The Florida Roundup - New property tax ballot language, funding for children’s safety net services and more

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

This week on The Florida Roundup, we spoke about the revised ballot language for Florida’s property tax amendment with one of the lawyers representing the group that sued over the original wording (00:00). Then, we spoke about how the property tax measure would impact funding for Florida’s network of children’s trust services (07:32). Plus, we looked at a lawsuit involving free speech at Florida International University (25:30). And later, some education news including a drop in enrollment at Broward County Public Schools (37:18) and a look at how student historians are helping to preserve the past at one Tampa Bay cemetery (40:14).

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. We appreciate your time today. Thanks for being with us on this Friday. School back in session across the state, students back in the classrooms and on campuses. Now, later this hour, we will focus on public colleges and universities. A group of FIU students are suing the school after they were disciplined for a silent protest over immigration enforcement at Florida International University. The state's Stop Woke Act was declared unconstitutional and a South Florida State College. professor was recently fired over an assignment. So how is free speech and academic freedom practiced and policed on public university campuses here in Florida? You can email us, radio at the Florida roundup.org right now. The state is on the forefront of efforts to change how colleges and universities are accredited. What are the stakes for students? How about teachers, professors, administrators, and higher ed overall here in Florida. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. We'll get to your emails and that topic coming up in a few minutes. First, though, the second draft has been turned in. A week ago, a judge ordered Florida's property tax amendment

to be rewritten late Thursday. The state's attorney general turned in the homework, releasing the new language. Remember, the original amendment was a title with a bit of sizzle to it. Save our homes from excessive property taxes. That is speech to text there so we can translate that into some audio. Now, the new title has a lot less political punch. Increased homestead exemption. Lower cap on increases in non-homesteaded property assessments. That certainly reads more like a legal title, doesn't it? Well, the first draft of the ballot summary that was passed by lawmakers also made several promises that were actually not reflected in the actual amendment. Ensuring funding for core services, protecting small businesses, ensuring fairness for Florida

So the new language though is a bit more specific about how local governments would have to spend property tax money. This amendment requires counties and municipalities to use property taxes solely for public safety, education and schools, infrastructure, natural resources, bond debt service, retirement benefits for employees and operations and administration. So that's where local governments could spend local property tax money if this amendment is a problem. approved by at least 60% of voters in November. So where are you landing on this effort to cut local property taxes? 305-995-1800? Daniel Abbott is with us, an attorney who represented two of the voters who sued as the non-profits save our voters leading to this rewrite.

Daniel, welcome to the program. Thanks for your time today. Thank you very much for having me. Are you satisfied with the new ballot language that it's neutral? Yes, we are. In fact, in fact, we negotiated this language with the attorneys representing the state officials so that the parties could agree upon the language and agree to not further pursue the litigation. So we we find the language to be to be fair and neutral and and our mission was accomplished. Dan, the judge who ordered this rewrite said, quote, voters are entitled to a fair, clear, accurate and non-misleading ballot. to assist them in making their critical determination. So do you think that this new language is, as the judge was looking for,

fair, clear, accurate, and non-misleading? We do. And really, the judge, in addition to those findings, kind of gave us a guideline and some goalpost for some proposed alternative language. So we were certainly helped in this process by the judge, but we are more than satisfied with the right and the voters will understand what they're voting for, I think. This new draft of the summary notes that the amendment, quote, requires the legislature to come up with a method for local governments to eliminate most local property taxes.

Requires. So the legislature wouldn't, if this is approved, the legislature couldn't punt on this. They would have to. It would have to act. Is that your understanding of this language? Well, the legislature certainly has to act, but what the amendment says is that the legislature would have to act to devise a uniform method for cities to consider further increasing the homestead exemption. So while the legislature has to act, they certainly don't have to mandate, and in fact, our reading of the amendment, they could not mandate further increases to the homestead exemption. So they'll develop the procedure, but the decision will be made by local governments.

But it has to come up with some kind of implementation, some kind of framework if local governments want to go to that next step. That's exactly right. They will have to create the uniform method that would apply throughout the state. The measure would not apply to anyone who moves to Florida and buys a primary home or condominium after the end of this calendar year. They would have to wait five years before seeing a lowered assessed value if this. amendment passes. What do you think about creating essentially two classes of primary homesteaded homeowners? Well, that might very well be a problem. That's an issue that has been discussed. It was not raised in the litigation because until and unless the amendment is passed, really there's no evaluation of the substantive effect. But there's an argument to be made that having that disparate tax

system that taxing, taxing new residents disproportionately to existing residents might very well be subject to legal challenge. There have been other efforts like that before in the past for military veterans, for first responders, for senior citizens, for instance, to have kind of a different taxing framework than others. There certainly are and there are actually existing increases homestead exemptions for certain classes of people, but not based upon years of residence in, and that sort of thing that can affect interstate travel, I think, might be subject to its own possible legal challenges. All right, counselor, you led some of the charge to come to this rewrite.

