Tag: Miami-Dade County

As charter schools race to occupy public school facilities thanks to the expansion of Florida’s Schools of Hope law, Miami-Dade County Public Schools could find itself sharing close to 90 of its own facilities with Schools of Hope operators.

According to an internal memo from the Miami-Dade superintendent shared with the Miami Herald, Miami-Dade has received 90 notices of intent from Schools of Hope operators— 81 from Mater Academy, four from KIPP, and five from Success Academy. Florida’s expanded Schools of Hope law, passed at the very end of the legislative session, dramatically increases the power of certain charter school operators to enter, and in some cases take over, space on public school campuses.

Statewide, at least 690 notices of intent were submitted across 22 school districts, according to Brian Moore, general counsel for the Florida Association of District School Superintendents. The bulk of the notices were sent in the early hours of Nov. 11, Veterans Day, the first day charter school operators were legally eligible to submit.

State-approved “Hope Operators” include Mater Academy, RCMA, Democracy Prep Public Schools, Inc., IDEA Public Schools, Success Academy, Renaissance/Warrington Preparatory Academy and KIPP New Jersey.

These operators may now co-locate inside underused, vacant, or surplus public school facilities. School districts have very little say. The rent to run a charter school in a Miami-Dade County Public Schools building as a Schools of Hope operator? Zero.

Under the law, the school district must cover expenses for maintenance, construction and food services, based on the state’s position that public property should be utilized to full capacity.

About 475 schools throughout Florida received one notice, meaning many schools throughout the state received multiple notices of intent. In Miami-Dade County, five schools received letters from two different operators. Mandarin Lakes K-8 Academy received a letter from both Success Academy and Mater, and Brownsville Middle School, Richmond Heights Middle School, Ethel F Beckford-Richmond Elementary and Poinciana Park Elementary received letters from both KIPP and Mater.

Districts now have 20 days to respond with objections. Under state rule, they may cite “material impracticability” as a reason to object. Miami-Dade County Public Schools did not respond to questions about whether they plan to object to any of the notices or whether they are concerned about bearing the financial burden of maintaining facilities as of publication. A record request for copies of the notices of intent sent by the Miami-Herald has not been fulfilled as yet.

Schools of Hope are intended to operate in areas served by persistently low-performing schools. A school qualifies if it has ranked in the bottom 10 percent statewide in Grade 3 English Language Arts or Grade 4 Math achievement for at least two of the previous three years, or if it has earned a grade lower than a “C” in at least three of the past five years and has not earned a “B” or higher in the most recent two years. A School of Hope can also operate in a Florida Opportunity Zone, which are areas with high poverty or low median household incomes. Miami-Dade County has about 67 Opportunity Zones.

According to the Florida Department of Education, Miami-Dade County has 30 persistently low performing schools. Only 13 of those schools received notices of intent from Schools of Hope operators.

The new expansion of the law, supported by billionaire Ken Griffin and heavily lobbied for by charter school operators, makes establishing Schools of Hope easier and more cost-efficient, since they can now occupy district property. This is part of the reason New York charter school giant Success Academy has promised to move into Florida.

The United Teachers of Dade, Miami’s public school teachers’ union, is vehemently opposed to this new educational frontier.

“This scheme forces taxpayers to fund a separate, privately controlled school system operating rent-free inside public schools,” said Antonio White, president of the union.

“This represents yet another attack on public education through the systemic defunding of the classrooms most of our state’s children rely on,” the Florida Coalition for Thriving Public Schools said in a statement.

Mina Hosseini, the executive director of P.S. 305, said the new rules raise major questions about how co-locations will function.

Success Academy, for example, has said it wants to open schools starting in kindergarten — yet three of the five letters of intent it submitted in Miami-Dade are for high schools, including North Miami Senior, Miami Jackson Senior, and Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High. None of these schools were on the Department of Education’s list of underperforming schools.

“How exactly does an elementary program coexist inside a high school — and who pays to make it feasible?” Hosseini asked.

“If nothing changes, the public will be asked to shoulder the burden of decisions made without their consent,” she added.

Rebecca Zisholtz, the communications lead for Success Academy, said in a statement that the network intends to partner with the district and community to “deliver on our promise of an excellent public education.”

KIPP and Mater could not be immediately reached for statements on why they chose to apply to operate in these facilities or what challenges they foresee.

Here is a list of Miami-Dade schools that received letters of intent on Nov 11 from Schools of Hope operators: