JACKSONVILLE- Governor Ron DeSantis spoke at the Duval Charter School at Baymeadows in Jacksonville about work he’s done to improve education in Florida.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. spoke at an event where DeSantis promised to ‘protect’ teachers from discipline for following the law.
“As a former teacher, I want to thank you, Governor DeSantis, for protecting the rights and freedoms of our Florida teachers,” said Duval County School Board member, Charlotte Joyce.
First grade teacher at the time of the pandemic, Leah Hannigan, says pandemic policies, like mask mandates and vaccinations, drove her out of the public school she worked at.
She states that with the governor’s proposals, teachers are now being protected.
“At my current charter school I am free to choose to wear a mask or not wear a mask, social distancing and quarantining of healthy children because of proximity are foreign terms, and my voice as an experienced educator is heard. With these proposals from the governor, teachers are now being offered protections and I’m so grateful that Governor DeSantis is defining those rights for educators,” said Hannigan.
DeSantis states that since taking office, funding has been increased by over 2 billion dollars to raise teacher salaries in the state of Florida.
“We worked hard to raise the average minimum salary across the state of Florida. It was basically not even $40,000 when I became governor and now with the recent increase we did in this current year’s budget, it’s going to be over $48,000 today as the average minimum salary across the state.”
The governor also emphasized that there are parts of the state where the average minimum salary of teachers is even higher, particularly areas where the cost of living is more.
DeSantis highlighted the nationwide shortage of teachers there are today and says that Florida is below the national average because of the emphasis on education across the board.
