Florida board of education signs off on a charter school expansion

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s board of education signed off Wednedsay on a major expansion of charter schools in the state, clearing the way for the privately run schools to “co-locate” inside traditional public schools.

It’s the latest push by Florida officials to expand school choice in a state that has long been a national model for conservative education policy. The move comes as some public schools are closing their doors as they grapple with declining enrollments, aging facilities and post-pandemic student struggles.

The new regulations approved by the state board build on a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis this year to allow operators to open more “schools of hope,” charter schools that are meant to serve students from persistently low-performing schools.

“We have operators that want to come in and give the best education to those who are in schools that haven’t been getting the greatest education,” Republican state Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka said while defending her bill on the House floor earlier this year.

“Let’s give them the opportunity,” she added.

Lawmakers created the schools of hope program in 2017 to encourage more publicly funded, privately run schools to open in areas where traditional public schools had been failing for years, giving students and families in those neighborhoods a way to bail out of a struggling school.

This year’s law loosens restrictions on where schools of hope can operate, allowing them to set up operations within the walls of a public school — even a high-performing one — if the campus has underused or vacant facilities.

The board’s new regulations require public school districts to provide the same facilities-related services to the charter schools as they do their own campuses, including custodial work, maintenance, school safety, food service, nursing and student transportation — “without limitation.”

School districts must allow schools of hope to use “all or part of an educational facility at no cost”, including classrooms and administrative offices, the rules read.

“All common indoor and outdoor space at a facility such as cafeterias, gymnasiums, recreation areas, parking lots, storage spaces and auditoriums, without limitation, must be shared proportionately based on total full-time equivalent student enrollment,” the rules continue.

Public school advocates urged the board to vote down the proposal at Wednesday’s meeting. One such advocate, India Miller, argued that schools of hope are designed to be “parasitic” to public schools.

“To me, it would be like asking Home Depot to give Lowe’s space in their store and pay all of their infrastructure costs. It just does not make sense to me,” Miller said.

Board members, who are appointed by DeSantis, defended the new rules and dismissed concerns that the charter expansion could pull critical funding away from traditional public schools.

“Schools of hope wouldn’t be necessary if our public school system had done its job along the way,” said board Vice Chair Esther Byrd.

___ Associated Press writer Kimberlee Kruesi contributed reporting from Providence, Rhode Island. Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.