Duval County school district officials are “having meetings” with members of the state legislative delegation and will travel to Tallahassee this month to “engage with them privately in their offices” about changing the Schools of Hope charter school program, Superintendent Chris Bernier said Monday.
At a town hall meeting at Riverside High School, Bernier flipped through a slide deck that showed districtwide enrollment is down — something he partly attributed to a declining birthrate.
“You have enrollment issues. And it’s not just about taking kids from charters. There’s less kids coming,” Bernier said. “All these things are starting to pile on your superintendent, and he’s trying to figure out a way to navigate through this.”
A South Florida charter school company notified Duval County Public Schools too soon of its plan to open more than two dozen schools within district buildings, a spokesperson tells Jacksonville Today.
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Mater Academy sent 25 notices to Duval — as well as dozens more to other districts in the state — in early October, but Duval says it “will not be able to accept any notices” until next week.
“The new rule prohibits notices from being submitted until 14 days after it takes effect, which was Oct. 28,” spokesperson Laureen Ricks wrote in an email. “That means we won’t begin accepting notices until Nov. 11.”
There is nothing preventing Mater Academy from submitting new notices after that.
Mater Academy’s invalid notices said it plans to open what are called Schools of Hope, a special category of publicly funded, privately operated charter schools intended to serve areas with struggling traditional public schools.
'How is that sustainable for our school system'
Updates to the program passed this year by the Legislature require districts to allow Schools of Hope to open within underused district-owned buildings — even those currently in use.
Noting the district is “already suffering financially,” one town hall attendee asked Bernier, “If a school is co-habitating with us, paying no bills, and they are filling up the school — financially, how is that sustainable for our school system? It would be different if those bodies brought money to the district, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”
Bernier did not mention Mater Academy by name Monday. He said the law allows districts to project enrollment one year at a time, and so could in theory adjust co-located schools’ enrollment or location based on expectations.
“There’s a lot of details in this that have to be worked through,” Bernier said. “And I think … raising those questions in a calm demeanor, asking, 'Have you thought this through? What does it mean when a school building gets occupied and we’re trying to recruit more kids back to it but now we don’t have the seats to offer them if they choose to come?’ ”
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Attendees asked how the Schools of Hope program changes will affect Duval. Many of the buildings Mater Academy identified for its co-located schools are in Riverside's area.
“If a school building has capacity … then the school district must, according to the way the law is written right at this moment, if a charter school applies for that space, we must provide space within that school building to co-locate,” Bernier said. “They pay no rent, they pay no public utilities.”
'Working quietly' to seek a change
He told the crowd that the legislation doesn’t take effect until 2027 — something Bernier said buys the district time to convince state lawmakers to change the new rule.
“Yes, it’s a reality. It’s not real yet here, but it is coming, and our team is working on it,” Bernier said. “We are working quietly because we always think that’s the best way to do it for us. Quietly with our (state legislative) delegation.”
School board member Reggie Blount said he has “had some conversations” with some legislators about the changes and found “some of them weren’t aware how complicated the problem would be, how problematic it would be.”
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Blount encouraged attendees to contact lawmakers, "because hearing from the public, not just us, but hearing from the public does open their ears when you’re talking about your schools, you’re talking about your concerns about these organizations, these companies coming in and using public school spaces.”
Bernier said the district would “find out some answers.”
”This thing came late in the session. It came as part of a larger big bill, and we’re hopeful that they’ll listen,” he said.
However, school board member Cindy Pearson said during Tuesday’s meeting that a lobbyist working with Duval schools told her the Legislature is unlikely to reverse course on the Schools of Hope law so soon.
