The day the expanded ‘Schools of Hope’ law becomes effective, two competitors file takeover requests for Brookside Middle and Booker Elementary.
By Derek Gilliam/Suncoast Searchlight
The Sarasota School District’s main office. | Photo by Emily Le Coz, Suncoast Searchlight
On the very first day they could, two different charter school operators filed notices Tuesday to compete for unused space on the same Sarasota County public campuses by taking advantage of controversial changes to state law.
Mater Academy and Somerset Academy notified the school district they both intend to “co-locate” at Brookside Middle School and Emma E. Booker Elementary under Florida’s Schools of Hope legislation.
That’s despite district plans approved by the school board Friday aimed to boost enrollment at a dozen public schools at risk of a charter takeover. That plan, which passed unanimously, followed a series of community meetings at local schools packed with angry parents where the district presented options to make its campuses less attractive to incoming charters.
The district has 20 calendar days to submit objections to the proposals on grounds of “material impracticability,” according to a Florida Department of Education rule amended on Sept. 24. The first charter school to send a notice would receive the space. Both notices were filed Tuesday. It’s unclear which came first.
Mater Academy prematurely filed three notices in October in Sarasota County amid dozens sent out statewide, including notices for Brookside Middle, Emma E. Booker and Oak Park School. Now, both Mater and a new charter operator, Somerset Academy, seek to occupy Emma E. Booker and Brookside.
School Board member Tom Edwards is among those who oppose the Schools of Hope law, noting it forces the district to cover expenses associated with the maintenance and operations of the schools, including custodial work, nursing, food services and student transportation.
“It’s a disguise that’s destroying public education,” Edwards said.
Mater Academy’s earlier notices drew widespread outrage from parents, but were premature, as the amended rule had not yet taken effect. But it served as an early warning for Sarasota and mobilized public school advocates.
Both Somerset Academy and Mater Academy have been linked to Academica, a major for-profit management company that works with more than 200 charter schools around the country, according to Academica’s website.
Neither charter school operator responded to a Suncoast Searchlight request for comment Wednesday.
An official statement from Sarasota County schools confirmed the district plans to challenge the notices. The statement noted the charter operator’s proposals were not feasible following the action adopted last week.
“These requests are materially impractical now that the Future Focused Strategic Initiative has been fully approved and implementation is underway,” Schools spokesperson Kelsey Whealy said in a statement to Suncoast Searchlight. “This initiative includes specific facility uses, programmatic expansions, and capital projects that directly impact the space and operations of both campuses.”
Mater Academy plans to bring elementary students into Brookside Middle School, pictured here, offering K-8 classes on the campus. | Photo by Emily Le Coz, Suncoast Searchlight
Both schools are among the district’s most underutilized. Emma E. Booker Elementary has 57% campus utilization as of October, and Brookside Middle has just 45% of its school utilized, according to district figures obtained by Suncoast Searchlight on Tuesday.
The district’s plan would transform both schools and drastically boost utilization.
At Brookside, the district will “reimagine” the middle school as a magnet school called Gulf Coast Academy of Innovation & Technology for grades 6-8 and repurpose three buildings for school district administration, shrinking the number of student stations by more than 500. That plan, according to the district presentation, could boost utilization at Brookside to 90%.
Emma E. Booker would lease some of its space to the Junior Achievement program, the nonprofit behind JA BizTowns, a hands-on program that simulates a miniature city where students run mock businesses like Publix and Chick-fil-A and learn financial literacy skills.
After the district completes its plan at Emma E. Booker, it would leave just 99 student stations or about four underutilized classrooms, Edwards said.
“There are no guardrails,” Edwards said. “We are going to do the best we can in conjunction with our lawyer.”
Carol Lerner, a retired public educator and director of Support Our Schools, a Florida-based nonprofit advocating for public education, said she had confidence in the plan the district rolled out earlier this month.
But she also was concerned about the impact it could have in other districts that had not been as proactive as Sarasota County.
“It weakens the education system statewide,” she said. “Sarasota can’t just look out for itself. We need to be part of a statewide network to push back against Schools of Hope.”
Derek Gilliam is an investigative reporter for Suncoast Searchlight. Email Derek at derek@suncoastsearchlight.org.
Read the full article here: https://suncoastsearchlight.org/two-charters-vie-for-same-sarasota-campuses-under-schools-of-hope/
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