Florida Gov. DeSantis Signs ‘Teachers’ Bill of Rights,’ Teacher Pay Bills at Miami School
By MBC6 and Lorena Inclan
On May 9, 2023
One of the bills provides a “Teachers’ Bill of Rights,” which DeSantis said will provide teachers the right to teach in a safe and orderly classroom.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a number of education-related bills on Tuesday at a school in southwest Miami-Dade.
DeSantis signed the bills at the True North Classical Academy, where he was joined by Lt. Governor Jeanette Nuñez, Florida House Speaker Paul Renner and Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz.
One of the bills provides a “Teachers’ Bill of Rights,” which DeSantis said will provide teachers the right to teach in a safe and orderly classroom.
He also signed a bill approving $1.05 billion for teacher pay increases, which DeSantis said was a record for the state.
Miami-Dade School Board member Roberto Alonso said it was the most important legislation signed Tuesday.
“We know that our teachers have been asking for an increase in teacher salaries, the issues with inflation has made it very difficult for our teachers to be able to afford to be here and the governor has shown a track record over the last four years of continuous teacher increase,” he said.
DeSantis also signed legislation that would prohibit teachers’ unions from deducting dues directly from employee paychecks, imposes term limits on school board members from 12 to eight years and gives teachers the authority to establish rules on cell phone use in the classroom.
Anna Fusco, president of the Broward Teachers Union, called the new measures, particularly the one about union dues, insulting.
“Like they don’t have the intelligence to understand what they get paid and what they pay out, or if they’re joining a union? They don’t understand if they did or didn’t? It’s insulting,” she said.
The event comes less than a week after U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona visited Miami and criticized some of the politics surrounding education in Florida in light of the recent Parental Rights in Education law, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics, which bars classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity for younger grades.
When asked about allegations that some teachers don’t feel comfortable displaying their family portraits in their classroom, DeSantis was quick to push back.
“There’s nothing in the law about any of that, it’s just not consistent with anything that’s been done,” DeSantis said. “You can look at what the law is, the law is about what curriculum is being used in the classrooms and that curriculum, we wanted to make sure that it’s appropriate, age appropriate, and that there’s not an agenda trying to be imposed.”
This piece was republished from the NBC Miami News.