Florida’s K–12 education landscape continues to evolve as new legislation impacts everything from classroom instruction and school safety to educator preparation and district responsibilities. Staying informed about these changes is essential for administrators, governing board members, parents, and education stakeholders. The guide below, developed by the FCSA team, provides an overview of the new Florida education laws that affect Florida’s K–12 district-run and charter schools, highlighting key provisions, bill summaries, implementation timelines, and practical considerations to help you prepare.
SB 124 Florida Virtual School
Makes technical changes related to Florida Virtual School operations and student calculations. Link to Bill summary.
HB 178 School athletics
Requiring the Florida High School Athletic Association to adopt bylaws authorizing a head coach to support the welfare of a student by using personal funds to provide certain effects to the student (to use up to $15,000 in personal funds per team each year to support student-athlete welfare); requiring the head coach to report such use of personal funds to the association; providing that such use of personal funds is presumed not to be an impermissible benefit, etc. Link to Bill summary.
SB 182 General Education Bill
- Patriotic Displays – Requires every public school, including charter schools, to display portraits of President George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln in a prominent place on campus.
To help you meet this mandate, FLDOE has identified portraits schools can download and use at no cost from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Use these links to access and download the portraits of President George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln.
- Providing that students may not be dismissed from certain charter schools based on academic performance — updates Charter School Academic Dismissal Restrictions — revises charter school enrollment to prohibit a charter school implementing a school improvement plan or a corrective action plan from dismissing a student based on academic performance
- Cursive writing instruction in 3rd – 5th grade — Cursive writing was previously required in Florida schools, but it was dropped in 2010 when the state adopted Common Core standards. The DOE reinstated it as a requirement in 2014 as an agency rule, but the new bill will cement the cursive standard in law.
- Private School Zoning Exemptions — Allows small private schools enrolling 150 or fewer students to operate in commercial and mixed-use zoning districts without needing to apply for rezoning or special exceptions.
- Establishing the School Teacher Training and Mentoring Program within the Department of Education. The program allows qualified teachers to serve as mentors in low-performing schools/schools with “D” or “F” grades.
Click here to read the Bill summary
HB 453 High school diplomas
- Allows students with disabilities to substitute Special Olympics participation for the physical education requirement.
- Provides that completion of 2 years of marching band satisfies both physical education & performing arts requirements for standard high school diploma
HB 538 Extracurricular activities
Authorizing district school boards to adopt policies for the use of certain funds to provide funding to athletic coaches or activity sponsors of extracurricular activities; revising eligibility requirements for a student to participate in an interscholastic or intrascholastic extracurricular activity; deleting requirements for the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) to facilitate a program for private school students to participate in an interscholastic or intrascholastic sport; authorizing a public school to assess an activity fee for certain students, etc.
HB 561 Educator preparation
- Permits Educator Preparation Institutes (EPIs) to enroll participants in introductory coursework while they work toward eligibility, grants temporary certificates to educators with expired credentials, and removes the need for veteran teachers to retake subject area exams.
- The Florida Department of Education (FDOE) now issues temporary certificates to educators with expired professional certificates. This enables them to return to the classroom immediately while they complete the required continuing education credits.
- The newly formed Florida Center for Teaching Excellence must provide free professional development to certified educators looking to renew or reinstate their credentials, and it automatically submits those credits to the FDOE on the teacher’s behalf
- Teachers reinstating their expired professional certificates are no longer required to retake subject area examinations for subjects they have already cleared.
- Educator preparation institutes are now authorized to let program participants enroll in and complete introductory coursework while they actively work to obtain their official statement of status of eligibility.
HB 561 (2026) Bill details here.
HB 753 School counselors
Exempts prospective school counselors from certain requirements that apply to classroom teachers.
- Requires evaluation criteria for certified school counselors to be based on specified standards;
- Provides that persons seeking employment as school counselors are exempt from specified educator certification requirements;
- Provides that school districts may require such persons to meet certain requirements as a condition of employment.