Sounds like you're satisfied. You will not be appealing. You will not be filing a legal objection to the new draft. Is that accurate? That's absolutely accurate. The Attorney General and the Secretary of State have already filed an official paper indicating that they don't plan to appeal. And we, again, we negotiated and agreed to the language and represented to those state officials that we are satisfied with the rewrite as well.

Are you working with any clients that may challenge the intent of the effort? We're not, certainly. Certainly not currently. Great. Dan, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it. Thanks again for having me. Daniel Abbott is a representative, rather an attorney who represented two of the voters suing as a nonprofit, Save Our Voters, that led to the the rewrite of the so-called Amendment 3, the Property Tax Amendment that will appear on the November ballot. Now, local property taxes go toward any number of uses, libraries, roads, water management, and in 10 counties across the state and the Panhandle, children. Voters in these counties that stretch from Miami-Dade all the way up into the far reaches of the western part of

Florida, they approved these measures to earmark some property tax dollars for children services. Now, the fate of those dollars could be at risk with the property tax amendment on the ballot this fall. Lindsay Cannon is along with us now with the Ascambia County Children's Trust. Lindsay, thanks for your time today. We appreciate it. Well, thank you for having me. You are one of the more recent children's trusts that was created. 61% of voters in Ascambia County approved of creating your trust six years ago. It collected 92% of its revenue from property taxes in the last fiscal year, 12 million of its $13 million.

in revenue. How does that, how is that money spent? Well, we, we have a variety of areas. We've got four focus areas that are based on a needs assessment and are really driven by data. I think that's sort of a misnomer about children's trusts across the state is we're not just handing out money. We're actually trying to tackle social issues and challenges to education with our funding here. And so what we look at is children are healthy, children are ready to succeed in school and life, children are safe and protected from abuse and neglect, and that they have supports to help them avoid risky behaviors. And we do that through a competitive process. We have a variety of different programming. And in those last three years that we've been able to actually implement

some of that program programming, we've served over 10,000 children in Ascambia County with a variety of different programming. Give us one example of a program, for instance, about the, that goes after the health of children in Escambia County. Absolutely. So we've worked with the CDC model. I think some people may be familiar with it. Maybe not. The Centers for Disease Control. Yeah, go ahead. Yes. Yes. It's the whole school, whole community, whole child model or framework. We actually put that into an RFP called Healthy Schools of Scambia. And we are implementing with 10 partners, wraparound services in our schools that are specifically focused on healthy living, exercise, food, just a whole school culture shift around what it means to be healthy and remove those barriers, of course, to education. Okay. So our kids are there.

So about $13 million in annual revenue in the last fiscal year, $12 million came from property taxes. How much of that revenue would be at risk if this property tax amendment is approved in the fall? Well, over the progression of it, the first year will be a little over a million. And then by the time we're done, it'll be up to $3 million is what we would be looking at staying at our current rollback millage. And how is it impacting your spending between now and the end of this calendar year since this amendment would take a fact beginning in January of 2027? Well, certainly we are looking at that and what dollars we don't have allocated or what we call recapture dollars or unspent dollars on contracts and how we can take those funds and actually roll them forward. to create multi-year contracts to make sure our children have services over a period of time and not coming in for one year and then those, let's say, out-of-school time program is gone.

We don't want that for our families or our kids. It creates instability. So what we are doing is really looking strategically, almost three-fold, three different scenarios. How do we manage this going forward? Lindsay, stick with us. Lindsay Cannon is our guest. She heads up the Escambia Children's Trust, one of the 10 Children's Trust across counties in Florida. Cindy Arnhberg-Seltzer is in Parkland on the phone. Cindy is with the Children's Services of Broward County and other of the Children's Trust

here in the state of Florida. Cindy, thanks for calling in. How would the Broward County Children's Trust be impacted if the property tax amendment is approved? Well, like Lindsay, we will face quite a loss in Broward County. We're nearly 25 years old now, so we're a bit larger as a county. So of the $135 million that we bring in each year, the first year it will cost about $15 million based on current estimates, and the following year about $30 million. So that is a significant hit for services for children.

