DeSantis Proposes New Teacher Bill of Rights

   Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Monday, January 25th that he would be installing a “Teachers Bill of Rights” to the Florida State Legislature and it is unknown when the new policy will be integrated into schools, but it could be expected as soon as the new school year. 

   This bill would allow teachers to go to the school board and oppose any policies they believed were against the state laws. DeSantis also proposed to ban teacher’s unions from automatically deducting dues from their paychecks, and stricter term limits on the school board members. Altering Florida’s State Constitution to allow school board members to reveal their political parties when running for the position. DeSantis also mentioned that he would include another $200 million dollars to fund more teacher’s salaries which would bring the expected spending for teachers budgets up to $1 billion dollars. 

   A large amount of that budget is spent to entice new teachers into joining public schools, Florida still rates as the 48th state in the average public school teachers pay, before DeSantis took office Florida was rated 47th. Florida also had 5,300 vacancies in January which was twice the amount of jobs that they needed just two years ago. 

   DeSantis’s new teaching policy isn’t the only thing that DeSantis is planning on changing, he is banning the AP course on African American Studies. Many have noticed the similarities between this Teachers Bill of Rights and the Parents Bill or Rights that he introduced that would allow parents and students to ignore the Covid-19 restrictions that were placed in schools. 

   This new Bill of Rights could change how teachers will respond to the “Don’t Say Gay” and “Stop WOKE” laws he introduced to limit what teachers could and couldn’t say to children in classrooms and what was included in state textbooks including critical race theory and mentioning LGBTQ+ history. DeSantis continually advocates against “woke” ideologies and plans, including teacher’s unions advocating for mask mandates and vaccinations in schools in the past years for the pandemic. This bill could be helpful to solving the crisis that is the teacher shortage, but it could mean dire things for teacher’s unions in the state.