HB 757 School Safety
- Creates the offense of discharging a weapon or firearm within 1,000 feet of a school;
- Provides that a person arrested for certain offenses must be held in custody until brought before the court for admittance to bail;
- Ranks an offense created by the act on the offense severity ranking chart of the Criminal Punishment Code;
- authorizes the State Board of Education and the Board of Governors to adopt rules and regulations, respectively, etc.
SB 824 School property
Requiring school districts to annually submit complete inventories of unimproved real property owned by the district to the Department of Education; requiring the department to compile and publish such data in a statewide report, etc.
HB 851 Autism learning
Requiring school districts to offer at least one annual autism-specific professional learning opportunity.
Note: HB 851 does not directly mandate charter schools. Its primary directive explicitly requires Florida’s school districts to update their master professional learning systems. However, because Florida charter schools operate as public schools under their respective sponsoring school districts, and their educators must meet identical state certification guidelines, the law impacts public charter schools that participate in their local school district’s master in-service plan and have access to the newly developed, evidence-based autism training courses. It is recommended to get guidance from a charter school attorney.
HB 1069 Background screenings
Updates background screening rules for youth athletic coaches and related volunteers and changes how public schools vet employees, volunteers, and external athletic organizations operating on school grounds.
Note: Under Florida House Bill 1069 (2026) and its companion statutes within Florida Statutes Chapter 435 and Chapter 1012, schools and athletic programs that fail to enforce background screenings face a combination of strict institutional fines, personal professional liability for administrators, and immediate loss of civil immunity
Specifically, the bill amends provisions related to the background screening of athletic coaches, including:
- Defining the term “team based in this state”;
- Specifying that independent sanctioning authorities in charge of approving athletic coaches are considered qualified entities for the purpose of background screening and removes obsolete dates related to requiring athletic coaches to be background screened; and
- Allowing independent sanctioning authorities to exempt persons under the age of 18 and certain referees from the requirement to pass a level II background screening if they meet certain criteria.
- Requires qualified entities to designate a user administrator to act as the primary point of contact to manage compliance with state and federal laws regarding the security and privacy of criminal history information.
- Allows the Care Provider Background Screening Clearinghouse (Clearinghouse) to share background screening records with independent sanctioning authorities that have met specified criteria.
- Prohibits persons screened through the Clearinghouse by certain entities from denying or failing to acknowledge arrests, whether or not their records have been sealed or expunged.
HB 1073 School Districts
- Providing members of a district school board with specified rights;
- requiring that certain documents from district school board meetings be kept as public records;
- defining the term “good cause”;
- providing that a school district employee may not be required or incentivized to sign a nondisclosure agreement or confidentiality agreement;
- prohibiting a school district from imposing certain conditions on employment, etc
HB 1201 Student Health
Updates rules for care of students with epilepsy or seizure disorders and requires seizure response posters in schools. The law requires Florida public and charter schools to implement standardized, life-saving protocols and training for students with epilepsy and seizure disorders.
Note: FDOE is required to identify approved posters created by national epilepsy nonprofit organizations that are provided entirely free of charge to schools. In the meantime, the Epilepsy Foundation offers an Epilepsy Foundation Seizure First Aid Poster (English) and the Epilepsy Foundation Seizure First Aid Resources Hub, which includes posters in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, French, and Hindi.
- Revises requirements for students’ individualized seizure action plan – written medical orders must be integrated into an official Individualized Seizure Action Plan and kept on file confidentially with school nurses or designated administration officials to protect student privacy laws.
- The school employee whose job involves regular interaction with or transportation of a student with a documented seizure disorder must complete formal care training. This training certification remains valid for five years.
HB 1279 Teacher Funding
Allows school districts to offer immediate incentives to high-performing teachers who work in lower-performing schools, ‘D’ and ‘F’ schools. “HB 1279 allows districts to provide immediate pay incentives to high-performing teachers who choose to teach in lower-performing schools “without being burdened by collective bargaining,’ Governor DeSantis announced.
