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Students return to schools across Florida over the next three weeks, and as Mike Vasilinda tells us, many of them, especially high schoolers, will have a hard time getting the classes they want because of class size requirements.

Page Twyman is fielding half a dozen calls or more each day from parents wanting to register their kids for the fall, and that’s becoming an administrator’s nightmare.

Sarah Shajawy is volunteering at her Tallahassee high school this summer. Because no class this fall can have more than 25 students, she and thousands like her across the state are not going to be getting all of the classes they want.

“I might not get to take guitar because they have to cut some of the elective programs and that’s not really great,” Shajawy said. “Kids don’t get to take what they want to take or AP classes that could get you into college.”

Principal Rocky Hanna has spent the summer trying to juggle teacher schedules to help students like Sarah, without much luck.

“When I wake up at 4:30 in the morning in the summer, worrying about class size, and which teacher, no that teacher can’t do this, I might have to move my cooking teacher to teach a science class,” Hanna said.

Every penny that school’s have is going for class size this year. For teachers that means fewer supplies and for students that means fewer textbooks.

Until this year, high schools only had to meet a school-wide class size average of 25 students per teacher. But now no single class can have more than 25. But that’s alright with Maria Morales, even if her freshman son doesn’t get every class he wants.

“Keeping them small, keeping them manageable,” Morales said.

But with smaller classes, Sarah and thousands of other students will be in classes they don’t like simply because there’s room.

Lawmakers are hoping voters will change class size requirements in November, but a vote is far from certain because of legal challenges.

You wouldn’t eat at a restaurant not inspected by the Health Department, but a new state law exempts all child care centers from kitchen inspections. And the new law is creating problems for early head start centers which must provide two meals a day for low income children and it is keeping at least one center from opening.

The glasses are neatly stacked. The blue bowls are clean and ready to be used. But this kitchen is bare. The newly renovated Early Head Start Center for low income children in Tallahassee is sitting empty because of a SNAFU over the lack of government regulation.

In a nutshell, the federal government requires this kitchen be inspected so it can open, but the state no longer has the authority.

The center is funded with stimulus money, meant to create jobs. Director Pam Davis says the 1.1 million dollar impact on the community is being lost because the federal government requires a working kitchen and the state is no longer allowed to inspect child care center kitchens at all.

“In order to get the grant and provide the meals that meet two-thirds of a child’s daily nutritional requirements, I have to have my kitchen inspected and there’s no one to inspect it,” Davis said.

House Bill 5311 took effect July first. It prohibits the state Department of Health from inspecting not just this center, but all child care center kitchens in Florida, in both new and already operating centers. Davis says parents should be concerned.

“The fact that no one is going to be out inspecting these kitchens that are in child care centers and schools and nursing homes, that concerns me as a citizen,” Davis said. “I think that’s a public health hazard.”

Asked about the new law, a Heath Department spokesperson would only say the agency’s job is to carry out the will of the legislature.

Multiple state officials are meeting in Pensacola today on the issue and looking for ways to allow the inspections to occur, but it will take legislative action to remedy the problem.

A hundred high school students from all across the state got to spend the day in Tallahassee learning about their state government.

The Youth Leadership Forum helps students with mental and physical disabilities learn networking and leadership skills. The forum taught Leondra Foster, who graduated from the program and now helps teach, how to be an advocate for herself and others.

“You can’t really progress in live without knowing how to advocate yourself, that you always have to ask for what you need,” said Leondra.

The Able Trust sponsors the Youth Leadership Forum. The Able Trust is a nonprofit organization committed to fair employment opportunities for Floridians with disabilities.

Florida schools finally know their students FCAT scores, after a month of delays. The data processing company grading the tests is blaming computer problems for the late scores. As Whitney Ray tells us, the holdup is costing districts millions of dollars.

Students tested in March will have to wait a little longer to find out their FCAT scores. The test results are normally given to schools in late May, but a computer error by Pearson Education, a state contractor in charge of grading the tests, delayed the release for nearly a month.

The delay cost Principal Rocky Hanna and his staff a lot of time and stress.

