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Charter school bill passes after floor debate over stricter codes of conduct and data sharing
Summary
CS for CS for HB 443, a wide-ranging charter schools measure, passed the House after extensive floor debate centered on whether charter schools can adopt stricter student codes of conduct, protections for student data and participation rules for full‑time virtual students in interscholastic athletics.
The Florida House passed CS for CS for HB 443 on final reading after heated debate over student codes of conduct, data sharing with third-party vendors and athletes' participation rules for full-time virtual students.
Representative Snyder, the bill sponsor, said the Senate amendment removed several House provisions — including right-of-first-refusal language for discarded district property — and added items such as treating a charter school as a public facility for concurrency purposes, allowing university lab schools to use discretionary capital improvement funds for specified purchases and requiring parents to acknowledge a charter school's student code of conduct.
A central point of floor debate was whether charter schools could adopt a stricter student code of conduct than the district or sponsor and thereby exclude some students. Representative Snyder said existing laws — state and federal — bar discriminatory exclusion and that charter schools already often adopt sponsor or district codes. Critics including Representatives Nixon, Gantt, Bartleman and Robinsonette argued stricter codes could create a two-tier system that avoids students with behavioral or special-education needs. Representative Nixon said anecdotal concerns about hair and grooming policies reflected a real risk of discriminatory exclusion; Representative Snyder replied, “It is law on the basis of a hairstyle. That's law. That's settled law.”
Other debated provisions included allowing a full-time virtual instruction student to play on an interscholastic team at a public school in the district where the student lives; the floor also addressed background screening and data‑access rules for third‑party vendors. Sponsor Snyder said background-screening requirements remain and any vendor stepping on campus must undergo FBI Level 2 checks.
The House adopted the Senate amendment as amended and then passed the bill on final passage, 86 yeas to 25 nays as announced on the floor.
