- September 15, 2024
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On Sept. 3, the school board convened, putting to vote items that notably included its 2025 legislative priorities and advertising for a new policy guiding the use of artificial intelligence by students and staff.
The school board unanimously approved its legislative priorities for 2025 through a vote of 5-0.
These are the policies for which the school district will be lobbying through the firm Capital City Consulting, at the state and local level.
Chris Parenteau, supervisor of government affairs for the district, had presented the list of priorities during an Aug. 21 board workshop.
Among the six items is enhancements to the voluntary prekindergarten program.
The district intends to “optimize early learning programming by increasing provider reimbursements rates for high quality instruction," and extending the VPK school year from 540 to 720 hours.
Parenteau said on Aug. 21, “Recently, the big push has been for that full-day VPK, and we know that at the legislative level, that has kind of been a non-starter, so we’re taking small bites of the apple to eventually attain that goal, and this is one way we feel that we can be in a position to potentially have some success with this in the enhancements to the VPK program.”
Another priority of the board's is to eliminate mandates from the state to help schools operate with more flexibility and efficiency.
Examples include repealing or making optional the middle and high school start time mandate (currently no earlier than 8 a.m. for middle schools and 8:30 a.m. for high schools) and developing alternative certification pathways specific to ESE instructional personnel.
Other items included increasing funding for instructional and non-instructional salaries through the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP); modernizing the funding formula for construction costs to suit coastal areas like Sarasota with additional building restrictions, such as requirements for higher wind loads; and increasing funding for school safety and mental health.
Last was ensuring efficiency and accuracy in scholarship funding by establishing scholarships within the Florida Education Finance Program as a separate school “district."
Superintendent of Schools Terry Connor said this would help to improve tracking of students who apply for the Family Empowerment Scholarship.
He said currently, when scholarship recipients register with a third-party organization outside the school district, if the child is not accepted into that school, or the family changes their mind and returns to the school district, the funds remain with that organization.
It can take the school district up to 18 months to recover the funding for that student, he said.
He said at a time when 130 such cases happened in Sarasota County Schools two years ago, the district was behind in millions of dollars in funding.
"We just need more accountability and more process around that, so that there's efficiency in that," Connor said.
The school board approved for advertising a new policy establishing guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence by both students and employees.
The policy was passed through a vote of 4-0 on the meeting's consent agenda with school board Chair Karen Rose, who attended the meeting virtually, absent at that point.
“Since AI systems could lead to bias in how patterns are detected and unfairness in how decisions are automated, it is essential for the district to develop this policy in how AI is used in education," stated district documents.
Communications Director Craig Maniglia noted that the policy was written around new legislation from the state that allows schools to receive grants for the use of artificial intelligence.
The policy states that “AI is not a substitute for human creativity, judgment and creation.”
It says the use of AI requires the notification of supervisors, and that students may only use AI as a supplement to their work, when authorized by a teacher.
It also says students must acknowledge the use of all AI-generated content to remain in compliance with rules of academic honesty, among other requirements.
"It's always a challenge to stay ahead of technology, because technology is ever changing…” Connor said. “But I think for us… it's something that we don't want to just put off to the side and ignore, because it is a reality, and whether we have a policy or not, students are going to use it, so we need to make sure that we're providing guidance for our staff so that it is used appropriately in our classrooms."
