Governor Ron DeSantis signs Senate Bills 538 and 178 to expand support for Florida K-12 athletic coaches and student athletes
Press release from the Office of Governor Ron DeSantis
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 538 and Senate Bill 178, to greatly expand support for Florida’s K-12 athletic coaches and talented student athletes. This legislative package allows school districts to provide more competitive compensation for coaches and aligns extracurricular eligibility across all school choice options to ensure that all students have the ability to participate in high school athletics, regardless of their school of choice.
“We recognize the value of strong coaches and strive to ensure that student athletes have the opportunities they need to thrive,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “Together, the bills I signed today will strengthen Florida’s K-12 athletic programs and support the students and coaches who help them achieve their potential.”
“Florida is fortunate to have athletic coaches who lead exceptional sports programs in our high schools,” said Commissioner of Education Anastasios Kamoutsas. “Thanks to Governor Ron DeSantis signing Senate Bills 538 and 178 into law, Florida’s high school athletic programs will be better positioned to recruit and retain top coaching talent while ensuring student-athletes receive the strong, thoughtful, and accountable support they deserve. In addition, students participating in any of Florida’s nation-leading school choice options will have the same access to participate in athletic programs and extracurricular activities. These measures will strengthen opportunities for students to compete, grow, and succeed both in athletics and in life.”
SB 538 also:
- Allows districts to use funds raised from high school booster clubs for activities to pay the coaches of those activities, supplementing their district stipends.
- Authorizes school districts to classify athletic coaches and activity sponsors of extracurricular activities as administrative personnel and negotiate salary compensation that may not exceed the highest paid school administrator in the school district.
- Revises student eligibility and participation requirements across all school choice options for interscholastic and intrascholastic extracurricular activities, including athletics, by defining key terms and establishing an “eligible student” framework for home education, charter, private, Florida Virtual School, alternative, and traditional public-school students.
- Authorizes students who wish to participate in a sport that their current school does not currently offer to participate in that sport in another school in their district.
SB 178 also:
- Authorizes K-12 head coaches to use up to $15,000 in personal funds per year to support student-athlete welfare.
- Coaches will be required to report the use of personal funds to the Florida High School Athletic Association.
This is a step in the right direction.
http://www.lopezd1.com
This is not what HS sports/extracurricular activities should be about.
Mercenary HS athletics will only serve a few.
Need oversight, financial accountability and transparency.
Lets hope the proposed strike by black athletes against the SEC takes off. DeSantis and his fellow GOP/Klan members are so busy removing any black representation from SEC states, they need to get the full impact of the disenfranchisement they have planned.
Support Democracy or Go To Hell Gators!
“The assault comes from the country’s highest judicial office, where the supreme court gutted the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 under the argument that protecting the voting opportunities of Black people is a discriminatory practice and not a restorative one, despite the hundreds of graves throughout the south, marked and unmarked, of Black Americans killed for trying to vote.
The assault continues from the country’s highest legislative branches, state and federal, where massive southern redistricting efforts threaten to erase much of the Black political representation won over the past 60 years.
….This week, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) turned to sports to join part of its dissent, calling for Black athletes to boycott public universities in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), arguably the most powerful football conference in the country and certainly its greatest incubator of Black athletic talent. The NAACP is responding to a political attack with a social and economic one, for no institution is as culturally relevant in the south as college football, and few economic engines gain as much public attention as sports….”
Those fans sympathetic should not buy tickets and let it be known why. I was a 30 year UF basketball fan and as big a Gator fan as most, though I let my tickets go when they remodelled the O’Connell Center. But this racial redistricting is an outrage that can’t be ignored. Hopefully black athletes – and sympatheitc whites – and all fans will push back where it hurts.
Why play for “Florida”, “Alabama, “Tennesee”, et al when Florida is screwing you and your relatives and ancestors, including those who died in the long struggle?