Update:
Brenda and I both spoke at the Subcommittee session today (I spoke as a parent), along with one other parent who came. (Thank you to Andy!)
For those who watched the live stream, I wanted to clarify what the yes vote meant. It does not mean that they are passing the bill through as is. It means that they are recommending for the bill to move forward to the rest of the committees for there to be further discussion and work on it.
They know there needs to be a glitch bill to fix some of the issues with HB1, and if they had vetoed this one, they would have had to just start over with a whole new bill from scratch.
Here is the list of committees this bill is set to go through:
So there is still time for changes. It still has at least two committees to go through before it even makes it to the house vote.
I hope that what Brenda and I said today made a difference, but we also are continuing to communicate with representatives and other key people as this process moves forward. And we made some good connections today as well.
I still highly encourage parents to reach out to your local representatives to voice your concerns about these changes.
If you would like to watch the replay of the meeting, you can find it here: https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/VideoPlayer.aspx?eventID=9283
I might think that the Eduxation and Employment Committee might have special interest in this. They should see the value of granting maximum access to "equipment" for crafting and vocational electives.