“The phone is ringing off the hook, my secretary is ready to walk out the door, parents are beating on the front door wanting results and we still don’t have them,” said Hanna.

Schools won’t get the individual scores for students and parents until July 8th; until then administrators will be working overtime.

Now that schools have the scores, the rush is on to analyze the data in order to build class schedules and hire teachers. But speeding up the process will take money.

The cost of calling administrative and clerical staff back to school to do the work they would have finished in early June will reach into the millions. Department of Education spokesman Tom Butler says Pearson is promising to go the distance to make up for its mistake.

“They’re going to cover the cost as far as what districts have to incurs with these delays. They have been very good about that, and even if it goes beyond the cap that’s in contract for liquidated damages, they’ve said they’d cover it,” said Butler.

The cap in the contract is $25 million, one tenth of the company’s 250 million dollar contract with the state. Once the individual test results are delivered to schools, it will be up to each individual district to decide how to get those results to parents. Some principals will ask parents to pick them up; others will mail them. Mailing the results will cost districts thousands of dollars.

Next week foster kids from across the state will meet at the National Guard Training Facility at Camp Blanding to learn leadership skills, healthy eating habits and most importantly to play.

Former FSU football star and Rhodes Scholar Myron Rolle is hosting the camp in conjunction with the Department of Children and Families. DCF Secretary George Sheldon threw around a football this morning with Austin, a 14-year old who is heading to the camp next week. Sheldon says foster kids don’t want to be treated any differently than their peers; they just want a chance to be kids.

“What I hear from young people like Austin, more and more is, I want to be normal. I want to do normal things, and that’s what this camp is about…. But its also about providing some leadership opportunities,” said Sheldon.

100 kids are going to the camp. They’re councilors will include Myron Rolle as well as other NFL players and cheerleaders… and some adults who have aged out of the foster care system, graduated from college and started their careers.

The roads are a little safer tonight thanks to a program helping seniors adjust their car’s seats, steering wheels and mirrors. The Department of Highway Safety, AARP and AAA are hosting CarFit events around the state. Today in Tallahassee, CarFit volunteers inspected vehicles and instructed drivers. Kim Jones, safety coordinator for the Florida DMV, says the whole car gets a thorough check and it costs the driver nothing.

“We do a check of the whole vehicle; of their lights make sure their break lights are working and everything. A lot of mature drivers live alone and there’s not another person to check them for them,” said Jones.

But it’s not just seniors who need to get their cars checked. CarFit events like the one held in Tallahassee today are for all ages. For more information visit the CarFit website at www.car-fit.org

Thousands of students across the state are on pins and needles, as are their teachers and principals, over a private company’s delays in delivering this spring’s FCAT scores.

The company, NCS Pearson, could face millions of dollars in penalties. And as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the company could end up paying hefty fines since it did not meet an end of May deadline to deliver.

Florida is spending 254 Million dollars this year just to grade FCAT tests. The scores were due at the end of May but won’t arrive until the end of June. The company, NCS Pearson, is telling the state it is having data processing issues. The company’s contract calls for an increasing fine, now up to 250 thousand dollars a day. But the State’s Education Department says it just wants the scores now.

“We’re going to be looking at that now, our legal office is,” DOE spokesperson Tom Butler said. “And no determination on the amount, yet. But certainly we are going to be assessing those damages.”

Some critical sores for third graders who needed to pass to go to fourth grade are in…so are scores for high school seniors, who needed to pass FCAT to graduate. But everyone else is waiting.

The delay is a nightmare for school districts across the state. For one thing, they don’t know how many students to put into remediation.

The problem is critical for school administrators, who must hire teachers now to meet class size requirements.

“They’ll hire X-number of math teachers and Y-number of art teachers and all that may fall apart now because some students won’t be able to take art, as an example, and will have to take an additional math class,” Bill Montford, with the School Superintendents Association, said.

But not everyone is concerned. or wants to know their score. Katie Kennedy just transferred from a private school this year and doesn’t mind the delay.

“I might get grounded a little early and I don’t really want to get that,” Kennedy said.

