School Board Member’s FL Nonprofit Focuses On Education Policies, Funding

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — Pinellas County School Board member Laura Hine is launching a new nonprofit focused on education policy and funding.

Educating Florida’s Future (EFF), a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, will host its first public town hall meeting to introduce the organization on April 30, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., at the President Barack Obama Main Library at 3745 9th Ave. N. in St. Petersburg.

Key topics on the meeting’s agenda include metrics for early education and third-grade reading proficiency, understanding how tax dollars are spent on education, accountability and transparency in funding, charter schools, school enrollment trends, and the consolidation of schools, according to a news release.

Hine’s interest in Florida’s educational system and policy started 10 years ago, when her then 4-year-old was about to enter school for the first time in St. Petersburg.

“I would drive by my local elementary school every day that no one I knew talked about, that no one I knew went to,” she told Patch. “I thought, ‘What’s going on? Why don’t we go here?’”

She learned that it was a Title I school with a “D” letter grade, which only brought more questions to mind for her.

“Who says it’s a ‘D’? How is that calculated? What’s a Title I?” are all questions Hine posed at the time, she said. “I now know that Title I means more than 70 percent of the kids qualify for free or reduced lunch. But I just thought, ‘Why? Why is this school right in my neighborhood, a ‘D’ school, and why doesn’t everybody go there?’”

This was the start of what she refers to as her “odyssey” in public education.

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Not only did she send her children to the school, but she also launched a nonprofit, Friends of North Shore Elementary and got involved with the PTA, serving as president for a period. From the start, she remained committed to sending her children to the neighborhood schools, which were all Title I schools.

North Shore went on to become an ‘A’ school and Hine credits the school’s teachers and leaders for its transformation.

“It really comes down to a basic belief in the people who are engaged in education of children, and I guess, what I learned is I would ask them, ‘What do you need?’ Some of those things were things that couldn’t necessarily happen at the school level,” she said.

This led to Hine running for school board. She was first elected in November 2020 and reelected four years later, and hasn’t stopped asking questions, she said.

“I wanted to see what could be done at a district level, and I’ve asked a lot of questions there, and I’ve learned a lot there, but I’ve also advocated at the state level and going to Tallahassee and meeting people and understanding how state-level policy and to include funding greatly impacts our K-12 public school system,” Hine said.

As an aerospace engineer who also earned an MBA and has a background in finance, “numbers matter,” she said.

During her time advocating for schools as a school board member, she’s taken much of the data she’s been provided to create charts and graphs on everything from spending to testing.

Now, through EFF, she hopes to elevate these conversations to a state level with a focus on education policy and how it's influenced by funding.

“I feel like over the last number of years, Florida has taken their eye off the ball when it comes to the education of the vast majority of children in our state,” Hine said. “People seemed interested in some kind of shiny new penny idea, like a lab school. There’s all these different ideas but how do we move the middle? How do we invest? I feel like there's a baby in a bath water issue. We’re so interested in these outside ideas, but what about the baby? I’m someone who believes that excellence at scale is possible. I believe that excellence at scale is possible in our K-12 public school system. I do worry that people have come to wonder if it is.”

When contemplating the future of public schools, she looks to her own military experience, “where [she’s] seen excellence at scale be successful,” she said. “But the reason it’s successful is because the people who lead it, believe in it. They believe in it. They invest in it. They will not settle for less and they lead for excellence. That’s what we need to do with public education in Florida.”

With EFF behind her, she hopes to push for the policies and funding that can strengthen public education and better serve more of Florida’s students through advocacy, engagement and policy leadership.

At the April 30 meeting, Hine will outline the organization’s priorities and outline her vision for the nonprofit. She’ll also invite questions from the community and conversations about the most pressing challenges and opportunities in public education.