Florida’s statewide teachers union, a local school board member, and other parents and public education advocates jointly filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Education this week for their alleged failure to uphold Florida students’ constitutional right to a free, “safe” and “high-quality” public school education.
Under Article IX of Florida’s state constitution, it is considered “a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children” and “adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools.”
As public school districts across the state, including in Orange County, make plans to shutter public schools and lay off hundreds of staff, public education advocates argue that the state Legislature and the state Board of Education are failing to sufficiently invest in the public education system.
Looming school closures in Orange County, for instance, have been tied at least in part to major drops in student enrollment — and subsequent losses in state funding — attributed by district leaders to the Trump administration’s harsh immigration crackdown, declining birth rates, and an increasingly bloated state voucher program that siphons billions of dollars each year from the public education system.
“In Orange County, where I teach, public school students are being faced with real challenges that are directly related to a state budget that does not support them, salaries that does not support their educators and a changing dynamic that is seeing our schools close, our cost of living rise, our experienced educators leaving the profession — and our students are the ones paying the price,” said Ladara Royal, a college and career specialist at Lake Buena Vista High School, speaking at a press conference organized by the Florida Education Association in Tallahassee.
“When we look at the challenges our public schools face and realize that every single year, $5 billion are siphoned out of our public schools toward other systems that are often run by for-profit and corporate companies in the state that are less accountable, less transparent, we quickly then realize the inequities in our system that are at stake,” he added.
“Every single year, $5 billion are siphoned out of our public schools toward other systems that are often run by for-profit and corporate companies”
Ladara Royal, a college and career specialist for Orange County Public Schools
Florida’s school voucher program allows Florida parents to apply for up to $8,000 in public tax dollars annually to home-school or to send their children to private schools that can legally discriminate against students with disabilities. Deregulation of the voucher program in 2023 — including the removal of income caps — has resulted in a massive expansion of its use, revealing glaring accountability issues that have received bipartisan rebuke. Public schools that are required not to discriminate then end up closing as the funds trickle away, leaving those students without schools to attend.
“We’re committed to our students 100 percent, and we ask that our state be committed to us as well,” said Kim Andrews Ward, a behavior specialist for Leon County Public Schools, speaking at the press conference Tuesday. She said that many communities, including her own, are struggling to retain school staff due to low wages, stating that 60 percent of educational staff professionals make less than $35,000 a year — equivalent to $15 an hour for someone working full-time. “We need action right now,” she declared.
Orange County school board member Stephanie Vanos, elected in 2024, is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed by the Florida Education Association. She joined in her personal capacity as a parent.
Vanos told Orlando Weekly in a statement that she joined the lawsuit because the diversion of public tax dollars away from public schools “and into shadow parallel school systems is harmful to students and our public school community; offensive to taxpayers whose hard-earned dollars are funding the minimally accountable and non-transparent taxpayer-funded voucher program; and unconstitutional, given the lack of uniformity across publicly funded schools.”
Despite an independent audit detailing the misuse of hundreds of millions of dollars in the voucher program, she said House leadership in Tallahassee refused to do anything to rein it in.
“We don’t have time for inaction,” she argued. “Our students need high-quality educators, programs and opportunities in their public schools now, and I am grateful to the taxpayers, teachers, small-business owners and the FEA for bringing this lawsuit.”
The Florida Education Association and its affiliates have filed several lawsuits and complaints against state education agencies in recent years, over issues of academic freedom, attacks on the state’s public sector unions — a targeted effort to eliminate “partisan” education unions — and protections for educators and students during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Representing more than 120,000 educators and education staff professionals statewide, the Florida Education Association is an affiliate of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. The political right wing and its privatization allies in the DeSantis and Trump administrations have supported policy moves intended to weaken and ultimately eliminate teachers unions like the NEA and AFT — in part because these unions oppose privatization efforts pushed by conservative billionaires to serve their own financial and ideological interests.
“We have spent years working with lawmakers to address the concerns of parents, educators and now, even the state auditor general regarding the inconsistencies in Florida’s non-uniform education system,” Andrew Spar, a music teacher, parent and president of the FEA, said in a statement Tuesday. “But once again, lawmakers have let down Florida’s students and families, and we are left with no choice but to turn to the courts,” he continued.
“With this lawsuit we are simply asking for accountability, transparency and a basic set of educational standards, which is what every parent wants — regardless of where they choose to send their children. Floridians have made it clear we should be strengthening, not abandoning, our public schools.”
The Florida Department of Education told Orlando Weekly in a statement that the FEA “is once again wasting taxpayer dollars and members’ dues on a frivolous lawsuit.”
The suit also names as defendants the state education commissioner Anastasios “Stasi” Kamoutsas, Florida State Board of Education chair Ryan Petty, and other members of the State Board of Education.
Quote-tweeting the FEA’s decision to file a lawsuit on social media Tuesday, Kamoutsas wrote, “Thanks to @GovRonDeSantis, every Florida family has access to universal school choice, empowering them to select the learning environment that best fits their child’s individual needs.”
“We stand unapologetically convicted on the principle of always putting students first!” Kamoutsas added.
Florida has a long history of educators speaking up to demand stronger investment in public education, school staff retention, and policy changes to better serve Florida’s diverse student population. In 1968, Florida teachers organized the first statewide teachers strike in U.S. history, even though it was illegal for them to do so under the state constitution.
Just a few years earlier, in 1965, state lawmakers had killed a $51 million proposal for teacher wage increases, under threat of the governor’s veto.
“As the state’s education budget became increasingly depressed, so did the teachers’ morale. The sinkhole was widening and Florida teachers were sliding into the abyss,” wrote Dan Cameron in his 2008 book, Educational Conflict in the Sunshine State: The Story of the 1968 Statewide Teacher Walkout.
Florida teachers haven’t struck since, although state legislators and DeSantis nonetheless approved a new law (SB 1296) this year that, in part, increases financial penalties for illegal public employee strikes. Public employees in Florida who strike can face job termination, under state statutes. Public employee unions, meanwhile, face the risk of decertification by the state and fines of up to $40,000 per calendar day, effective July 1, 2026.
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