Thirty-five of Florida’s 67 school districts — more than half — failed to meet class size requirements, state education officials announced Wednesday.
Education Commissioner Eric Smith notified 35 districts and three laboratory schools that they violated the class size limits. Those in violation could face fines.
The cost of the fines has not yet been determined, but may run into the millions.
Some school boards had previously announced that they will sue if hit with fines on the basis that the state did not adequately fund smaller class sizes.
However, the Associated Press reports that challenging the fines could take months and the fines will have to be approved by February.
Amendment 8 would have relaxed class size demands and nearly every school would have been in compliance with the new limits, but the amendment was rejected by voters on Nov. 2.
Collier County led the state with 25 percent of its classrooms in violation. It was followed by Lafayette County, 23.4 percent; Palm Beach County, 20.6 percent; Dixie County, 20.4 percent; Gilchrist County, 19.9 percent; Duval County, 15.9 percent; Suwannee County, 11.9 percent; Manatee County, 11 percent; Leon County, 10.8 percent, and Union County, 10 percent.
Palm Beach, though, was the runaway leader in sheer number of cap-breaking classrooms with 21,246. That’s three times as many as the next highest total of 7,704 in Duval.