- HB 1279 expands the criteria for a district to declare an education emergency, allowing for salary incentives not subject to collective bargaining requirements. Currently, emergencies are reserved for schools graded D or F. With HB 1270, being a persistently low-performing school is a cause for that status. Note: In 2025, Florida lawmakers expanded the definition of persistently low-performing schools to include schools that receive a grade below a C for 3 consecutive years. Now, schools with a grade below a C for 3 of the last 5 years and no B grade, or Math and Reading assessments ranking in the bottom 10% of schools for 2 of the past 3 years, trigger a persistently low categorization.
- The bill also:
- Allows districts to provide immediate pay incentives to high-performing teachers who choose to teach in lower-performing schools without being burdened by collective bargaining.
- Strengthens parental rights in special education.
- Expands bonuses to teachers in Florida—ensuring that teachers delivering the Florida Advanced Courses are eligible for bonuses, just like those teaching Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB).
- Creates consumer disclosures for fee-based blind services, revises service provider qualifications, modifies K-12 and postsecondary policies, and refines licensure, health, and grading requirements across Florida’s education system.
- Requires written disclosures from fee-based blind-service providers regarding publicly available, free alternatives and imposes penalties for noncompliance.
- Transition vocational rehabilitation service providers from registration to a formal application process, establish minimum qualifications, and limit program participation to approved providers by January 1, 2027.
- Extends the deadline for certain marriage and family therapists to obtain licensure from 2027 to 2032.
- Replaces references to Florida Virtual School with approved or district-level virtual instruction programs, broadens the conditions for educational emergencies, and clarifies the required virtual instruction options.
- Authorizes FDA-approved epinephrine delivery devices rather than auto-injectors and allows students to carry and self-administer them.
- Deletes obsolete sections on Voluntary Prekindergarten readiness calculations and refines VPK program accountability provisions.
- Expands CAPE Digital Tool certificates to middle grades, capping them at two per school year.
- Allows marching band participation to satisfy specific high school credit requirements, includes a new dance techniques course option, and directs the creation of additional applied algebra courses aligned with career clusters.
- Mandates a statewide uniform weighted grading system for certain high school courses and acceleration mechanisms.
- Requires parent notification when IEP-related services are missed and grants parents access to service logs within 15 school days upon request.
- Extends reporting and repeal dates for the Statewide Data Repository for Anonymous Human Trafficking Data.
- Removes specific references to American Bar Association accreditation criteria for Florida’s public law schools, replacing them with any nationally recognized accreditation associations.
- Exempts certain institutions licensed by other state agencies from Commission for Independent Education oversight.
- Authorizes school districts and charter schools to implement safe-school officer options, regardless of local ordinances or orders.
- Shortens Florida College System and state university response time to specialized transfer degree notices from 60 days to 30 days and clarifies eligible institutions for dual enrollment.
- Raises the kindergarten readiness threshold from the 10th percentile to the 25th percentile and adds notifications on New Worlds Reading Initiative eligibility for students with reading deficiencies.
- Lengthens the timeframe for postsecondary institutions to seek accreditation after reaffirmation, allowing a 3-year window.
- Ensures that Florida residents do not lose tuition residency status if they or their parents serve outside the state in certain capacities.
- Clarifies homeless student fee exemptions and restricts them for distance learners outside of Florida.
- Allows recipients of Benacquisto Scholarships to defer their awards up to one year.
- Revises membership eligibility requirements for board members of the Florida Prepaid College Foundation’s direct-support organization and Florida ABLE, Inc.
- Provides additional full-time-equivalent funding for students passing assessments in Florida advanced courses and prescribes bonuses for teachers.
- Permits school districts to reserve up to 1% of Title I funds for STEM-related educational services.
Suggestion: Document communications when it is given to parents or guardians; don’t send the document home in a student’s backpack.
SB 1296 Public Employees Relations Commission
Requires that public-sector labor unions need at least 50% of all of the employees in the bargaining unit to vote and that the vote itself wins 50%-plus-one support to win certification. Currently, unions only need a majority of those who voted. Establishes a fast-track process to ensure teachers receive pay increases without delay.
