Few in Florida's public schools harbor any illusion that they're going to get new money from the state Legislature for 2009-10. Heck, most leaders keep pointing out that they expect to see even less.

Their goal, therefore, as the newly elected lawmakers head to Tallahassee to organize, hold committee meetings and ultimately pass bills and a budget, is to protect the base and prevent as much damage as possible.

With that in mind, the leaders of the Central Florida Public School Boards Coalition -- a group of 10 districts that includes Hillsborough and Orange -- met this week to firm up its legislative priorities. While they do make the call that you'd expect -- increase student funding to meet or exceed the national average and to improve teacher salaries -- most of the goals are notably defensive. Among them:

• Refrain from making any additional budget cuts to pre-K-12 education.
• Pass no laws creating mandates that impact school funding, programs, or instructional time, and hold in abeyance changes to high school graduation rate calculations and school grading.
• Provide full funding and flexibility for the final phase of Class Size Reduction compliance. (Emphasis ours.)

It's going to be a tough year. It will be interesting to see how the new-look education committees in the House and Senate respond to the school districts' requests.

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