And do you have any financial reserves that could reduce that impact going forward? We do. And of course, in the immediate, we will do that. We will do our best to mitigate any impact on children, but reserves will only take us so far. So how we handle it moving forward, 30 million out of 135 million a year. We don't have enough reserves to make that up. Cindy, thanks for calling a share in the Broward County perspective. Michelle Watson joins us as the chief executive officer. of the overall group, the Florida Alliance of Children's Councils and Trusts, working with those 10 counties. Michelle, thanks for your time today. Thank you so much for having me. I definitely appreciate the discussion. Why are these trust funds funded through property taxes? That is the way the legislature set it up. So under Florida statute 125-901, we're given the authority to create these independent special taxing districts that if approved by the electorate have the ability to set aside up to a half-mill.

So that's 50 cents per $1,000 of taxable value for children's services in their communities. And as Lindsay said, her priorities are based on a needs assessment. And that is statutorily required that a needs assessment is conducted. They're required to look at outcomes and areas where children are definitely below the state average as far as outcomes. And that's really where they focus their dollars and money and start addressing. those community issues to make sure that their communities remain vibrant. Their children are healthy and successful and can contribute back to the communities that they grew up in. So we've heard from one of the Children's Trust.

Cindy had called in from Parkland with the Broward Children's Services, 25 years old. Lindsay Cannon with the Escambia Children's Trust is still with us, which was approved just six years ago. So they've been around in some cases a handful of years, in some cases a handful of decades. what needs led to the creation of these trusts? What was being unfulfilled with services toward children in these 10 counties that led to the ballot referendums that voters then approved to say, yes, we will pay these property taxes for these services? So I absolutely think, you know, across the state of Florida, there's a ton of metrics that are released around community standing, right? What does that look like for healthy bursts? What does it look like in the child welfare sector?

What does it look like in early learning and access to child care? What is after school and summer learning supports look like? DJJ metrics. What is DJJ? Sorry, Department of Juvenile Justice. So our justice involved. But what was being unmet with the children in these communities where the voters ultimately were asked to tax themselves?

So a lot of them conducted a basically a landscape analysis. and found that in many of their communities that their children were performing below other communities or had worse outcomes and said, okay, how do we bring in dollars to make this happen? And at this point in time, one of the obviously created mechanisms by the legislature was to create these special taxing districts to be able to do it.

So they took the data. They said, listen, our community is severely undermet in these needs. We really need to start focusing on, prevention services. Prevention services are significantly less expensive than intervention services, right? When you prevent a child being removed from their home compared to having a child become award of the state, that is significantly less expensive over time. So they said, let's collect these dollars. Let's bring it to the voters and see if they would want to create an opportunity to put aside a small portion of their tax dollars, like I said, up to 50 cents per thousand dollars of

taxable value. So it's significantly less than what you're seeing in your city and county Advilorum thresholds. Sure. If you line item and out, it's a small amount, but of course, the homeowners looking at the bottom line that they wind up having to pay in November or by March of every year. But let me go back to the two ladies that we have on the line that are running these children's trust real quickly here, Michelle. Give me a moment. Michelle Cannon runs the trust in in Ascambia County. In Ascambia County, Lindsay, do you have alternative funding sources, if not for the property tax? We do not, not currently. And we're kind of the baby trust of the full group, right? We are still at the very beginning and forming. But what I will say is we're

having amazing results. We're seeing a lot of really great outcomes, even from a shotgun kind of crazy perspective where we started and saying, our community has never done this before. So how do we do it, but really formed out of supporting our school district, which was a failing school district. We had very low graduation rates compared to the other areas throughout the state. And so our community came together, to put this, to put this together, if you will, to tackle that. And I will tell you, we were just announced as an A school district. Well, congratulations. Hasn't been that. Yes, yes. Haven't been that in a very, very long time. And so we're seeing the benefit

of putting these out of school time programming, unique opportunities, wrap around services out there for our families. Let me just get the last word here from Cindy Aaronberg, Seltzer in Parkland, with the Children's Services of Broward, which has been around for a quarter of a century. Are there funding alternatives, if not, for property taxes in Broward County to fund for these children's trust? Cindy, are you still with us? I think Cindy may have just dropped off and listened to us.

So, Michelle, what about other funding? There you go, Cindy. hear me? Yeah, there we can. Cindy, we can now. Yeah. What other funding alternatives might you have in Broward County for the Children's Services, if not for property taxes? Statutorily, property taxes are the only game, Tom. And to answer your original... Now, what does that mean? Does that mean if a large philanthroper, you know, a donor wants to come to you and write a big check that they could not do that? They can, and if they could provide $30 million a year in perpetuity, that would be amazing. I would take it. But that, but statutorily the only way we can raise money,

we can't do fines, we can't do fees, we can't do sales taxes as a government. That's our only tax collection options. Yeah. Michelle, can I answer your earlier question about the results, Tom? You got about 15 seconds. Go ahead, Cindy. Oh, check out the changes in our juvenile justice system and in out-of-home care. Cindy, I'm going to interrupt you. It was less than 15 seconds. But hold on the line. We'll continue the conversation as we have the Florida Roundup.

