Sarasota County Schools has drawn up a sweeping plan to shrink its empty classroom space — and, in the process, try to shield itself from a new state law that allows charter schools to move into underused public campuses.
The strategic plan, which Superintendent Terry Connor is set to present to the school board Tuesday, calls for selling the district’s headquarters at The Landings and relocating those offices into existing schools, razing or reconfiguring some campus buildings and expanding programs in schools with the most vacant seats, among a host of other strategies.
Among the schools affected are Alta Vista Elementary, Fruitville Elementary, McIntosh Middle and Venice Middle.
District officials crafted the proposal as state education leaders toured 12 Sarasota schools in mid-October to review the district’s current usage and provide guidance on the viability of its plan to maximize it. The resulting proposal achieves a reduction of 3,100 “student stations” — the state’s term for classroom seats — boosting utilization rates at several campuses and reducing the number of openings that could be claimed by charter schools under the controversial “Schools of Hope” law.
Suncoast Searchlight, with help from the Florida Center for Government Accountability, obtained the PowerPoint presentation Friday through a public records request. Connor asked that publication of the story be delayed until he could present the plan publicly first, citing its level of detail and his desire for residents to hear it directly from those who developed it. Suncoast Searchlight declined, noting that the proposal is a public record and that early access allows residents to review it in advance.
During a half-hour interview Friday, Connor called the proposed changes “a good thing” for Sarasota County Schools, saying they would make the district more efficient and fiscally responsible while modernizing aging buildings and programs. He said conversations about school utilization began long before the Schools of Hope law, but the new legislation accelerated the timeline for action.
“Change is hard,” Connor said. “But sometimes the challenges that come your way create the greatest opportunities. This moment lets us rethink how to serve families better.”
The district’s scramble comes as Florida expands opportunities for charter-school growth under a revamped Schools of Hope law that allows charter school operators to move into public campuses if the facilities have any unused space — regardless of their academic performance. The public school system would then be forced to continue paying for utilities, busing, custodial services and even meals for those new charter students — all at no cost to the charter operator.
With more than 7,500 empty seats, pre-proposal, Sarasota County is a prime target. Last month, it received notice from Miami-based charter-school operator Mater Academy declaring plans to establish its own schools inside three Sarasota campuses: Emma E. Booker Elementary, Brookside Middle and Oak Park, a K-12 school for children with disabilities. The filings were made too early under the new law, and it’s unclear whether Mater will resubmit them when the window officially opens Nov. 11.
Regardless of whether Mater resubmits or whether other charter-school operators file notices, Connor said, the district will move forward with the strategic plan.
State officials say the law gives parents more options as enrollment in traditional schools stagnates and charter attendance climbs. But critics warn it could drain resources from public classrooms already stretched thin. By shrinking its official capacity and redistributing programs, the district hopes to tighten its footprint before charter operators can claim any unused space.
A look inside the district’s strategic plan
The proposal includes a range of changes at a dozen schools, all but two of which are in or near the city of Sarasota.
Brookside Middle, for example, would be “reimagined” as Gulf Coast Academy of Innovation & Technology for grades 6-8 and focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning, information technology, digital gaming and cybersecurity.
It also would repurpose three of its buildings for administrative use, shrinking its available student stations by 559. And it would recalculate the band and gymnasium student stations — something also done across many of the other campuses — further reducing its unused capacity. Together, the strategies would boost its utilization rate from 73% to 90%.
At Fruitville Elementary, the district would raze a building, removing 350 seats, and turn the campus into a gifted magnet school. Plans also call to raze a building at Alta Vista Elementary, which would remove 256 seats. Connor said the demolitions would address long-overdue facility issues, noting that some of the affected buildings were built in the 1950s and have outlived their usefulness.
Both Emma E. Booker Elementary and Booker Middle would lease some of its campus buildings to the Junior Achievement program, the nonprofit organization behind JA BizTown — a hands-on program that simulates a miniature city where students run mock businesses like Publix and Chick-fil-A and learn financial literacy skills. Booker Middle additionally would lease a building to North County Child Care Center, convert some space into office use and recalculate its band and gymnasium student stations. All told, the two Bookers would reduce capacity by over 1,000 seats.
Alta Vista, Brentwood, Gulf Gate and Wilkinson elementary schools would all transition to K-8 schools with the district expanding intramural athletic options at those schools as well. The district would roll out those plans slowly, adding a grade level per year through the 2028-2029 school year.
Connor said the district’s middle school changes are meant to give families “what they’ve said they want” — more K-8 options that let children stay on the same campus and form lasting connections.
Oak Park would remain in its current configuration, with the district citing state statutes that prevent any nondisabled students from accessing the campus.
In addition to Connor’s presentation of the full report during a public workshop Tuesday, Connor said he is proposing that the school board hold a special meeting Friday, Nov. 7, to vote on the plan.
“We’re making decisions that are going to position the school district to be stronger as it moves forward into the future,” Connor said, “and I think that’s a great thing for us.”
Suncoast Searchlight shared some of the proposal’s details with public school advocates, including Carol Lerner, a retired public educator and director of the Florida-based nonprofit Support Our Schools. Lerner said she feels much better about things now than she did a month ago, when the district pitched a plan to close Wilkinson Elementary.
She noted that many of the concepts presented in the district’s new strategy arose from parent ideas during recent community meetings.
“This is a lot of what the parents were saying, so they seem to be listening,” Lerner said. “The public had an active voice in this.”
Lerner said Sarasota County is among the first statewide to come up with a solution that the Florida Department of Education could potentially get behind. She also praised the district for pushing back against the Schools of Hope takeovers harder than most others.
Connor confirmed that the district first reached out to the state Department of Education in July, soon after the Schools of Hope law changed. He said that, to his knowledge, Sarasota is the first district in the state to have the agency come in for these purposes.
Glenn Compton, chairman of the environmental nonprofit ManaSota-88, spent more than 30 years as a public educator at Venice High School. He told Suncoast Searchlight that he remembers when it was not uncommon to see 35 or 40 students per teacher before the class-size amendment set stricter limits.
Compton has been following the Schools of Hope developments closely, and echoed many of Lerner’s praises regarding the district’s response and pushback.
“The district appears to not support Schools of Hope coming in,” Compton said. “My experience as an educator was always that classrooms were filled to the brink. Undercapacity was never an issue …. If there are pockets that are underutilized, it’s not going to be that way for long.”
Florida Trident investigative reporter Michael Barfield contributed to this story.
Derek Gilliam is an investigative/watchdog reporter and Josh Salman is a senior investigative reporter/deputy editor at Suncoast Searchlight. Reach out to them at derek@suncoastsearchlight.org or josh@suncoastsearchlight.org.
This story was originally published by Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom delivering investigative journalism to Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
