The State Board of Education and you 🫵
When education laws are passed in Florida, the unelected members of the State Board of Education are tasked with creating those rules and/or amending current rules to comply with the new law.
Since this rulemaking is a very important part of the policy process, we want to make sure FEA members are kept informed along the way.
What to expect at SBOE meetings
At State Board meetings, Interim Commissioner of Education Dr. Paul Burns has a role similar to a superintendent would have at a local school board meeting. Burns is not on the Board, and he was appointed by the Board as the interim Commissioner during their June 2026 meeting..
Similar to many local school board meetings around the state, the State Board meeting will start with an invocation, the Pledge of Allegiance and some opening remarks.
The agenda at state board meetings is split into consent agenda items and action agenda items. Every action agenda item is taken up and voted upon separately. Before each action item is voted upon, there is an opportunity for public input. All the items on the consent agenda are voted upon with one vote without a public input period. However, if a member of the public requests to speak on any item on the consent agenda, it will be added to the action agenda and afforded a standalone vote with an opportunity for public input.
The rules debated and approved often impact your daily lives as educators! For example, there is no law that requires parents to sign a permission slip for their child to go by a nickname at school. Instead, that policy is a State Board Rule that was created to implement the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
The Board consists of seven members with various backgrounds, meet them below.
Meet the unelected members of the State Board of Education
By statute SBOE members may serve two consecutive four-year terms.The board is responsible for choosing a Commissioner — a responsibility they abdicated with current Commissioner Kamoutsas, who was Gov. Desantis' pick.
Dr. Henry
Mack
Commissioner of Education
Mack most recently worked as the Assistant Secretary at the United States Department of Labor (DOL). Prior to his time at the DOL, Mack was a chancellor at the Florida Department of Education where he was in charge of workforce education.
Education Experience: Dr. Mack taught courses in religion and philosophy at the University of Miami and Florida International University. He has also held administrative positions at various colleges and universities.
Appointed: 2026 by State Board of Education
Ryan
Petty
SBOE Chair
Petty is a technology executive. He ran for School Board in Broward County in 2018 and was defeated. Petty served on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Commission, a role he was appointed to by Gov. Rick Scott.
Education Experience: None
Appointed: 2020 by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
MaryLynn
Magar
SBOE Vice Chair
Magar is former member of the Florida House of Representatives. In 2018, she was elected Speaker Pro Tempore—the highest-ranking position held by a woman in the Florida House. Her background is in healthcare sales and marketing.
Education Experience: None
Appointed: 2023 by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Grazie P.
Christie
Christie is a practicing radiologist. In a Miami Herald article, she connected the election of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani as a reason to overhaul social studies standards in Florida in the hopes that by transforming public school curriculum, she can ensure that young people in Florida will vote differently from young people in New York.
Education Experience: None
Appointed: 2022 by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Layla
Collins
Collins is a military veteran who served in the United States Army for more than twenty years. She served on multiple Special Operations Forces units during that time.
Education Experience: Substitute teacher and school volunteer
Appointed: 2022 by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Daniel P.
Foganholi, Sr.
Foganholi Sr. works as the Director of Legislative Affairs for the New Generations Children’s Ministry. He has twice been appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to serve on the Broward County School Board. Voters did not re-elect him for school board, receiving less than 20% in 2024. Within a week of his school board defeat, Gov. DeSantis appointed Foganholi Sr. to the State Board of Education.
Education Experience: Former Broward County School Board member; served on the Florida Charter School Commission
Appointed: 2022 by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Erika
Fritz-Ochs
Fritz-Ochs is the lone member of the State Board of Education with classroom teaching experience, having served as an educator for nine years. Upon leaving the classroom, she worked for both the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Florida Department of Education. She also served as a manager for the New Worlds Reading Initiative. Fritz-Ochs currently works for the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulations.
Education Experience:
9 years as a teacher
Appointed: 2026 by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Luis
Fusté
Fuste is an attorney whose firm focuses on labor, administrative and family law. He also served with the Miami-Dade Police Department for more than three decades. He is a founding chair of the Board of Trustees of Doral College, a private institution that is a closely affiliated with charter schools.
Education Experience: None
Appointed: 2025 by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Upcoming SBOE Meetings
September State Board Meeting
The next meeting of the SBOE will be September 16 at 9:00 a.m.
The meeting will take place in the Technology Building of Polk State College’s Lakeland Campus.
Items on the agenda include rules related to AI use in PreK-12 as well as in the Florida College System.
