Mater Academies notifies the school district it wants to occupy Lincoln Memorial and Harllee Middle.
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: October 10, 2025
Host: Two Manatee County schools are on the target list of the same private school operator that filed this week to occupy three schools in Sarasota County. We have the details, as well as an update on parents organizing against a new Florida law that enables for-profit operators to take over public school buildings.
Johannes Werner: Miami-based Mater Academies is a non-profit that owns K-12 schools, contracting for-profit Academica to operate them.
Harllee Middle
Earlier this week, citing the new Schools of Hope law, Mater filed with the Sarasota School Board to occupy three public schools. And on Friday, the Manatee County School District announced Mater did the same for two schools in Manatee.
In a message to parents, the district said Mater officially requested floor plans for the Sara Scott Harllee Center and Lincoln Middle School as co-location sites for the 2027-28 school year.
“These operators do not replace District operations but would utilize District resources—such as food services, custodial support, school guardians, and transportation—at no cost.”
The district says the notices are not valid at this time. The revised rule takes effect on October 28, and notices may only be submitted starting November 11.
“The district is among several in Florida to receive premature notifications and is actively preparing for any future notifications.”
Jamie Carson is director of communications for the school district. She suggests the student numbers don’t tell the full story of building use. At both Harllee and Lincoln Middle, the district is offering services going beyond the classroom.
Jamie Carson
Jamie Carson: When you think about the capacity of what’s at Lincoln, the numbers don’t tell the entire story. In addition to the services provided and the students there, we also have our Office of Student Assignment located at Lincoln, and recently we finalized our partnership with Turning Point to also provide services on that campus. It really provides our community members with a one-stop shop of services. When you think about that school and their true available capacity, the numbers that are being seen are defined by the facility’s blueprint, and just like a blueprint, it’s one-dimensional and doesn’t tell the full story.
JW: Because the district is constantly changing its districting, she seems optimistic it can make an argument the buildings are used to capacity.
The Manatee School District argues Harllee and Lincoln are fully used because they provide services beyond the classroom.
JC: Here in Manatee County, this isn’t alarming. This isn’t a concern for us. We’re currently already looking at all of our space and capacity as we have an ongoing rezoning operation and process taking effect.
JW: Jody Osceola is a parent in Sarasota who has organized parent pushback against closing the elementary school her children attend. Here is her reaction to the news from the neighboring school district:
Jody Osceola
Jody Osceola: Those schools are more inner city, and Mater does have—from my understanding of their vision statement, they like to come into underprivileged areas and offer charter options. But there’s big money behind these charter options, and I still haven’t fully researched their curriculum, so I’m not at a point where I can say it’s a good thing or it’s not a good thing. I look forward to going and actually touring their facility. Let’s see what they’ve got. Let’s see what this is. Maybe it’s not a bad thing, but it takes money from public education and services from active children in public education.
JW: In response to Mater’s notification in Sarasota, she organized a group of parents. Its first—virtual—meeting Thursday night saw 21 families from 11 schools participate, she says. The group is encouraging participants to call their state legislators—Representative Fiona McFarland and Senator Joe Gruters—and ask them to put a hold on what Osceola calls an unclear law. Osceola takes a long and broad view to organizing over Schools of Hope.
JO: We really need community involvement. We need to educate parents in Sarasota and Manatee County from Venice to Hillsborough what a Hope School is—and what the difference between public, charter and hope means, first off, because I think there are misconceptions. We’re not talking about the local homegrown charter schools that partner with the district and bring community engagement that are already functioning here. We’re talking about big business corporate funds that are coming in and pushing their way into our public education system and stealing our tax resources, in my opinion. If you have squatters coming in—how can you fully take care of your house if you have to share half of it with someone and they get paid to live there?
JW: This has been Johannes Werner, reporting for WSLR News.
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