More to come. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Next week on our program, the results of Florida's primary. Who will be running for what? How did redrawing congressional boundaries impact the primary winners and losers? Of course, we will talk about politics next week on the program. plus panoramic view of the cosmos here from one of the scientists working on the Nancy Grace Roman telescope mission.

The view from this piece of equipment will be 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope. The mission is scheduled to lift off later this month from Florida. Backyard astronomers here in Florida, we'd love to hear from you. What do you want to see if we peer deeper into the universe? Email us now. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. But we're talking about one of the implications, potentially, if Florida voters in the fall decide to raise the value of their homes that is held back from property tax valuations. It's the property tax amendment and talking about one of those areas that is paid for by property taxes in 10 counties, which are Children's Trust Services.

Lindsay Aaron Berg-Seltzer is with the Children's Services of Brower. She's with us still on the telephone. Lindsay, I interrupted you when you wanted to want to. to talk about results, results of the tens of millions of dollars that Broward County property taxpayers pay into the children's services. What are some of those results? Hi, Tom. Thank you so much. Yes. The reason the Broward County Children Services Council was created was because there were over 3,700 children in child welfare, foster care, as people may know it. And now that number is down to about 1,200. There were over 1,200,

thousand children being arrested over 14,000 times. That number is now down to 2,500 a year. While CSC can't claim all of the, you know, that we did it alone, certainly did not. But the services funded by the Children's Services Council, those prevention services, they work. And we have documented proof of that. If your listeners would like to check out CSC Broward.com, they can see all of the data that supports what I'm telling you. Lizzie Cannon runs the Children's Trust in Ascambia County in the Panhandle. It's the youngest of the Children's Trust, the 10 of which we have here in Florida across the counties. Lindsay, what kind of return on investment are you seen in the six years?

Well, and we've only really been funding things for about three years. But as I mentioned before, one of the greatest things that we've been able to see is reduction in our, for absentee rates. We're seeing our school grades at individual schools that are in challenging neighborhoods. We're seeing those rise as far as school grades and attendance. And we're also seeing an internet work, I would say, of providers coming together in partnership

to serve some of our most vulnerable population. And with that, it comes out in data like our school district being in a school district. We're seeing it come, We're seeing it come fairly fast, so I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. But at the same time, we have been doing the same thing here in Escambia County for a really long time. And one of the things that we've done different, as our voters came to the table and said, we will tax ourselves to support our kids. We're seeing that happen in education.

Yeah, Lindsay, stay in the line here for us. Christy is listening in Tallahassee, and you've been patient. Christy, you're on the radio. Go ahead. Yes. You know, I think we should support children, their education, their food needs. Where I have a problem is the ballooning of salaries within municipalities for people like the city manager, county administrator, those salaries and their benefits have ballooned out of control. and that's where I want to see these things brought back into a proper perspective.

Sure. I hear you, Christy. Thank you. I'm going to apply that a little bit to the Children's Trust services that we're talking about here with Michelle Watson, who's the chief executive officer of the Florida Alliance of Children's Councils and Trust. What about management expenses? How much of the tax dollars that are raised through these children's trusts actually go to fund services? So it is, it varies by county. But I will tell you that our Children Services Councils do a very good job of keeping their administrative costs very low. We have some communities that are under 5% in administrative costs, and that's because of economies of scale for how much money they bring in when you're in a smaller community, like Escambia, Leon County, Alachua County. It is hard because you're not bringing in as much. But I will tell you that our administrative expenses are some of the lowest in the state.

I think our highest administrative expense that we've seen from any CSC is around 11%. So most of those dollars go directly in the hands of service providers and directly to services for children. And I will tell you that all of our budgeting requirements are completely transparent. We have to submit our budgets to the county commission and be placed on their website, the truth and millage process, everything that we've done, you are able to track, every dollar in what it's being used for in the community. And I know that Cindy said if you want to go to Broward csc.org, but she has a board book that can tell you all of the outcomes for every funded service provider, how much was spent, how much was recaptured. So we really believe in budget transparency and the majority of money going directly to children is where we really focus our mission. Michelle, thank you for your time.

Michelle Watson is the CEO of the Children Alliance of the Children, Florida Alliance of Children's Councils and Trust. Lindsay Cannon also has been our guest with the Escambia Children's Trust and Cindy Aaronberg-Seltzer called in from Parkland from the Children's Services of Broward County. Speech and consequences now on campus here in Florida, students and professors gathering back on campuses across the state. The Sunshine State here is ground zero for free speech and academic freedom here in 2026. Seven Florida International University students are suing their school over allegedly

violating their First Amendment rights. The lawsuit stems from a silent protest against FIU's collaboration with immigration authorities that took place back in March on campus. Allison Baston is one of the students. We would basically have to kind of be abiding by what they would want us to say and how they would want us to sound and say it. There's really no room here for personal opinion. The University, Florida International University, has said it's policies are in accordance with the First Amendment. Andrew Caro is a senior study music education, and he is now one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. It sets a very dangerous precedent within the university that we simply leave our first amendment at the door, like when we come into this

university. And that is completely against our constitutional rights as American citizens, as students of this university, and just as people living here. Now, Florida also is center stage for efforts to change how universities are credentialed. While much of the state's Stop Woke Act has been declared unconstitutional, Florida and five other states teamed up to create a new accreditation agency to evaluate coursework and graduation rates at universities. Now, we invited the chancellor of the state university system of Florida, Ray Rodriguez, for an interview on our program. We were told he was not available. So academic freedom, free speech in Florida's public universities. 305-995-1800 is our phone number. Mark sent us an email writing, I'm a professor and

extremely concerned about academic freedom under the current state administration. Mark continued the anti-woke law was thrown out, but the fact remains that there is a chilling effect on campuses. The faculty are not teaching the science on a number of different topics because of fear of retaliation from the state. And then Carol sent us this email writing, mom always said, do what I say, not what I do. She was a good mom and raised me well, to be clear. Carol then concluded, that about sums up our political environment, speak and do as I allow, and let me do whatever I want. Well, you can lend your voice here, 305-995-1800.

Danny Rivera is an investigative reporter with our partner station, WLRN, in South Florida. So, Danny, explain the FIU situation, first of all, what led to the lawsuit. Right, so this lawsuit stemmed from a protest that happened in March. And basically, there was an event with campus president, Jeanette Nunez.

She was talking with A-Rod, former lieutenant governor of the state of Florida. legend exactly and and the students had been trying to communicate with her for quite some while f iu became the first university in the country to allow its officers to be trained by ice and to do immigration enforcement on campus students didn't like that they had been trying to communicate with her they couldn't get through so to break through they essentially went to this event that jeanette nunez was was at and they stood up and unveiled shirts that said ice off f iu and stood there silently. No one, no one alleges they made any noise. They stood there silently for

two, three minutes and then silently walked out of the of the room, left the auditorium. This was in an auditorium. Several months later, the university contacted seven of the students and said, we're disciplining you for that because the university has a policy that no so-called expressive activities are allowed indoors. They differentiate between out-the-execliving activities. They differentiate between outdoors and indoors. They said this was an expressive activity that occurred indoors. So they moved to discipline them. And that's the basis of this lawsuit. Has expressive activity been defined with any level of specificity? So, I mean, this is the rub, really. Within the university's own policies, it says that expressive activities are protected by the First Amendment. Okay. And the university

also says that these activities that are protected by the First Amendment are not allowed inside. And they're moving forward with disciplining the students. I hear you saying, huh, and that is, as a reporter, as observers, and as many free speech groups across the country, both conservative-leaning ones and more liberal ones, have drawn alarm to this situation and said, hold on, this is a protected First Amendment activity. how can you discipline these students for doing this? And expressive activity could be defined on a broad spectrum of things. It's many things.

And applause in support of a speech is an expressive activity. Right. Shouting somebody down would be an expressive activity. Exactly. And in this case, it was silently standing up with T-shirts that had a specific political message. So what are the stakes in this FIU case beyond just the university? And there's seven students involved. This is, this really harkens back, and as I've written in my reporting, to a landmark Supreme Court case called Tinker v. Des Moines, which many people learn in schooling, not just in law school.

High school journalism. Right. You're from Iowa. You know the case well. But basically this was during the Vietnam War, there was high school students that chose to wear black armbands to campus to protest the war. And the school district said you cannot wear black armbands, which was taken up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ruled. You cannot suppress speech on campus that is not disruptive. This doesn't disrupt anyone. It doesn't halt a speaker from speaking.