Of particular concern is Rule 6A-10.0246. This rule will deny admission to students in career and technical education programs in high schools and colleges to undocumented students. This will weaken workforce opportunities and further hurt Florida’s economy. Click here to tell the SBOE to reject this rule!
Upcoming SBOE meetings
September 16, 2026
9:00 a.m.
Polk State College, Lakeland Campus
Technology Building
3425 Winter Lake Road
Lakeland, FL 33803
October 14, 2026
9:00 a.m.
Martin County School Board Office 1939 SE Federal Highway
Stuart, FL 34993
December 16, 2026
9:00 a.m. CST
Bay District Schools
1311 Balboa Avenue
Panama City, FL 32401
Past SBOE Meetings
When the State Board adopted guidelines for the 2027-28 legislative budget request, they once again committed to favoring corporate charter and voucher schools at the expense of Florida’s public schools.
FEA was at the meeting to speak up for public education and the staff who work in public schools.
Aside from the legislative budget request, the Board also continued their practice of ignoring the constitution. This time, they ignored a recent court ruling declaring Stop WOKE unconstitutional. FEA also spoke out against this unconstitutional behavior and was joined by representatives from the Florida Freedom to Read Project and PEN America.
This meeting also served as a reminder of the importance of voting in both the primary and general election. At the end of the day the members of the State Board are appointed by the governor. This election season, voters have a choice if they want to continue to support the status quo or move in a new direction. For more information, check out our elections page.
While public schools, our students and educators continue to be over-regulated, the FLDOE promotes private and homeschool programs without transparency and accountability. We ask that you ensure public school spending is the priority. Our state has continuous issues that must be addressed.
The State Board adopted two rules to bar students who are “unlawfully present” in the United States from public colleges, including dual enrollment.
Public comment on these rules lasted for a little more than thirty minutes. Each member of the public who spoke opposed these rules. Board member Foganholi was the only member to vote against these rules.
In advance of the meeting, the Joint Administrative Procedures Committee (JAPC) sent a letter to the State Board asking for clarity on the legal authority the SBOE had to implement these rules. The SBOE did not respond to the letter.
Stay tuned, a legal challenge to these rules seems all but certain.
Our Constitution requires you to provide for the education of all children within our borders which makes what you (SBOE) are doing unconstitutional.
Florida’s State Board of Education met at Miami Dade College where they amended a rule regarding student absences for religious purposes.
This meeting is also notable because it was the final in-person meeting with Commissioner of Education, Anastasios “Stasi” Kamoutsas who was named the sole finalist for president at Polk State College.
How disruptive will leaving and returning to school be for classroom learning? What additional scheduling problems will be created by this rule?
April 17, 2026
The April meeting was held at the Freedom Institute of Collier County in Naples.
Florida’s State Board of Education met at the Freedom Institute of Collier County in Naples, where the SBOE spoke glowingly about the “homeschool support system.” This was followed by a report by Commissioner Kamoutsas in which he spent a good chunk of his time celebrating the passage of anti-worker, anti-union SB 1296 and bashing public school teachers and their unions.
At the same meeting, the SBOE also approved the removal of Sociology from the General Education Core Course list for Florida’s state colleges (Section 1002), despite initially advertising that the course would remain. The state’s financial takeover of the Union and Glades county school districts was also a hot topic at the meeting.
This is in keeping with the trend to one, eliminate introduction to sociology as a potential general ed class for students, and two, to use this process as a soapbox to speak out against sociology as a discipline."
February 20, 2026
The February meeting was held at the College of the Florida Keys in Key West.
During the February 2026 SBOE meeting, the Board modified their rules regarding charter school co-location. While this modification did make some significant changes in an attempt to quell the public uproar over co-location, the Board did not address the core issue. The modified rule still allows public schools to be turned over to for-profit charter organizations even when parents, students, educators, and school communities oppose such a takeover.
In other news, the Board revised Social Studies standards to reflect that the U.S. recently captured Venezuelan president Nicola Maduro. Rushing to update the social studies standards and bypassing the normal process that involves professional educators shows that these additions are more about political posturing than about education. After all, there are already multiple standards which require the teaching of current events.
The Florida State Board of Education met earlier this week in Tallahassee to discuss, among other items, the Critical Teacher Shortage Report for 2026-27. This report provides both projections on future course instructional needs and a look at how many educators are “out of field,” meaning they teach courses that they are not certified in. The board adopted the report, as is customary each year it is released.
Here is every report since 2018, so you can see how the state has reported trends and projections: 2026-27 report , 2025-26 report , 2024-25 report , 2023-24 report , 2022-23 report , 2021-22 report , 2020-21 report , 2019-20 report , 2018-19 report