Reporter: So you don’t care if they come back soon?

“Not really,” she said.

While late, the state says the scores it has been receiving are accurate.

The President of NCS Pearson is scheduled to appear and answer questions at the State Board of Education meeting tomorrow in Orlando.

Police in Florida now have one more toll to protect our kids from sex offenders. Current law limits where they can live, but as Mike Vasilinda tells us, starting today, a new law will also tell sex offenders where they can’t go when they are awake.

Hundreds of students walk the sidewalk outside this high school every morning and afternoon. State law prohibits sex offenders from living too close to the school. But nothing says they can’t share this sidewalk with the students, until now.

Legislation signed by Governor Charlie Crist, creates a moveable, 300 foot safety zone around kids. High school Principal Rocky Hanna says the new law fills a void.

“We check every visitor against a sexual predator list,” Hanna said. “We have a software that does that, on campus. But people that are loitering off campus, we really don’t have any enforcement area outside of the property we own.”

Representative Rich Glorioso of Plant City sponsored the bill because he says it’s more important to regulate where sex offenders go when they’re awake, than where they sleep at night.”

No one really believes this 300 foot barrier is going to be a magic bullet that will scare predators away from kids in a park. But what sponsors say is that it is just one more tool for police to use when they spot someone suspicious.

Violating the 300 foot ban is a misdemeanor.

“Now that we have this law into effect, we can ask them what they are doing, check their identification if they come up on a list, they can arrest them,” Hanna said.

The legislation also makes it a crime for sex offenders to hand out candy at Halloween, or dress up as Santa or the Easter Bunny.

One provision in the new law does weigh in on the side of offenders. It says they do not have to move if they were already living somewhere and a day care or school opens up within 1000 feet of where they live.

The legislature is poised to pass a 70 billion dollar state spending plan that protects state workers, creates jobs, and increases funding for higher education. But it’s not all good and, as Whitney Ray tells us, there’s no guarantee the governor will sign it.

To fill a three billion dollars budget deficit lawmakers were considering laying off state workers, axing a prenatal program, and eliminating state funds for libraries.

Bookworms convinced lawmakers to cough up 21 million dollars.

“In a tough year, to still come through for us libraries, we appreciate it,” said Paul Clark, a librarian who lobbied all session to restore funding.

State workers dodged layoffs and pay cuts.

“Our members would have been extremely upset if the three percent pay cut when through,” said Doug Martin, with AFSCME

And needy mothers will still get the free care and counseling they need to give birth to health babies. But saving workers, libraries, and babies comes at a price. Lawmaker are taking money from health care, child abuse programs and roads.

House Democrat Ron Saunders says the 160 million dollar raid on the transportation trust fund will slow job growth.

“We need to create jobs, not cause job loss,” said Saunders.

24 million dollars and thousands of inmates are being taken from state prisons and pumped into a private prison.

“This is an unnecessary facility. We are not at capacity,” said PBA Spokesman Matt Puckett.

And tuition is being raised and Bright Futures won’t cover the extra cost. Still college students, road workers, and correctional officers are holding out hope that the governor will hear their cries for a veto, some Democrats support the idea.

“If I think the budget can be made better, I want the governor to veto and let’s get back up here and do it right,” said Aronberg.

Crist could veto the whole budget or just line items. He’s vetoed at least parts of the budget every year since he became governor. If Governor Charlie Crist vetoes the budget, lawmakers would likely be back in Tallahassee in June, because the state constitution requires the legislature and the governor to agree on a spending plan before July first.

Legislation requiring women in their first trimester of a pregnancy to get an ultrasound before they have an abortion is headed to the governor’s desk. The measure was slipped into a nursing home bill just days ago and didn’t go through the normal legislative process. Stephanie Konkel, a spokeswoman for the Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, was outraged at the public wasn’t given a chance to voice their concerns with the bill.

“The message that the Florida House and Senate has sent by passing HB 1143 is that women can not be trusted to make personal decisions about their own bodies,” said Konkel.

The legislation is now headed to the governor’s desk where, whatever decision he makes, will cost him voters in his independent bid for US Senate.