florida

Hope Scholarship – Beginning with the 2018-2019 school year, a student enrolled in a Florida public school in kindergarten through grade 12 who has been subjected to an incident of battery; harassment; hazing; bullying; kidnapping; physical attack; robbery; sexual offenses, harassment, assault, or battery; threat or intimidation; or fighting at school the opportunity to transfer to another public school with capacity or enroll in an approved private school under the Hope Scholarship. Incidents reported may be investigated at the district level, however, there does not have to be substantiation on the part of the district to offer a transfer to another public school with capacity or the ability for the student to move to an eligible private school on scholarship. School district personnel in Florida have a responsibility to notify families of the Hope Scholarship Program. For more details on the scholarship, please visit Step Up For Students, the Scholarship Funding Organization that administers this program.

HB 609, signed by governor in May 2013, takes effect July 1, 2013. Added “cyberbullying” to bill and includes explicit language allowing schools to discipline students for their off-campus harassment that “substantially interferes with or limits the victim’s ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or opportunities offered by a school or substantially disrupts the education process or orderly operation of a school.”

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Related to HB 626, “Imagine Sheterria Elliot Act” passed (link defunct)

Full law: http://laws.flrules.org/2013/87

H.B. 699 s. 1006.147: School Safety “Jeffrey Johnson Stand Up for All Students Act”: Consequences must be made clear by the school district; (link defunct)

“A procedure for including incidents of bullying or harassment in the school’s report of data concerning school safety and discipline required under s. 1006.09(6). The report must include each incident of bullying or harassment and the resulting consequences, including discipline and referrals. The report must include in a separate section each reported incident of bullying or harassment that does not meet the criteria of a prohibited act under this section with recommendations regarding such incidents. The Department of Education shall aggregate information contained in the reports.”

Florida does have a criminal cyberstalking law that might apply to certain cyberbullying behaviors: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0784/Sections/0784.048.html

Rebecca’s Law – proposed bill that would criminalize bullying with punishments up to a year in jail. Never passed.

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Criminal electronic harassment (stalking): Stalking