Student Testimony: 

"As a queer native Floridian, the classroom was my refuge from the challenges I faced outside school walls; my confident teachers, their engaging educational exercises, and the community those interactions fostered emboldened me to remain steadfast in my education and chase aspirations beyond my comprehension. Despite social media harassment and severed familial relations, it was an active classroom and all the books, interactions, and community that prevented me from withdrawing from the life I’m lucky to lead today." 

The Problem: Book Bans Fuel Student Disengagement

In 2021, a wave of Florida education policies, framed as protecting students from “inappropriate” content, gave rise to mass, arbitrary book challenges. Even the governor has acknowledged that these policies have been weaponized. The result? Hundreds of banned books—including literary classics that cultivate critical thinking—vanished from shelves, leaving students deprived of essential learning opportunities.

These policies have not only impacted our students but school communities entirely:

• Student disengagement is on the rise: Nearly 1 million of Florida’s 2.8 million students are chronically absent, and 81,000 have dropped out entirely since these policies took effect.
• Teacher shortages have worsened: Over 10% of teachers have left the state claiming new policies are paralyzing their past teaching methods. 
• Parent frustration is widespread: 92% of Floridian parents express frustration with the state’s education policies.
• Taxpayer dollars are being drained: Florida has spent over $16.5 million defending these policies in court, yet student outcomes continue to decline.

These statistics reveal that Florida's policies create classrooms and school environments that promote student disengagement instead of remedying it. With empty bookshelves and hesitant professionally accredited teachers, our students are withdrawing not only from the classroom but their potential futures.

The Protect Florida Classrooms Act Offers Solutions:

The Protect Florida Classrooms Act is a legislative commitment to prevent arbitrary book challenges. Our bill advocates for:

• Effective Due Process: To prevent an overload on media specialists and librarians, individuals may not submit new book challenges until all prior challenges are fully resolved. This ensures thoughtful, thorough evaluations of materials rather than rushed removals.
• Fair Evaluations: The bill requires that instructional materials must be evaluated in their entirety—not based on isolated passages—before being deemed inappropriate.
• Promoting Active Learning: Removal of instructional materials cannot violate Florida’s principles of professional conduct, which prohibit suppression of content relevant to Florida’s curriculum programs.
• Accountability: Public schools, as government-funded institutions, must adhere to Title VI and Title IX, ensuring that no content removal infringes upon students’ civil rights. This reinforces those protections and ensures that classrooms remain a place for learning and open inquiry

By strengthening existing guidelines for material selection, our policy offers a robust constitutionally-driven solution to create the classrooms, leaders, and policies our students need for the world of tomorrow.

Why This Matters: Florida is Now the Nation’s Blueprint

Classrooms hold the potential to change lives. In an active classroom, we encounter thought-provoking revelations, newfound skills, and the overall empowerment to chase our dreams. As a state recently labeled the nation's “blueprint”, we have a responsibility—not just to our students, but to the entire country—to create classrooms where true democracy, individuality, and freedom of thought can flourish.

How You Can Help: Take Action With Us!

Our Florida is a coalition of parents, students, and teachers fighting to protect Florida classrooms as places of free thinking and true learning. Join us in protecting Florida classrooms!

• Join our coalition! → Stay up-to-date on our actions  and connect with local advocates!
• Become a digital partner → Get your organization involved in organizing events with us!
• Endorse our petition → As an organization, you can support our work by endorsing us!
• Email us → Have a specific question? Reach out directly!

Every student deserves the freedom to learn. We are going to fight until our laws reflect and protect that right. We’re going to fight for Our Florida.