Is 2022 the year Florida decides to require financial literacy for graduation?

| 2/17/2022

Is 2022 the year Florida decides to require financial literacy for graduation?

Florida has plenty of expectations of its children as they strive to graduate from high school. They must pass Algebra I and civics, for instance, and take at least one course offered online. The state does not mandate teens successfully complete a half-credit class on financial literacy, though. That’s despite years of attempts to insert the course into graduation requirements. Ask many teens, and they’ll tell you they could use such lessons much more than some of the other things they’re told to sit through. Perhaps this year that might change. More from the News Service of Florida, theTampa Bay Times,and WFLA.

Educator who integrated Seminole schools as child honored

On a mild sunny morning in 1964, white police officers escorted 14-year-old Ingrid Burton into all-white Seminole Junior High School, ushering her from her father’s car to the Sanford school’s front door. The Black teenager stepped inside the brick building and — though she didn’t fully realize it then — into a place in history. The teenager, now Ingrid Burton Nathan, was the first Black student to attend Seminole County’s white schools. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]

Florida Trend Exclusive

USF biomedical engineering students develop ventilator to serve multiple patients

All University of South Florida biomedical engineering seniors take a yearlong capstone course that begins with health care-related companies presenting them with problems to solve. A trio of 2021 USF summa cum laude biomedical engineering graduates — Abby Blocker, Carolyna Yamamoto Alves Pinto and Jacob Yarinsky — spent their senior year working with mentors at the university and at Moffitt Cancer Research Center. Their project: Engineering ventilators — the devices that force oxygen into a patient's lungs — so that a single machine can serve two patients simultaneously — and safely. [Source: Florida Trend]

UF selected to help develop national AI curriculum with focus on ethics

The University of Florida joins a select group of institutions nationwide in a new National Humanities Center initiative to design college-level curriculum that explores how to develop and deploy ethical artificial intelligence technologies. With support from Google, faculty from 15 universities in the center’s “Responsible AI” program will create and implement courses that help students think through the ways in which AI technologies are integrated into everyday life and how to design AI that fosters equity across business, government and society. [Source: UF News]

New bill in Florida aims at including mental health in excused absences

A new bill proposed by State House members aims at allowing mental health providers and counselors to write notes for excused absences. House Bill 289 was discussed during the Florida 2022 legislative session and the House Early Learning & Elementary Education Subcommittee unanimously approved the measure that now needs to obtain a green light from two more panels before it could be considered by the full House. The bill has already begun its committee review process and if Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, signs it into law it will take effect on July 1. [Source: Doral Family Journal]

ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› Tallahassee Community College wins Leah Meyer Austin Award [Florida Trend]
Achieving the Dream (ATD) has awarded Tallahassee Community College the prestigious Leah Meyer Austin Award, the highest distinction a college in the ATD network can earn. The award is bestowed to one college annually that employs a holistic approach to reducing equity gaps between student groups and increasing success for all. The award recognizes institutional strength, aligned policies and procedures, a student-focused culture, and notable increases in student outcomes. This year’s award is accompanied by a $25,000 prize.

› Want your son or daughter to be prepared for a tech job? Tech-focused high school coming to Miami [Miami Herald]
A free, tech-oriented charter high school is coming to Miami that will allow students to complete their high school diploma while earning an associate’s degree from Miami Dade College. The program is slated to start this August with as many as 200 freshmen enrolled through an initial $2 million investment from the state.

› Parkland shooting still impacting Florida schools four years later [WJHG]
Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland-- all three have tragedy associated with their names. But the mass shooting at Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School changed Florida school safety precautions forever. “The most important one was Governor Scott, who was our Florida governor then, said we are going to put a police officer in every single school and the state is going to pay for it. And they did,” Mike Jones, Chief of Police Bay District Schools said. The state also provided funds for a Guardian Program.

› Florida State University awarded $27M federal education research laboratory [FSU News]
The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) at Florida State University has won a $27 million, five-year contract to operate the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) for the Southeastern United States. The REL program includes 10 regional labs funded through the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. The labs are designed to bridge the gap between educators and policymakers by providing research-based strategies to improve learning outcomes for K-12 students.

Tags: Education eNews

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