Senate bill to ease public-to-charter school conversions clears last committee hurdle
A bill to make it significantly easier for parents to trigger the conversion of a public school into a charter school is en route to the Senate floor after clearing its last committee on a divided vote.
The Senate Rules Committee voted 18-5 for the measure (SB 140), which would change Florida’s standard by which municipalities can turn over public school facilities to a private education company.
SB 140 would modify state statutes to remove district School Boards, principals, teachers and school advisory councils from being able to apply for a conversion charter school. It would also remove an existing requirement that at least half of teachers employed at a given school approve the conversion.
That decision would instead fall solely to parents with children currently enrolled at the school, and only a majority of them would have to support the change.
The bill would also allow municipalities to apply to convert a public school into a job engine charter school — a privately run public school with curricula designed to meet local employment and economic development needs — if the existing school received a state-set grade below “A” for five consecutive years.
Despite all the charter school-focused changes, the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Don Gaetz, insisted Wednesday that there is “nothing in the bill that favors charter schools.”
“There’s nothing in the bill that requires school districts to turn over any facilities to charter schools,” he said. “And consequently, I believe that this is a bill that gives local municipalities who are looking for a way to make education a reason why they would be able to attract job producers a tool that would be valuable in their toolbox.”
Gaetz amended his bill to match language in its House analog (HB 123) by Rep. Alex Andrade, a fellow Pensacola Republican, by deleting language that would block schools districts from buying land if their enrollment has declined.
When asked by Tamarac Democratic Sen. Rosalind Osgood why SB 140 only contemplates charter conversions and not other options for repurposing public school district property, Gaetz cited his amendment and said the question was moot. Osgood didn’t push back.
Boynton Beach Democratic Sen. Lori Berman said Gaetz’s amendment was “a strong positive,” but not enough to win her approval of the legislation. She expressed concern that a minority of parents with a possibly fleeting interest in a given school could affect its long-term operation.
“We don’t even get to the point of (whether) parents vote for more than one (child), but let’s say you have 1,000 parents in the school. Only 500 of them need to vote to say they’d like to have a vote, and of that only 251 have to vote to agree to the conversion,” she said. “So, basically you could have 25% of the parents in the school changing the entire nature of the school to a charter school.”
Berman also noted that in her home county, Palm Beach, there is a “huge amount of choice schools” under the district’s umbrella that offer kids a variety of education options.
“I don’t want to see charter schools favored, which this does,” she said.
Jacksonville Democratic Sen. Tracie Davis argued that a decision to convert a public school into a privately operated one should include all stakeholders, not just parents.
A majority of the public testimony heard concurred with her. While representatives from Americans for Prosperity and the education reform-focused Foundation for Florida’s Future backed Gaetz’s proposal, the SPLC, Engage Miami and nearly two dozen attendees signaled opposition to it.
Teacher Tessa Barber, an organizing fellow with United Faculty of Florida, called SB 140 an attack on worker autonomy, students and the “world-class education in the state of Florida.”
“This bill creates undue, unnecessary interference in the functioning of our public schools,” she said. “Chartering opens doors for corruption by removing oversight into the organizations and providers employed by the charter school, meaning contractors are able to rake in profits without consideration for the students’ well-being on the taxpayer dime.”
Gaetz offered a perspective on the issue similar to one Andrade has expressed during the committee process.
“The entirety of Florida educational policy is wrapped around parental choice,” he said. “This is a parental choice.”
Jesse Scheckner has covered South Florida with a focus on Miami-Dade County since 2012. His work has been recognized by the Hearst Foundation, Society of Professional Journalists, Florida Society of News Editors, Florida MMA Awards and Miami New Times. Email him at Jesse@FloridaPolitics.com and follow him on Twitter @JesseScheckner.