Charter Schools

As Mater Academy seeks to co-locate inside Oak Park School — Sarasota County’s only K-12 school for students with special needs — the move raises critical questions about how charter schools serve (or fail to serve) children with disabilities.

In a letter to families, the district announced it was withdrawing the proposal following backlash from parents.

Booker Elementary and Booker Middle were included in the superintendent's plan to prevent a charter school from moving in because both are operating at less than half capacity.

Mater Academy has a Schools of Hope designation from the state, meaning it can apply to share space in public schools with low enrollment.

The idea is to protect Brookside Middle from a charter takeover by moving Suncoast Polytechnical High there and creating a new school for grades 6 to 12.

On "The Florida Roundup," Sarasota County Schools Superintendent Terry Connor and Politico's Andrew Atterbury gave insight into these changes and how they may affect public schools.

This week on "The Florida Roundup," we spoke about a new state law expanding Florida’s Schools of Hope program with Sarasota County Schools Superintendent Terry Conner, the government shutdown with U.S. Rep. Darren Soto and more.

All state lawmakers representing Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties voted for the “Schools of Hope” expansion . Now that a Miami-based charter operator has filed early notices to occupy several local schools, most of those lawmakers have declined to answer questions about the law or its local impacts.

On "Florida Matters Live & Local," we take a look at how the local Jewish community is responding to the Gaza ceasefire, the charter school takeover debate and the magic of a local theater production.

The Schools of Hope program was established in 2017 to allow charter schools to offer alternatives at poor-performing schools. This year, Florida lawmakers expanded the program.

Sarasota Schools officials said the filings are premature – pointing to the fact that the Department of Education’s rule has not yet gone into effect.

More than 20 Sarasota campuses — including top-ranked Pine View — have lost enrollment over the past decade, leaving them vulnerable under a new state law that allows charter operators to seize unused space.