Bill > S0978

This bill establishes the Florida Best and Brightest Teacher Scholarship Program, which aims to recognize teachers with high academic achievements. The program, administered by the Department of Education, will provide scholarships to teachers who have completed at least two years of teaching, scored at or above the 60th percentile on either the SAT or ACT (based on the percentile ranks at the time they took the test), and have been rated as "highly effective" in their performance evaluations. School districts, which also include the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind and charter school governing boards, are required to submit the number of eligible teachers to the Department of Education by December 1st each year. The Department will then disburse scholarship funds to the districts by February 1st, and districts must pay the eligible teachers by April 1st, with the scholarship amount determined by the Legislature in the General Appropriations Act, which is the state's budget.