FELE cheat sheet

Florida governance is layered: the State Board of Education sets statewide K-12 policy, the district school board governs locally, and the superintendent serves as the board's chief executive officer and secretary (s. 1001.32, s. 1001.46).

District school board powers under s. 1001.42 include adopting policies, approving the budget, levying taxes, establishing attendance areas, and approving the student progression plan.

Every Florida school must develop an annual School Improvement Plan with its School Advisory Council; the SAC reviews school performance data and approves the plan (s. 1001.42(18), s. 1001.452).

Florida school grades are composite ratings built from achievement, learning gains, learning gains of the lowest 25 percent, acceleration, and, at the high school level, graduation rate and college/career readiness (s. 1008.34).

Zero tolerance offenses under s. 1006.13 require expulsion from the regular school for at least one full year, referral for criminal prosecution, and assignment to an alternative setting, unless the district determines otherwise.

IDEA requires a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment, an IEP, and procedural safeguards; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act applies when a student has a disability but does not need specially designed instruction.

FERPA gives parents or eligible students the right to inspect education records, generally within 45 days of a request, and bars disclosure of personally identifiable information without written consent except under specified exceptions.

English learners are identified initially through the Home Language Survey; under the Florida Consent Decree districts must provide ESOL instruction, equal access to programs, and parent outreach in a comprehensible format.

The Sunshine Law (s. 286.011) requires open, noticed meetings for board deliberations, and chapter 119 makes records of school business, including work emails and texts, public records subject to specific exemptions.

MTSS is a three-tier, data-based problem-solving framework: Tier 1 core instruction for all students, Tier 2 targeted small-group intervention, Tier 3 intensive individualized support, with progress-monitoring data determining movement among tiers.

PLC teams organize collaboration around four questions: what students should learn, how we will know they learned it, how we respond when they have not, and how we respond when they already have.

Formative assessment is administered during learning to adjust instruction and is generally not graded; summative assessment measures mastery at the end of a unit and is used for reporting and accountability.

Alignment rule: when written standards, taught curriculum, and assessed tasks do not match, assessment results cannot be treated as valid evidence of standards mastery.

Because Florida school grades count both proficiency and learning gains of the lowest-performing 25 percent, improvement plans must address growth targets and proficiency targets separately.

Florida's B.E.S.T. Standards define expectations in English language arts and mathematics; science and social studies are governed by their own adopted state standards.

Disaggregation protocol: examine student-level results by subgroup (ESE, ELL, race/ethnicity, economic need, gender), identify patterns, state a hypothesis, choose a strategy, and specify the progress-monitoring measure before implementation.

Walkthroughs are brief, frequent, non-evaluative classroom visits using a common observation tool; formal observations use the district evaluation instrument and feed the performance appraisal cycle rather than informal coaching data.

Florida requires a passing score on the Florida Educational Leadership Examination for certification in educational leadership; items test application of the Florida Principal Leadership Standards to school-based scenarios.

Certificate renewal requires 6 semester hours of college credit or 120 in-service points every five years, with 20 in-service points equal to one semester hour, documented through an Individual Professional Development Plan.

Performance appraisal under s. 1012.34 uses four rating levels: highly effective, effective, needs improvement (instructional personnel) or developing (administrative personnel), and unsatisfactory.

Professional learning produces practice change when it is job-embedded, sustained over time, collaborative, and anchored in the school's own student data rather than delivered as one-time workshop events.

Distributed leadership decision rule: assign leadership roles according to data-identified needs and staff strengths, define decision rights explicitly, and pair each responsibility with coaching so authority is real rather than symbolic.

Succession planning requires identifying high-potential staff, providing stretch assignments and mentoring, and maintaining a readiness list for anticipated vacancies.

Adult learning principles (andragogy) hold that adult learners need relevance to current problems, autonomy, use of their own experience, and immediate application, which shapes how professional development is designed.

A communication plan specifies six elements: audience, key message, channel, timing and frequency, responsible sender, and the feedback or measurement mechanism used to verify the message was received.

Interest-based negotiation proceeds by separating people from the problem, focusing on interests rather than positions, generating multiple options, and applying objective criteria (Fisher and Ury).

The Sunshine Law (s. 286.011) requires noticed, open meetings for board deliberation; serial one-on-one conversations among board members about pending business can constitute a violation.

Public records requests under chapter 119 must be answered in good faith within a reasonable time, and any withholding must cite a specific statutory exemption rather than a general claim of confidentiality.

Crisis communication protocol: a single designated spokesperson, verified facts only, a holding statement issued early, scheduled updates, and internal audiences informed before or simultaneously with external audiences.

FERPA restricts sharing personally identifiable student information; communication about an individual student's performance or discipline goes to the parent or eligible student, not to staff at large or the public.

Meaningful family engagement requires notices, meetings, and documents in a language parents understand, with interpreters and translated materials provided for ELL families under the Consent Decree and Title I requirements.

Active listening follows a fixed sequence in feedback and complaint conferences: attend, paraphrase, ask clarifying questions, summarize, then respond.

Strongest responses state a clear position in the introduction, support it with specific school-based evidence, organize paragraphs around topic sentences, and close with concrete implementation steps and a success measure.

Structure rule: four to five paragraphs consisting of an introduction with thesis, two or three body paragraphs each developing one reason, and a conclusion that restates the position and adds next actions rather than summarizing.

Each body paragraph follows claim, then evidence or a concrete example naming a stakeholder group, data source, or specific action, then an explanation linking that evidence back to the thesis.

Name the applied framework explicitly when it supports the argument, such as the relevant Florida Principal Leadership Standard, a statute, or a data-based problem-solving process.

Timed-response allocation: roughly 15 percent planning, 65 percent drafting, and 20 percent revising and proofreading.

Conventions rule: avoid fragments and run-on sentences, keep verb tense consistent, and use transitions such as however, therefore, and for example to signal the logic between ideas.

Replace vague commitments with operational detail: a named audience, channel, frequency, responsible person, and the evidence that will show the communication or intervention worked.

Do not restate the prompt; the opening paragraph spends its words on the position and the closing paragraph on actions and monitoring.