Enrollment in many public schools is down, and this week, officials from the state department of education are walking through schools in Sarasota to figure out ways to use their empty spaces.
That's after dozens of schools in the Tampa Bay area were put on notice that Mater Academy, a charter school chain based in Miami, intends to move in.
The district is fighting back and has until the end of November to respond. WUSF's Kerry Sheridan spoke with school board member Tom Edwards about what's at stake.
The interview below was lightly edited for length and clarity.
Tom, what do you think people are misunderstanding about Schools of Hope, if maybe it doesn't affect their school personally? What should parents in Sarasota County as a whole know about this?
EDWARDS: I think that the intention of cohabitating public school classrooms and buildings is a detriment, once again, to public education. I've looked at the agenda from Tallahassee over the last 10 years, and how they've gone from the creation of charter schools for underperforming environments, the same with Schools for Hope, and now it's for everybody, including charter schools for profit.
And it seems to me that it's no better than a grift of taking public tax dollars and reallocating them to charter schools for profit, not to mention the taxpayers' assets. They built these schools, maintain these schools, and also have to pay for food service, transportation, [and] the electric bill for companies that earn profit.
We have reached out to Mater Academy for comment. We haven't heard back. What do you think makes Sarasota an appealing place for them to set up new charter schools?
We're already a high-performing district, and so they'll take kids in schools that are already high performers and attract them for whatever the reasons are, to transition over to their environment and improve their overall grade and performance as a charter school and as a company.
Now I know you've been in close contact with the superintendent, Terry Connor, about the district's response to Schools of Hope. What's your view of how the district is planning to fight back against this?
Personally, I've been working with Mr. Connor for a little over a year as it relates to how our schools are under-enrolled, and what those opportunities are to consolidate and, in fact, grow by adding programs, by adding academies, by adding new and creative ways to make public education more competitive.
So we had done a lot of this work in advance just that now with the Schools for Hope legislation, we're on a timeline of less than a month to roll out these ideas and suggestions so that Schools for Hope will be prohibited from moving into the Sarasota school district, and we can show Tallahassee that we have great ideas and suggestions for our underutilized space.
The way the law is written, it seems it's really up to the charter operator, the way I understand it. Even if the public school says, "No, it's not practical for you to move in here," the final word would remain with a place like Mater Academy, is that right?
My understanding is, if we can prove to the Department of Education that we're utilizing the spaces correctly, it would prohibit the School of Hope [from] coming in and taking over our space. It's sort of a hearing, if you will, that we'd have to appeal the application and say, "This is why that application is not appropriate. Here's how we are going to be utilizing the space."
