{"id":281253,"date":"2026-05-22T20:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/281253\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T20:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:04:09","slug":"new-laws-in-florida-to-benefit-school-coaches-and-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/281253\/","title":{"rendered":"New laws in Florida to benefit school coaches and athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed Senate Bill 538 and Senate Bill 178 into law, expanding support for K-12 athletic programs, coaches, and student-athletes across Florida.<\/p>\n

The legislation aims to strengthen school sports programs by improving coach compensation options and creating more consistent eligibility rules for student participation in extracurricular activities across the state.<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 538 allows school districts to use funds raised by booster clubs to help pay athletic coaches in addition to district stipends. <\/p>\n

It also allows coaches and extracurricular activity sponsors to be classified as administrative personnel, enabling them to negotiate salaries up to the highest-paid school administrator in a district.<\/p>\n

The bill also standardizes eligibility for student participation in athletics and other extracurricular activities across public, charter, private, home education, and Florida Virtual School programs. <\/p>\n

Students are also allowed to compete in sports at another school in their district if their school does not offer that sport.<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 178 allows K-12 head coaches to use up to $15,000 in personal funds annually to support student-athlete welfare, with required reporting to the Florida High School Athletic Association.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n

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\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed Senate Bill 538 and Senate Bill 178 into law, expanding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11751,9390,119815,694,26195,9691,44519,31390,6126,16780,23320,29713,119817,119818,100279,24530,29166,5593,1403,8738,119819,28,30,29,57,119816,119820,916,190,119821,13977,1745,119822,23325,119823,5511,119824,93373,102792,22281,5512,29047,20105,3991,2894,2480,7976,119825,111853,119826,50844,119827,600,1100,43033,119828,197,7781,119829,119830,119831,11273,54410,119832,119833,10438,119834,11981,8007],"class_list":["post-281253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-american","tag-athletes","tag-athletic","tag-background","tag-ball","tag-brown","tag-cheer","tag-close","tag-close-up","tag-color","tag-copy-space","tag-corner","tag-cowhide","tag-drager","tag-dreams","tag-emotion","tag-empty","tag-energy","tag-fans","tag-field","tag-first-down","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-football","tag-football-player-dies","tag-forth-down","tag-game","tag-goal","tag-grabbing","tag-grass","tag-high-school-football","tag-hike","tag-hobby","tag-leather","tag-line","tag-lined","tag-lines","tag-lose","tag-mark","tag-marking","tag-no-people","tag-number","tag-object","tag-outdoor","tag-outside","tag-pain","tag-pastime","tag-pile","tag-pitch","tag-players","tag-reaching","tag-recreation","tag-season","tag-seasonal","tag-second-down","tag-sport","tag-stadium","tag-tackle","tag-tackled","tag-tackling","tag-team","tag-teamwork","tag-third-down","tag-threads","tag-touchdown","tag-unity","tag-varsity","tag-win"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}