It's not causing a traffic jam. You cannot block people from expressing themselves. So, you know, it's not a one-to-one, but the Tinker v. Des Moines case and what's happening at FIU are very similar. The FIU had, they said this did not cause a disruption. We'll watch that as it goes through the court system. Accreditation, let's talk about this, because this is important for universities because a lot of money can be tied to being properly accredited. Florida has led the creation of what's been called the Commission for Public Higher Education. What is that?

So the Commission for Public Higher Education is a way that Florida alongside other states can essentially enforce their own rules upon themselves. For over a hundred years, the state has relied on SACS, which is, you know, this, this accreditor that exists throughout the, mostly throughout the South. And this is basically, they make sure that schools have certain standards that they meet, and they have to be accredited in order to have access to federal funding. So if something was already in place, what was the rationale for Florida, leading the charge to create this new agency.

Right. This was really a slow burn over several years. When it came to Florida, the board of governors selecting political insiders to head institutions, universities, Jeanette Nunez, Richard Corcoran, you know, very politically connected people. He leads up new college instead of soda. Exactly. It started with Richard Corcoran when he was, you know, being floated as an idea of running

FSU, SACs step in a few times in different things that said, you know, Florida, you're kind of bending the rules because these institutions are supposed to be kind of autonomous. They're supposed to be, you're not supposed to politically meddle in these things. So that was the existing accreditation agency. Exactly. And they kind of raised alarms a few times. And then Florida essentially got tired of this and said, we need someone who's nicer to us. So let's start our own thing with our friends in the Carolinas and Tennessee and Texas and then we'll just do it ourselves. We'll regulate ourselves, essentially. Let's hear from May on line one in Orlando. May has been listening in and as patient. May, go ahead. You're on the radio. Hey, hey, happy to be here.

I'm an FIU alum. I went there for my master's in computer science graduate around 2021. I remember clearly walking through Green Library, a bunch of the indoor spaces, the Graham Center. and there would be, you know, right-wing groups, they're all the time doing expressive activity, turning point USA. All of us have stories of being approached by, like, anti-abortion activists, just on campus casually.

So they talk about expressive activity, but I think the real story here clearly is that it's not about expressive activity. It's about the wrong kind of expressive activity that administration doesn't like, especially after Rod DeSantis put a bunch of his hand-pick people into the board. Right. Thanks, May.

Thank you. And just to be clear about it, because I've gone back and looked at it. This ban on expressive activity indoors was put in place in 2024 as Palestine-related activism was spreading on campus. So the board of trustees actually did this in some way to prevent pro-Palestine actions from happening on campus. It's still on the books and now it's being applied in this way.

So it's a relatively new thing that they did. Let me ask you about the Stop Woke Act, which an appeals court has all but thrown out entirely. There's bits and pieces of it that still remain. This law was cited by the state when the university system removed a sociology course from requirements, from basic requirements. But now that the case, now that the law has all but been eliminated,

what's left here? There is still quite a bit left. And the whole thing is confusing because over the last several years, Florida's passed layers. of restrictions on curriculum. So even though this law has been stricken down, there are other layers of restrictions that still exist,

depending on if it's in the core curriculum or if it's... But they can be traced back to the original law. Many of them, yes. But the overall picture, because there are some restrictions still on the books, depending on several things, as I mentioned. But as what we've heard and as what educators say, there is a chilling effect that's been created, right?

There's a perception that you're not supposed to talk about these subjects. You're not supposed to teach this subject and this way. And that chilling effect is kind of the thing that stays around, even if the law is stricken down because the message being sent is the state likes this and the state does not like that. Yeah. I was one of the e-mailers got to who has claimed to be a professor on campus to say, yeah, the case is thrown out, the law is thrown out,

but it's still the chilling effect. It remains certainly within the fact. faculty lounge to know where the rails are, sort of speak, when it comes to the office. Right. And the ban on the introduction to sociology and the core curriculum, that remains on the books because there's a law specifically about courses under the core curriculum. So that is, that part is unaffected. Dana Rivera, investigative reporter with our partner in South Florida, W. Lerun. Danny, thanks so much for sharing your reporting. Thanks for having me, Our email always open. Let us know your thoughts. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Radio at the Florida Roundup.com.

School is back in session for K through 12 public schools as well. We'll talk about that coming up as the Florida Roundup continues after this. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Well, the new school year has begun across the Sunshine State. Many of the largest districts in Florida are bracing for another decline in student enrollment. Monday was the first day of the school year this week in Broward County, and there were 11,000 fewer students compared to last year's first day, 11,000 fewer. Those fewer students equate to about $100 million less coming from the state into the district's budget. That's according to Broward School Superintendent Howard Hepburn. We've budgeted for the expected decline for the majority of this.

