It primarily focuses on eliminating requirements for specific reports and repealing repetitive or obsolete programs.

“It is very different from the Senate bill,” chairperson Rep. Dana Trabulsy, R-Fort Pierce, said while introducing the measure, which passed the subcommittee 17-1. “This is where we came to as a starting point.”

Among its more notable proposals, the House bill would remove the requirement that virtual education providers be nonsectarian. One speaker raised concerns the provision might pave the way for a publicly funded religious school similar to St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School in Oklahoma, which has become the subject of lawsuits.

It also would allow districts to charge a $100 processing fee when they review multiple book challenges brought by people who do not have a child enrolled at the school where they raised the objections. A representative from the Florida PTA backed this idea, while a speaker from Florida Citizens Alliance opposed it.

Rep. Mike Beltran, R-Riverview, said he worried this item would have a chilling effect on the work by residents to get inappropriate books out of schools. Rep. Christopher Benjamin, D-Miami Gardens, countered that the concept was needed to prevent abuse of the challenge process.

A second House bill related to deregulation (PCB CIS 24-01) is slated to go before the Choice and Innovation Subcommittee at 2 p.m. Thursday. It also is less expansive than the Senate effort, and includes proposals to change budget advertising requirements, reduce the number of reports districts must submit to the state, and revise lease terms for certain construction projects.

The vast difference between the two approaches to deregulation did not go unnoticed in either chamber. During the House subcommittee hearing, Rep. Joe Casello, D-Boynton Beach asked Trabulsy if she would be open to moving her bill closer to the Senate version that passed Wednesday afternoon.

“Absolutely,” she responded.

Some education lobbyists in Tallahassee have referred to the House proposals as “dereg lite,” and said they expect more as the two chambers seek agreement on the terms. Some observers have speculated that the legislation will linger to the end of session and become the subject of give and take with a separate House priority bill.

“I hope the House would negotiate in the way we would want them to … because we believe it’s the right thing,” said Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens, before voting in favor of the third bill.