NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla — Florida teachers have been busy getting their classrooms set, excited for another school year and welcoming back students – in most cases – on Thursday.
Though this year they’ll again be navigating some new state rules, among them the expansion of the Parental Rights in Education Act, which bans lessons on gender and sexual identity in K-12 classrooms.
The expansion has brought questions over whether certain topics like the works of William Shakespeare, or even entire courses like AP Psychology could be taught in high schools at all.
To clear up the latter, Hillsborough County Public Schools says Shakespeare is still part of their high school curriculum, though some works will only be read as excerpts to adjust to state standards and testing needs. The full books will be provided for instruction and students can opt to read the full thing.
"We redesigned our instructional guides for teachers because of revised state standards and new state exams that will cover a variety of books and writing styles," HCPS Communications Chief Tanya Arja said. "Instead of two novels read in their entirety, students will read one full novel plus excerpts from five to seven other novels and B.E.S.T. texts. The state's B.E.S.T. standards call for students to read a wide variety of authors, genres, styles, and literary periods.
"Our job is to make sure our students are exposed to all of these things in preparation for future success."
Things like this show just some of the concerns districts have been navigating heading into the year to make sure they comply with the new rules.
Other new laws prohibit cell phones during school time and teachers or students from discussing their preferred pronouns.
“I think the biggest thing is just making sure teachers are aware,” Dr. Chris Dunning, principal at Wendell Krinn Technical High School in New Port Richey, said.
Dunning, like many other school leaders, say they’ve been working with teachers and staff to help them navigate and understand the new laws.
“They understand what these new requirements are, what these new policies are and that they then know how to utilize so they are doing what’s best for students in the classroom,” Dunning explained, while adding some teachers, “were stressed, [some] people are worried about what does this do to [the] curriculum, [the] syllabus.”
“When you get down to it, if we work through it, we can follow the rules and follow the laws and still meet the student’s needs, we just have to make sure [teachers] have that support in place so they know we’re going to take care of them,” Dunning added.
While the classrooms at Wendell Krinn Technical High School are fully staffed, many districts are dealing with a teacher shortage. In the Tampa Bay area’s largest school district, leaders say they don’t believe the new education laws are the reason behind it.
“I think it's more nationwide. I haven’t experienced [a correlation between the two], and we’ve been having the teacher vacancy issues for a number of years now,” Interim Hillsborough Superintendent Van Ayres explained.