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The Constant Cycle of New Requirements
By Brian Moore, FADSS General Counsel
While the Legislature finished its regular session in March, it was unable to pass a budget. After several weeks of negotiations, it appears that they have reached enough of a consensus to schedule a special session for this purpose, which will begin on May 12, 2026. They should now be able to begin work on deciding the exact allocations for the $16.2 billion they agreed to spend on PreK-12 education. Hopefully, this will lead to a final state budget before the end of May so that school districts can put together their own 2026-27 budgets with more certainty.
In the meantime, the State Board of Education (SBE) has not encountered the same problems getting new things in place. They already met twice this year and will meet again next month, and they have been busy adopting several new and amended rules for the upcoming school year. For example, at its February meeting, the SBE approved a new Rule 6A-1.0455, which addresses middle and high school start times. The rule incorporates last year’s legislation that allows school districts to submit a report explaining what steps they took to try to comply with the legislatively required start times and then why they chose not to do so. For those districts that do not start all their middle schools after 8:00 am and high schools after 8:30 am, they will be deemed in compliance with the law next year as long as they submit the required report by June 1, 2026. If a district’s start times will be in compliance with the law next year, it does not need to submit this report. This new rule went into effect on March 26, 2026.
Next, the SBE met in Naples on April 17, 2026. At this meeting, the SBE approved 12 new and amended rules, including changes to Rule 6A-1.0019, which address threat management, and Rule 6A-1.09441, which incorporates by reference the new Course Code Directory for 2026-27. These two rules, as well as the other 10 they adopted that day, will take effect on or about May 21, 2026.
Finally, the SBE has proposed several new and amended rules this week in preparation for its meeting on May 14, 2026, in Miami. Among the 11 proposed rules in the works is Rule 6A-1.0018, which addresses school safety. This rule has already been amended nine previous times since it was first adopted in July of 2021, which means districts will be working under the 11th version of this rule in five years when school starts in August. Districts that use temporary door locks will need to pay extra attention to the proposed rule changes. The SBE will also look to adopt changes to Rule 6A-1.09514, which addresses excused absences for religious instruction. The proposed amendments would require school districts to adopt a policy addressing releasing students during the school day for religious instruction, and the principal will be required to work with parents “to review a student’s schedule to ensure that absences for religious instruction do not take place during instruction in core-curricula courses.” Recently, there has been growing interest in creating or expanding religious instruction programs during the school day in several parts of the state, so districts will need to pay special attention to this rule and the policy language they will need to adopt in response.
If all 11 of the proposed rules are approved in May, it will total 84 new and amended rules adopted by the SBE for PreK-12 education during the 2025-26 school year. That is roughly four times the number of new laws passed this year that will affect school districts, demonstrating how new requirements can be imposed on school districts at any time, not just during the main 60-day legislative session held every year.
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