Florida lawmakers Monday night passed a measure that could help expand charter schools known as “schools of hope,” as Republicans continue trying to boost school choice and Democrats warn about harm to traditional public schools.
The schools of hope proposal appeared to die before the scheduled May 2 end of this year’s legislative session, but it resurfaced as part of a bill linked to a new state budget. Lawmakers late Monday also passed the budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year after weeks of negotiations.
Charter schools are public schools often run by private operators. Lawmakers in 2017 created the schools of hope program to serve children in areas with “persistently low-performing” traditional public schools.
The bill passed Monday night, in part, would change criteria for determining whether traditional public schools are persistently-low performing, which could increase the number that would receive the designation — and, as a result, open the door for more schools of hope.
The designation would begin to apply to traditional public schools that are in the bottom 10 percent of schools statewide for student performance on third-grade standardized English-language arts or fourth-grade math exams in at least two of the previous three years.
Also, the bill would give schools of hope the right to use vacant school facilities or “co-locate” with other schools if space is available.
During a debate Monday night, House bill sponsor Jenna Persons-Mulicka, a Fort Myers Republican who chairs the PreK-12 Budget Subcommittee, repeatedly emphasized that charter schools are public schools.
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“We’re seeing these specialized charter schools coming in and transforming communities, changing children’s lives, changing the metrics,” she said. “They’re working.”
But some Democrats blasted the bill, saying it would harm traditional public schools. For example, Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, said lawmakers were changing the definition of persistently low-performing public schools “to capture more schools for the sake of privatization.”
“Why don’t we fund traditional public schools instead of creating these schemes that pull funding away from traditional public schools?” Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton, said.
The Republican-controlled House voted 80-24 to pass the bill (SB 2510), after the Senate approved it in a 25-9 vote. It now will go to Gov. Ron DeSantis.
While lawmakers were scheduled to end the legislative session May 2, they had to extend it for more than six weeks to reach agreement on a budget and related bills. Before the scheduled end, they took other steps to bolster charter schools.
As an example, lawmakers passed a bill (HB 443) that included allowing charter schools to have stricter codes of conduct than traditional public schools and to increase enrollment to more than what was initially approved, though they could not exceed the capacities of their facilities. DeSantis signed that bill on May 30.
The House in April passed a bill that included the school of hope changes, but the measure was not approved by the Senate. The changes were included in a broader education bill passed Monday.
A House staff analysis this spring said Florida had approved seven school of hope operators that ran 12 schools. It said that during the 2023-2024 school year, 51 traditional public schools were considered persistently low performing.
More broadly, charter schools, which are not bound by the same regulations as traditional public schools, have grown dramatically over the years.
For example, 382,367 students were enrolled in charter schools during the 2022-2023 school year, up from 229,428 students during the 2013-2014 year, according to data posted on the Florida Department of Education website. The state had 726 charter schools in 46 districts in 2022-2023.
