Sarasota superintendent gets booed while pitching plan to move Polytech students to Brookside Middle.
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: October 22, 2025
Host: Sarasota Schools staffers are trying again: Consolidate schools to avoid becoming a takeover target for private, for-profit operators taking advantage of Florida’s so-called “Schools of Hope” law. Just a couple of weeks ago, the district retracted a plan to turn the Wilkinson Elementary building into administration offices and move its students to surrounding schools. On Monday night, the superintendent told an overflow crowd at the Brookside cafeteria it would like to move Suncoast Polytechnic High students to nearby Brookside Middle School. We have the details.
Johannes Werner: The Sarasota School Superintendent didn’t have an easy job making his pitch in the Brookside cafeteria. This was not a friendly home crowd. The central problem that makes Sarasota schools vulnerable to Schools of Hope operators, Terry Connor argued, is underutilization.
Terry Connor
Terry Connor: There are several of our facilities that have been underutilized, meaning that there’s more capacity in those buildings than there are students to serve, leaving those schools under capacity. When that happens, it creates an issue for us financially. We have fixed costs to operate our facilities.
JW: The superintendent didn’t mince words about what he thinks of Schools of Hope. He said the law is unfair to public schools because it does not put them on a level playing field.
His pitch: Brookside Middle is at a lowly 45% capacity. And Suncoast Polytech’s building, with 540 students, is filled to the brim. Moving Polytech students to Brookside, therefore, could be good for both, Connor argued. But he got this reaction:
TC: But I believe there is an avenue where we can merge the two together to create more opportunities for all of those students. So, for instance—
[Crowd boos]
TC: If you look at Brookside right now, the school is currently at—
Suncoast Polytechnic High
JW: The Sarasota School Board meeting the next day was packed—even though the board had moved it from the usual evening hours to 10 a.m, and even though Polytechnic consolidation was not on the agenda. Two dozen speakers lined up—most of them to express outrage over Schools of Hope. Many speakers criticized the consolidation proposal.
Candy Knowles is a student at Suncoast Polytech, a high school started on the campus of Sarasota County Technical Institute as recently as 2008, to be a model for vocational education in the county.
Candy Knowles: I’m speaking today as a student coming from Suncoast Polytechnic High School, and I believe relocating to Brookside School is a wrong move for both the schools and the Sarasota County students. Suncoast Polytech isn’t a typical high school. It was purposefully built next to Suncoast Tech College so students can walk between their high school classes and college level labs every day—multiple times, in fact. That partnership is what makes our program work. Moving it off that campus, you’re not just changing the address; you’re dismantling the model that made us the [recording skips] high school in the county and the 31st in the state.
Wilkinson Elementary
JW: After a similar outcry from parents, the school district a couple weeks ago called off plans to close Wilkinson Elementary. The pushback came after school administrators announced a plan to move all students of that Title 1 school to neighboring schools and use the building as administrative offices instead—all this to prevent a takeover by Mater Academies, a for-profit outfit based in Miami that has requested access to three schools in Sarasota and two in Manatee County.
Meanwhile, the school district continues with a series of community meetings to propose more changes in anticipation of takeover or co-location requests under Schools of Hope. On Tuesday evening, it was Booker Elementary’s turn, one of the takeover targets by Mater Academies. At a presentation to parents there, the district pitched the idea of having a non-profit use classrooms for a “Junior Achievement and Discovery Center” to help with career orientation and teach financial literacy at the school. And on Wednesday night at 6, it is back to Wilkinson Elementary, with changed proposals for Wilkinson, Alta Vista, Brentwood and Gulf Gate Elementary.
Meanwhile, on the agenda of the board meeting yesterday was bringing prayer to school meetings and celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Both gave occasion to chest thumping and a bit of criticism by two school board members. Both passed.
Reporting for WSLR News, Johannes Werner.
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