Judge blasts school policies

A judge Friday sharply criticized state and Central Florida school leaders for failing to follow the law when they barred from fourth grade some youngsters who had refused to answer questions on Florida’s required third-grade reading test.

Their conduct caused “injury which will continue as long as the children are not in the appropriate grade in the appropriate school,” wrote Circuit Court Judge Karen Gievers of Leon County. “Grade 3 students with no reading deficiency should not be retained, but should be promoted.”

Her 52-page order was especially critical of the Orange County School Board, which she said acted in a “particularly blatant, arbitrary and capricious” way to the daughter of Michelle Rhea, a third-grader at Dommerich Elementary School in Maitland last school year.

Rhea is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit filed earlier this month on behalf of 14 students in six school districts, including Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties. The lawsuit challenged sections of Florida’s thirdgrade retention law.

Despite her critical language, Gievers stopped short of ordering any of the school districts to immedi-

ately promote students to fourth grade. She ordered a separate hearing Monday for the Hernando County students involved in the court challenge, saying that school district had illegally failed to provide a so-called portfolio option to those students.

She denied requests for Rhea’s daughter and a child in Osceola County to be allowed to start fourth grade, saying neither were in public school now so that made their requests moot.

The parents of two youngsters in Seminole County who also sued must first pursue administrative solutions, before asking a court to intervene, Gievers added. That is because they were offered a chance to do a portfolio — a state-prescribed collection of work — but disagreed with the district on what it should entail.

The Orange school district said it had no comment but that it already has appealed one section of the judge’s order, as it believes the case was improperly heard in Tallahassee rather than in its home court in Orlando.

Cindy Hamilton, one of the founders of the Opt Out Florida Network, which helped raise money for the lawsuit, said in an email that the group was “celebrating substantial victories” with Gievers’ order. The group is opposed to how the state uses high-stakes standardized tests to make key education decisions, such as whether students are promoted or granted a diploma.

“While this fight is not over, today was a good day for Florida's students,” Hamilton wrote.

The lawsuit was filed earlier this month by Rhea and other parents of thirdgraders. They argued that the state and their local school districts improperly held back their students who refused to take the Florida Standards Assessments.