Jesse Scheckner- Alex Andrade
- Americans for Prosperity
- charter school
- Charter school conversion
- Charter school conversions
- charter schools
- Conversion charter
- Conversion charters
- Don Gaetz
- education
- Engage Miami
- Foundation for Florida’s Future
- HB 123
- Lori Berman
- Rosalind Osgood
- SB 140
- SPLC
- Tessa Barber
- Tracie Davis
- United Faculty of Florida
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.”
5 comments
Michael K
April 16, 2025 at 8:14 pm
Florida has the second-highest failure rate for charter schools in the nation. These schools can also reject students with disabilities, placing a further burden on the very public schools that see funding siphoned off into charter schools. There are serious issues with a lack of oversight and accountability – especially with the for-profit schools – and a system lagued by mismanagement and weak governance.
But sure, if your goal is to destroy public education, this fits in the scheme.
PeterH
April 17, 2025 at 12:02 pm
As usual, thoughtful post Michael.
Alice Jones
April 17, 2025 at 2:08 am
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LexT
April 17, 2025 at 10:05 am
Some charter schools are great. Other charters schools are nightmares that no one should be putting their kids in. As bad as some public schools may be, all of them are better than the bad charter schools. Be careful.
Victoria Olson
April 17, 2025 at 2:51 pm
The bad news is Charter schools can hire people who DO NOT HAVE TEACHING CERTIFICATIONS. Do you want your children to learn from non professionals? This is the goal of Project 2025 is to have a Fascist regime to give trump the power, this is a step out of the HITLER playbook to destroy the education system and install their propaganda agenda. Their plan is to take the TRUTH out of History and teach racism and other egregious subjects.
are just another front of DeSantis’s war on public education.
This is a long-running GOP platform. Florida just decided to become the GOP laboratory for this stupid shit. I don’t want to generalize all charter schools: some of these charters might be providing good care and education. And some may be doing it for the right reasons. However, there’s plenty of evidence suggesting a lot more are just in it for money and/or to help completely undermine public schooling all together.
Florida continually finds ways to attempt to make teachers’ lives miserable through the parental rights bullshit, and underpay them, which then makes less people want to become teachers. Now that public school you’re sending your child to is most likely overworking a handful of teachers who can barely afford to be one to begin with, resulting in, most likely, an education that is not ideal because a handful of teachers are teaching numerous classes with a kneecapped curriculum from the self-described “party of small government.” Then, they keep pushing bills through the legislature under the guise of trying to make education better when it’s really just to undermine public school education all together — How? 20% of charter schools are run by a for-profit company, and just over 50% of these charters in Florida are run for profit. Charter schools were closing by the droves before the pandemic. A local Tampa station did an investigation years ago because Florida wasn’t being transparent about why they were closing and found a lot of the people involved with charter schools didn’t even have a background in education. They also usually ended up closing down because of lack of oversight on finances. Since the pandemic, they’ve gotten more popular. And as recently as last month, Florida legislature was trying to make it easier convert failed schools to charter schools, not because they want better education but because the optics it brings towards public schools being failures.
Something no one has considered; will the amount we pay for schools be taken off our property taxes if this bill passes & all schools become Charter Schools, I certainly won’t want to pay for education for PROFIT schools!? DeSantan Never thinks about the consequences of their actions