So we hope that enrollment continues to climb and that we're not in the, the red, but we kind of climb up into black. Enrollment in charter schools also dropped in Broward County with about 2,100 fewer students on this first day compared to last year's first day of school. Meanwhile, the Pascoe County School District eliminated nearly 500 positions this fall in anticipation of a decline in student enrollment there. Orange County Public Schools are expected to see a decline of about 2,000 students this year. And the district closed down seven schools with low attendance after the last

academic year. For the first time, some parents who homeschool their children and rely on a certain kind of state scholarship are being denied the money. As Carrie shared in reports now from our partner station WUSF in Tampa, experts are raising questions about why. The program is called PEP, or the personalized education program. It gives an average of $8,000 a year to reimburse homeschoolers for private lessons, curriculum, supplies, and more. Lindsay Jolie uses it to pay for writing and publishing courses for her teenage son. There are a lot of families who couldn't afford art education, and the pet funding makes it doable. The program began in 2023 and is funded mainly by private donations, which companies make in exchange for a state tax credit. It was given out

to 20,000 students the first year and has grown steadily ever since. This year, for the first time, it appears some parents are being turned away. Just why is unclear. Step up for students, the main company that hands out the awards, says a record number of people applied near 100,000. Financial projections in March showed thousands of students might be denied because of a funding shortfall. But an update to those numbers reviewed Tuesday by a committee of staff from the legislature and governor's office suddenly showed millions more than before, enough to pay for thousands more scholarships. Tim Elwell is staff director for the Senate Appropriations Committee on education. He says it's hard to understand and hard to explain to constituents. Why are you

tell me there are denial letters when there's $29 million left on the table? Step up for students was not at the meeting and a spokesman said he could not respond to a request for comment by deadline. I'm Carrie Sheridan in Sarasota. Leaving the classroom for a story about learning out in the field, in this case, a cemetery. WUSF Stelina Miller takes us to one outside of Tampa where a group of student historians are discovering hidden histories of its long-time residents. It's 10 a.m. on a recent Saturday morning. As the Cars Wisby on nearby U.S. 41, a small team of youngsters gather around a folding table in a shelter at the center of the 115-year-old Lute Cemetery. We'll get over here in the shade. Cemetery manager Tony Hedstrom lays out thin sheets of paper,

scissors, tape, and black chalk. We're going to do monument etching. This is so cool, you guys. But first, When you get to your monument, you're probably going to have to wipe it down because it's going to be wet with due. Nine kids, ages 6 to 13, clamor for their supplies. This is part of the Florida Legacy Project. So I know you guys, those of you who have someone assigned are doing some research and creating a historian project for your adopted person here at Leitz Cemetery. So this is just one of the things we can do is we could do the etching on their gravestone. And you could keep that for your records. Today's headstone etchers are part of the first cohort of young historians researching the people buried here.

Photos, documents, interviews with living relatives, and even artifacts are helping students transform forgotten names into living stories. These stories are preserved online and access through QR codes placed on headstones. Headstrom holds up the small metal tag. And then we can put this right on the headstone. And anybody can scan that. see all about that person. Hedstrom says cemetery stewards have an obligation to not only care for the final resting places of the dead, but to document their stories and help young people care about local

history. When you're walking through the cemetery, you see street names that you drive on every day. You know, those families are here, you know, so teaching that too. Teaching that sense of community to the youth is important. Ethan Alvarado, in his khaki and olive green patch-covered Boy Scouts uniform, hunches down next to a small rounded headstone, sweat pouring down his face as he concentrates. In black chalk, a name has emerged, Sergeant Lewis E. Jenkins, an army vet who died in 1940. Happy with it? Yeah.

Four months into this research program, the 13-year-old is a pro compared to some of his peers. And he's learning firsthand that historical accounts don't always match up. There's like a lot of stuff that could be wrong or different, a bunch of different websites. Just a few hundred feet away, six-year-old Milo Feliciano is watching his mother, Mia Cronky, try her handed etching, too. They're both hunched over two flat headstones, embedded side by side into the ground. One is my grandma, and this one is her friend. That's a really minute, Grandma. Yeah, you've got to wait a minute, Grandma.

Cronkey hasn't visited since her grandmother died in 2015. So when the etching exercise was scheduled, she jumped at the church. to bring Milo. Just kind of took it as a sign of, oh, I should probably get on that. He will learn something and I will grow up and go visit the dead. She says Milo is a little young to be doing the research himself, but the cemetery will still need help when he's older. At the end of the day, Tony Hedstrom reflects on the Legacy Project so far.

