Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez

Religious Expression and Classroom Requirements in K-12 Schools; Citing this act as the “Florida Religious Liberty Awareness and Activation Act”; creating the “Florida Student and School Personnel Religious Liberties Act”; prohibiting a school district from discriminating against students, parents, or school personnel on the basis of religious viewpoints or religious expression; authorizing a student to wear clothing, accessories, and jewelry that display religious messages or symbols; authorizing a student to pray or engage in religious activities or expression; authorizing a student to organize prayer groups, religious clubs, and other religious gatherings, etc.

Verification of Reemployment Assistance Benefit Eligibility; Citing this act as the “Promoting Work, Deterring Fraud Act of 2025"; revising circumstances under which the Department of Commerce may disqualify claimants from receiving reemployment assistance benefits; requiring the department to verify claimants’ identities before paying reemployment assistance benefits; requiring the department to cross-check certain information on a specified schedule, etc.

Opticianry; Deleting the ability of an optician to delegate specified acts to unlicensed supportive personnel; deleting an exception to optician licensure requirements for employees working under the direct supervision of a physician or optometrist, etc.

Mental Health and Substance Abuse; Providing exceptions to a provision prohibiting the court from appointing the public defender to represent certain persons who are not indigent; providing that the opinion of a qualified professional, rather than that of a psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practicing within the framework of an established protocol with a psychiatrist, may be the basis for the court to grant a petition for the appointment of a guardian advocate; authorizing a qualified professional, rather than a physician or the patient’s psychiatric nurse, to restrict a patient’s access to his or her clinical records if the qualified professional believes such access to the records is harmful to the patient; requiring the qualified professional who assessed the patient, rather than the treating physician or psychiatric nurse practicing within the framework of an established protocol with a psychiatrist, to document in the patient’s clinical record that the patient is able to give express and informed consent for admission, etc.

Uterine Fibroid Research Database; Requiring the Department of Health to include uterine fibroids in a specified list of diseases it issues; providing applicability; deleting a prohibition on the inclusion of personal identifying information in the database, etc.

Adult Day Care Centers; Excepting certain adult day care services from certain established or negotiated Medicaid reimbursement rates; requiring adult day care center operators to annually complete an 8-hour continuing education course approved by the Department of Elderly Affairs; providing that the course may be offered in person or online; providing that classroom hours spent teaching an approved course or lecturing at an approved seminar may be counted toward fulfilling an operator’s continuing education requirements, etc.

Personal Mobility Device Battery Safety Standards; Creating the “Florida E-Scooter and E-Bike Battery Safety Act”; defining the term “personal mobility device”; requiring that certain batteries be certified as meeting a specified ingress protection standard; requiring the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to coordinate with local governmental entities for compliance purposes, etc.

Homestead Assessment Limitation; Defining the terms “income” and “senior citizen homesteader”; prohibiting the assessed value of real property used as a homestead by a person who has attained a certain age from exceeding a certain amount if certain conditions are met; requiring property that no longer meets certain eligibility requirements to be reassessed in a specified manner, etc.

Public Records/Body Camera Recordings Recorded by a Code Inspector; Providing an exemption from public records requirements for body camera recordings recorded by a code inspector under certain circumstances; providing exceptions; requiring a local government to retain body camera recordings for a specified period; providing for retroactive application; providing for future legislative review and repeal of the exemption; providing a statement of public necessity, etc.

Child Welfare; Citing this act as the “Child Safety and Custody Compliance Act”; specifying that every Child Protection Team investigator employed by the Department of Children and Families is required to perform all specified duties; requiring the department to verify, and seek up-to-date and accurate records of, the parenting plan or court-ordered custody arrangement, if one exists, as part of every investigation involving parents or guardians who reside in separate households; prohibiting anonymous reports from being afforded the same presumption of good faith as reports made by a person who identifies himself or herself; specifying that schools are responsible for and are required to enforce and adhere to any parenting plan or court order that specifies custody arrangements, etc.