Legislature passes bill to ease public-to-charter school conversions, ban student cellphone use

TALLAHASSEE, FLA. 3/08/22-Sen. Danny Burgess, Jr., R-Zephyrhills, speaks in favor of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill prior to the Senate approving it, Tuesday at the Capitol in Tallahassee. COLIN HACKLEY PHOTO

In the latter hours of what was to be the last day of Session, lawmakers agreed on the final form of a bloated education bill comprising a patchwork of multiple measures that failed to pass on their own.

Zephyrhills Republican Sen. Danny Burgess referred to the bill (HB 1105), the product of committee substitutes from three separate panels and the office of Lakeland Republican Rep. Jennifer Kincart Johnson, as an “amazingly big education train.”

It passed 26-5 in the Senate at 9:35 p.m. Friday and 85-14 in the House two hours earlier. Only Democrats voted “no.”

The measure includes considerations for kindergarten, college and every education level. It also impacts public, private and charter schools.

Perhaps most notably, it contains language from legislation by Sen. Don Gaetz and Alex Andrade, both Pensacola Republicans, to make it easier to convert public schools into charter schools.

The bill, effective July 1, modifies 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 delete a requirement that at least half the teachers employed at a given school approve the conversion.

That decision will instead fall solely to parents with children currently enrolled at the school, and only a majority of them would have to support the change.

HB 1105 also allows 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.

Florida Statutes provide that “A” schools are making excellent progress, “B” schools are making above-average progress, “C” schools are making average progress, and “D” and “F” schools are falling behind. And according to the Florida Education Association, which opposes SB 140, public schools serving high-poverty communities are rated one grade higher, on average, than their charter counterparts.

The bill also expands Florida’s 2023 ban on public school students using social media and mobile devices during class to include a total ban on the devices in school from kindergarten to 8th grade.

That portion, taken from legislation (SB 1296, SB 1702) that Burgess filed, also includes provisions for a pilot program to test a cellphone ban on students in grades 9-12 in six school districts that partner with the Department of Education.

There’s a lot more. Among other things, the bill:

— Requires school districts to proportionally share discretionary surtax revenue with charter schools based on enrollment, a provision originally in legislation (SB 1702, HB 1115) by Burgess and Tampa Republican Rep. Susan Valdés.

— Allows private schools in a county with four municipalities to construct new facilities without seeking rezoning or adhering to mitigation requirements.

— Transfers the Florida Council on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys from the Department of Legal Affairs to Florida Memorial University, a change proposed initially through legislation (SB 626, HB 197) by Tamarac Democratic Sen. Rosalind Osgood, Homestead Democratic Rep. Kevin Chambliss, and Deltona Republican Rep. Webster Barnaby.

Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman noted that during committee talks about the charter school conversion part of the bill, many lawmakers and educators expressed concerns about excluding teachers and school personnel from the decision.

“That provision around charter schools being able to do a conversion without any administrative or teacher input is really troubling to me,” she said. “I am not going to be able to support the bill because of that provision.”

Osgood and fellow Democratic Sens. Kristen Arrington, Tracie Davis and Carlos G. Smith joined her in voting against the measure.

Scores of people spoke against the legislation during the Committee process; also opposing the bill are the Florida AFL-CIO, State Innovation Exchange, Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards, Orange County Public Schools, SPLC and Engage Miami.

Supporters include the Florida Citizens Alliance, Americans for Prosperity and Foundation for Florida’s Future.

Andrade said the change reflects Florida’s recent focus on shifting decisions about a school’s future from its employees and administrators to those he and others consider its most important stakeholders. “Who cares more about that child than that child’s parents?” he said.

Teacher Tessa Barber, an organizing fellow with United Faculty of Florida, called the proposal 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 can rake in profits without consideration for the students’ well-being on the taxpayer dime.”

Karen Mazzola of the Florida PTA said that while the legislation has no listed fiscal impact, it will nevertheless come at a potentially large cost to community stakeholders whom the measure aims to exclude.

“Schools affect our property value, affect why we want to live in a certain area of town,” she said. ‘Those people need to be part of this decision.”

And what happens if the new charter school performs no better — or worse — than the public school it replaced?

“There’s nothing in this bill,” Mazzola said, “that says, ‘How do we revert back?’”

The proposal encountered similar opposition in the House, where Gainesville Democratic Rep. Yvonne Hinson noted that municipalities can already seek the development of new charter schools within their bounds. There’s no need to do more, she argued.

“What we’re watching in real time is a full-throttled takeover of our public schools,” she said. “Every year, it gets deeper and deeper, and here we are now.”

As of February 2024, Florida had 23 conversion charter schools, accounting for about 3.2% of the state’s 726 charter schools. Most were previously low-performing public schools that parents and teachers agreed to convert.

HB 1105 comes just over a year after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a sweeping education package (HB 1285) that, among other things, created a route to expedite the conversion of failing traditional public schools — those that receive two straight “D” or “F” grades — into charter schools.

Florida’s school vouchers program, which lawmakers expanded in 2023, is projected to divert nearly $4 billion this year from public education to provide students with financial assistance for school costs, including private school tuition.

The bill will next go to DeSantis’ desk, where he can sign it, veto it or allow it to become law without his signature.