When we started it, we had like nine kids that enrolled, and then I think we picked up a few more today. The Florida Legacy Project is still in its infancy. With the help of a local mom who homeschools her own kids, Hedstrom has started working on a more formal curriculum to teach kids how to research people. Eventually, she'd like to partner with local schools to offer the program there.

Right now the kids are kind of just swinging it. They're just out there Googling and seeing where that takes them. The cemetery only has one headstone with the QR code so far, but that'll change by December. Each of the headstones assigned to these kids will soon get their own portal into the past. But Hedstrom is pushing these kids, and their families to do more than that.

She says you don't have to be dying to consider your own legacy and the kind of information that could be on your headstones QR code. Tell your story. Leave this for your kids, your family. And there's still more to come. Hedstrom says she's already drawn up the plans for a heritage center and military museum to be built amongst the headstones.

They just need to raise the money. I'm DeLena Miller in Tampa. And I'm Tom Hudson. You are listening to the Florida Rondup from your Florida Public Radio Station. Well, there's a heat dome and the storm season is heating up all at the same time. Megan Borowski is senior meteorologist at the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network. Hi, Tom. It's great to be here. So August is 14 days old as we're talking here on this Friday.

I have seven alerts over the past 14 days of heat advisories for where I live in South Florida. And there's no let up, is there? No. Unfortunately, this is going to be. be the trend most likely for the rest of the month. We might not see a heat advisory in effect every day for your particular location, but overall, the general trend for the month is going to be a good chance for above average temperatures, and especially this weekend where we could see records and parts of the state. So I don't want to look too far ahead because we're just talking about the weather as opposed to climate, but might this be the coolest summer going forward? I don't know if I'd

necessarily go that far and say that. It really is going to depend year to year. A big factor is how much rainfall we get as well, because of course afternoon cloud cover rain can cool things down. But definitely the rest of this summer, because in record keeping, at least for meteorology, August is the last month of summer. So we'll likely see this to be a record-setting summer. We're about a month away from the meteorological height of the season that shall not be named. And And there is plenty of activity, but give us kind of that longer range, multi-week outlook. Sure. So good news is a lot of the activity this summer has been in the Pacific. And we anticipated that because we have our extreme El Nino, potentially one of the strongest El Nino's on record that is unfolding. And so that is strengthening the Pacific tropical season. Thankfully, so far, things have been relatively quiet in the Atlantic. We did just have a brief tropical storm that formed a few days ago. in the Northern Atlantic, but that has already dissipated.

Right now, as of early Friday morning, there's two areas of interest in the main development region in the tropics. However, the westernmost wave is interacting with a good amount of wind shear. So the chances of that one developing is actually decreasing. There's a wave immediately behind it farther to the east that has a medium chance of developing. We'll see if that happens over the next couple of days.

But overall, that increased vertical wind shear, a very good Saharan air layer are both helping to detract really from our waves ejecting off the African coast from actually developing into anything. We'll see what unfolds in September, at least over the next couple of weeks, that shear is elevated and that Saharan dust is over the Atlantic as well. Takes just one, and we're still many, many moons away from the end of the official storm season. Megan Barowski, senior meteorologist with the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network. Thanks, Megan. Thanks, Tom. And then finally this week on the roundup, a bird, a plane, a flying car. They've long been the kind of thing that only are in sci-fi movies,

but the reality of flying vehicles might not be too far off in Florida's future. Governor Ron DeSantis spoke earlier this week at the SunTracks Air Ground in Polk County, where the new technology will be tested. These things are going to be lifting off. They don't need a runway. They're going to lift off and they're going to fly and they're going to land. and they're going to be able to bring people to different places and then come back. That audio comes courtesy of Spectrum Bay News 9.

Now, testing will be throughout the central Florida aerospace region. So left turn signals, right turn signals. Are there turn signals for up and down, too? That is our program for today. The Florida Rondup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami with assistance from WUSF in Tampa. The show is produced by Bridget O'Brien. Denise Royal is WLRN's senior producer of content streaming and news products. W. Lerins Director of Live original programming is Katie Munoz.

The Vice President of Radio is Peter Merritt. The program's technical director is M.J. Smith. Engineering and help each and every week from Doug Peterson, Harvey Bassard, and Ernesto J. Our theme music is provided by Miami Jazz guitarist Aaron Libos at Aaron Leibos.com. Send us a quick email. Let us know how you're traveling around this great state. Across the peninsula or the panhandle,

radio at the Florida Roundup.org is our email address. Thanks for emailing, calling, listening, and above all supporting public radio in your slice of the Sunshine State. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend.