Republican lawmakers have spent much of the past two years advocating a rollback of a constitutional cap on the number of students in school classrooms. But now that the proposed tweak is on the November ballot, one question remains: Who is going to campaign for a looser standard, and who will pay for it?
The Florida Association of District School Superintendents and the Florida Association of School Boards fought for legislative approval this past spring, but it will take more to get 60 percent of the voters to sign off on changing the requirements. And the two groups are squaring off against a frequent ally, the Florida Education Association, the statewide teachers’ union that could mount a serious, well-funded campaign in opposition to the proposal.
Bill Montford, executive director of the Florida Association of District School Superintendents, said there was never any expectation that his association put up the money to fund a public campaign in favor of the proposal, known as Amendment 8. The superintendents and school boards, he said, simply don’t have the money.
“That’s one of the problems,” said Montford, also a candidate for the state Senate. “So, I’m not sure how the campaign will be funded.”
In 2002, voters overwhelmingly passed the class size constitutional amendment that capped individual classrooms at 18 students in kindergarten through third grade, 22 in fourth through eighth grade, and 25 in high school, with the limits having been phased in since the amendment was passed. But with shrinking state revenues, many school districts said they cannot implement the class size caps as originally envisioned.
Last week, the hard caps on individual classrooms went into effect.
Lawmakers who support the change are counting on school districts to get the word out through a grassroots approach to voters.
“Our network is full of parents, school administrators and school board members,” said Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, who sponsored the amendment in the Legislature.
Weatherford said he believes several groups will raise money to fund a campaign and that Tallahassee public relations executive Ron Sachs would be coordinating that effort. The law allows for groups to create largely unregulated committees known as 527s, which could allow a variety of groups to pump cash into it to fund a public campaign, but neither Weatherford nor Sachs would specifically say where the money will come from.
Sachs, in an interview with the News Service Wednesday, said the campaign is banking on a coalition of groups for support and will rely heavily on the gubernatorial campaigns – both GOP nominee Rick Scott and Democratic candidate Alex Sink support the change – as well as news media coverage and social media tools to publicise the need for the amendment. He also hopes the group will be able to air commercials regarding the issue closer to the election.
“If we don’t revise class size it is going to be the single biggest killer of state local budgets and family budgets,” Sachs said.
Rocky Hanna, the principal at Leon High School in Tallahassee and a supporter of Amendment 8, said that in a perfect world, the classroom cap system would work, but the schools simply have not received an adequate amount of money from the state to carry that out and therefore need some flexibility.
He admits he doesn’t foresee voters approving the class size tweak, but he thinks parents are getting the message about how the class size requirement is handicapping schools.
“They know, they’re getting the message now this fall because there’s no wiggle room.” Hanna said. “When they ask for schedule changes from this to AP, from honors to general. Sorry, I’m sorry. We cannot accommodate you.”
On the flip side, the Florida Education Association is already working to persuade voters to vote no on Amendment 8. The group filed a lawsuit to boot the amendment from the November ballot and a Leon County circuit judge will hear the case next week. But it is also preparing to mount a significant campaign to defeat the amendment should it wind up on the ballot.
State Sen. Alex Villalobos, R-Miami, is chairing the “Vote No On 8” campaign in coordination with the union, which has had a history of success in galvanizing teachers across the state to advocate on behalf of various causes. The group does not think it will be tough to convince voters to strike down the proposal.
“I haven’t heard any classroom teachers or any parents say they want more kids in their classroom and I think that’s what we need to make clear,” said FEA spokesman Mark Pudlow.
By Kathleen Haughney
The News Service of Florida
