With summer break coming to a close, school leaders are wrapping up their preparations as they get ready for thousands of students to return to the classroom.
On Tuesday, the Pinellas County School Board will hold a workshop where leaders will talk about what’s new for the upcoming school year.
WATCH full report by Larissa Scott
There will be additional safety programs.
The district is updating features such as campus access control and designated safe areas.
Leaders are also implementing a new campaign called “Safety Starts With Me” to emphasize the shared responsibility in maintaining a safe learning environment— encouraging active reporting from students, teachers, and staff, and focusing on prevention.
The district is launching intervention centers to enhance ISS/ABC classrooms with new suspension alternatives, professional learning, and support resources for secondary schools.
There will be a push to enhance and expand efforts to close achievement gaps by working closely with schools to ensure each one has an actionable plan focused on improving outcomes for Black students.
The Food and Nutrition department is piloting scratch cooking and production kitchens to support and invest in the quality of meals for students.
These are just some of the changes the school board will discuss at Tuesday's workshop.
Also on the agenda are the potential impacts if federal funding remains frozen.
Those impacts include cuts to enrichment for students, decreased mental health and school safety support, reduced college readiness, and loss of free afterschool programming to more than 350 families.
“You know, it might just be time we take a look if HOAs are really even necessary.
Maybe we should just do away with homeowner associations as a whole.”
South Florida lawmaker Rep. Juan Carlos Porras (R-Miami) says it may be time to do away with homeowners associations altogether, as more Floridians speak out about rising fees, costly lawsuits, and even arrests tied to HOA disputes. He said this week that he is considering filing legislation in the next session that would abolish HOAs statewide.