HB 1279 expands the criteria for a district to declare an education emergency, allowing for salary incentives not subject to collective bargaining requirements. Currently, emergencies are reserved for schools graded D or F. Note: In 2025, Florida lawmakers expanded the definition of persistently low-performing schools beyond receiving a grade lower than a C for 3 consecutive years. Now, schools with a grade of less than a C for 3 of the last 5 years and no B grade, or Math and Reading assessments ranking below the bottom 10% of schools for 2 of the past 3 years, trigger a persistently low categorization.
The bill also:
- Allows districts to provide immediate pay incentives to high-performing teachers who choose to teach in lower-performing schools without being burdened by collective bargaining.
- Strengthens parental rights in special education.
- Expands bonuses to teachers in Florida—ensuring that teachers delivering the Florida Advanced Courses are eligible for bonuses, just like those teaching Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB).
- Creates consumer disclosures for fee-based blind services, revises service provider qualifications, modifies K-12 and postsecondary policies, and refines licensure, health, and grading requirements across Florida’s education system.
- Requires written disclosures from fee-based blind-service providers regarding publicly available, free alternatives and imposes penalties for noncompliance.
- Transition vocational rehabilitation service providers from registration to a formal application process, establish minimum qualifications, and limit program participation to approved providers by January 1, 2027.
- Extends the deadline for certain marriage and family therapists to obtain licensure from 2027 to 2032.
- Replaces references to Florida Virtual School with approved or district-level virtual instruction programs, broadens the conditions for educational emergencies, and clarifies the required virtual instruction options.
- Authorizes FDA-approved epinephrine delivery devices rather than auto-injectors and allows students to carry and self-administer them.
- Deletes obsolete sections on Voluntary Prekindergarten readiness calculations and refines VPK program accountability provisions.
- Expands CAPE Digital Tool certificates to middle grades, capping them at two per school year.
- Allows marching band participation to satisfy specific high school credit requirements, includes a new dance techniques course option, and directs the creation of additional applied algebra courses aligned with career clusters.
- Mandates a statewide uniform weighted grading system for certain high school courses and acceleration mechanisms.
- Requires parent notification when IEP-related services are missed and grants parents access to service logs within 15 school days upon request.
- Extends reporting and repeal dates for the Statewide Data Repository for Anonymous Human Trafficking Data.
- Removes specific references to American Bar Association accreditation criteria for Florida’s public law schools, replacing them with any nationally recognized accreditation associations.
- Exempts certain institutions licensed by other state agencies from Commission for Independent Education oversight.
- Authorizes school districts and charter schools to implement safe-school officer options, regardless of local ordinances or orders.
- Shortens Florida College System and state university response time to specialized transfer degree notices from 60 days to 30 days and clarifies eligible institutions for dual enrollment.
- Raises the kindergarten readiness threshold from the 10th percentile to the 25th percentile and adds notifications on New Worlds Reading Initiative eligibility for students with reading deficiencies.
- Lengthens the timeframe for postsecondary institutions to seek accreditation after reaffirmation, allowing a 3-year window.
- Ensures that Florida residents do not lose tuition residency status if they or their parents serve outside the state in certain capacities.
- Clarifies homeless student fee exemptions and restricts them for distance learners outside of Florida.
- Allows recipients of Benacquisto Scholarships to defer their awards up to one year.
- Revises membership eligibility requirements for board members of the Florida Prepaid College Foundation’s direct-support organization and Florida ABLE, Inc.
- Provides additional full-time-equivalent funding for students passing assessments in Florida advanced courses and prescribes bonuses for teachers.
- Permits school districts to reserve up to 1% of Title I funds for STEM-related educational services.
HB 1343 Insurance Customer Representative Licensing Qualifications
The bill establishes a new pathway for high school graduates to obtain jobs in the insurance industry as customer representatives and builds upon Florida’s existing Dorothy L. Hukill Financial Literacy Act graduation requirements by introducing a direct pipeline from high school into the financial services workforce. The law directs FDOE and the Department of Financial Services (DFS) to design a new Insurance and Personal Finance high school course (0.5-credit) for the 2027-2028 school year.
