New laws seek to protect student athletes, restrict corporal punishment
Florida Phoenix |
They also promote autism and disability awareness; later start times now optional. Cellphones banned.
Florida lawmakers spent much of the 2025 legislative session at odds with each other, causing several education bills to be delayed until the last scheduled day of session and jammed into two major packages.
These resulting laws are set to go into effect on Tuesday, July 1:
SB 1070: Electrocardiograms for student athletes
The bill unanimously passed both chambers following emotional committee testimony from parents of children who died from heart conditions.
SB 1070 requires student athletes to complete an electrocardiogram, a screening used to detect heart conditions. Students with abnormal results would need clearance from a medical practitioner to participate in sports. Under the law, electrocardiograms are not mandated if schools cannot offer them to families for less than $50 per student, and districts are encouraged to seek out partnerships to provide the services for families that can’t afford them. The bill does not begin the requirement until the 2026-2027 school year, but implementation starts this summer.
Martha Lopez-Anderson lost her son when he was 10 years old to a heart condition.
“Like so many parents, I had no idea that an undetected heart condition could silently take a child’s life with no warning,” Lopez-Anderson, director of Parent Heart Watch, said, calling the bill a “bold step in shifting from reaction to prevention.”
Hearings for the bill were heavily attended by parents whose children died from heart conditions. House staff passed around tissues to the audience during their testimony, for example, in the House Education & Employment committee.
Maruchi Mendez, mother of Ramiro Mendez, a Florida International University baseball pitcher who died from cardiomyopathy in 2000, shared her story with committee members.
“What is the price of a student athlete’s life?” Mendez said. “This month, here in the walls of the Capitol of our beautiful state of Florida and from all of your hearts, we shall know the answer.”
HB 1607: CPR
This builds on existing graduation requirements, requiring schools to provide CPR and first aid training in middle school and high school. By July 1, 2027, all public schools must have one automated external defibrillator (AED) on their grounds. The bill requires schools to develop emergency staff training for cardiac arrest.
Schools are already mandated to teach CPR in grades 9 and 11 and encouraged to do so in middle school. Schools that participate in Florida High School Athletic Association sports are already required to have an AED.
SB 1514: Anaphylaxis
The bill requires “an adequate number” of charter and traditional public school personnel to be trained to respond to allergic reactions, including administering epinephrine, a medication that treats allergic reactions.
SB 1470: School safety
SB 1470 changes previous school safety legislation that Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd called “clunky and difficult to understand and easy to violate it even without the intent to violate it.” The bill creates exceptions for classes like welding that need ample ventilation from door-locking laws and allows temporary locks, among other things.
SB 248: School sports
This bill allows home school students to participate in sports at any public school in the district they live in and allows private school students to play sports at public schools if their school does not offer the sport.
SB 296: School start times
The bill essentially rescinds 2023 legislative action. The 2025 Legislature chose to not require districts to conform to previously enacted law that is set to go into effect in 2026 that would make schools start their days later. Districts pushed back against the old law, saying it would be too costly to implement. Now, if schools submit reasoning for not being able to start later, they do not have to comply.
SB 1374: Employee reporting
School boards may temporarily remove personnel from the classroom within 24 hours after learning that an employee has been arrested on a felony or misdemeanor charge. It requires school employees and administrators to self-report within 48 hours any felony or misdemeanor arrest.
SB 356: Holocaust Remembrance
SB 356 requires the governor to declare Jan. 27 of each year as Holocaust Remembrance Day. Schools may observe the day by teaching students about the effects of the Holocaust and positive contributions by the Jewish community. The state has required instruction on the Holocaust since 1994.
HB 447: Disability History and Awareness
Florida law already designates the first two weeks of October as Disability History and Awareness Weeks, when schools may teach about the history of disability and the disability rights movement.
If schools teach disability history and awareness, they are now required to teach about bullying and physical disabilities from grades K-3, autism spectrum disorder from 4-6, hearing impairments from 7-9, and learning and intellectual disabilities from 10-12 under this law. Schools are not required to provide instruction on disability awareness, however.
The bill is named the Evin B. Hartsell Act, after a Floridian diagnosed with muscular dystrophy who died in 2018. The Department of Education may consult with the Evin B. Hartsell Foundation to develop learning materials.
HB 549 and 575: Gulf of America
These two bills address a change made through an executive order from President Donald Trump. They require state agencies and schools to buy new materials saying “Gulf of America” instead of “Gulf of Mexico.” HB 575 changes all statutes with references to the “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America.”
HB 809: Social workers
The bill exempts school social workers from general knowledge mastery otherwise required in educator certification. The exemption, according to the bill analysis, is justified because social workers already are required to hold master’s degrees.
HB 85: Walking conditions
The bill expands the criteria for what constitutes a hazardous condition for students walking to school, creating more transportation options for those who otherwise would be walking next to busy roadways.
HB 1145: Workforce development
The bill provides charter schools with Workforce Development Capitalization Incentive Grant Program money. The money is used to create or expand programs that lead to industry certifications by buying equipment, hiring personnel, and more. It has an indeterminate fiscal impact, according to the bill analysis.
As previously covered by the Phoenix, the waning days of the scheduled session produced two larger education packages with several components each:
HB 1255
The 83-page bill includes provisions addressing opioid antagonist administration at school, requires high schoolers to learn about the cost of college before they graduate, and renames Hillsborough Community College as Hillsborough College.
The bill requires parents to approve school administration of corporal punishment of their children.
Some lawmakers said they were not aware corporal punishment still existed in Florida, but, during the 2023-2024 school year, 17 school districts reported 516 instances of corporal punishment, according to Department of Education data. Principals are responsible for developing corporal punishment policy and state law requires that more than one adult be present when corporal punishment is being inflicted.
HB 1105
The bill, among other things, implements a high school bell-to-bell phone ban pilot study in six counties and outright bans phone use for elementary and middle school students during the school day statewide. It allows law enforcement to arrest someone for trespassing on a school bus.
HB 1105 eliminates certificates of completion, which had been granted for students who earn the credits to graduate but too low a grade point average or failure in required math and reading assessments. Lawmakers approved removing the certificate, saying it provided no real benefit in securing a student a job and repeal might incentivize some students to achieve a high school diploma, instead.
Students with autism could have a better chance of securing employment under this bill, which creates a workforce credential for students with autism to prove to employers they are proficient in certain skills, particularly workplace safety.
This bill allows students who participate in two years of marching band to count that toward the one-credit physical education requirement. Existing law allows two full seasons of varsity or junior varsity sports to count toward the physical education requirement.
In the final packages were provisions lowering the threshold needed to turn a low-performing traditional public school into a “job-engine” charter school — one meant to attract jobs to a community — and another that includes charter schools as recipients of local government infrastructure surtaxes.
Existing law requires more than 50% of teachers and parents both to vote to convert a traditional public school into a job-engine charter school. The Legislature voted, over Democrats’ protests, to eliminate the need teacher approval and rely on parent approval instead.
