Uncharted Territory: How Sarasota County navigates a growing charter school landscape

When a charter schoolhouse works, it works.

The publically funded, independently tally schools are often subjected to scrutiny, but successful Sarasota County, respective run without issue. Some adjacent thrive.

Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences, for example, deed its stride years ago. An “A” schoolhouse since 2006 aft a batch of “A’s” and “B’s” pursuing its founding successful 1997, SSAS isn’t conscionable 1 of the district’s top-performing charter schools: It’s 1 of the district’s top-performing schools successful general.

Its blueprint is the benignant of innovative, all-encompassing acquisition that the charter schoolhouse conception promised astir 4 decades ago. The schoolhouse offers a slate of clubs, programs and activities to promote students to research their interests.

SSAS Principal Tara Tahmosh, who’s been with the schoolhouse since 2000 and led it since 2012, said the program seeks to foster affectional maturation arsenic overmuch arsenic it does world success.

“We are trying to assistance kids not conscionable person skills and cognition but besides benignant of person immoderate grit, besides make into bully humans,” Tahmosh said. “They’re processing hobbies. They’re processing lifelong loves.”

SSAS has recovered its footing with Sarasota County Schools, Tahmosh said. While the territory provides a charter schoolhouse liaison to facilitate conversations betwixt the territory and its charters, Tahmosh said the territory doesn’t interfere unless needed.

“They are typically hands-off if you don’t request assistance,” Tahmosh said. “If you’re truly struggling, they are trying to help.”

The narration betwixt the territory and its charter schools is thing of a grey area, a "here if you request us, gone if you don't" concern that allows charter schools to mostly spell astir their concern unless involution is needed. With schools similar SSAS, that independency tin beryllium ideal.

The charter schoolhouse scenery is changing, though, arsenic much schools travel into the fold. And arsenic charters encroach connected territory enrollment and resources, they're becoming intolerable to ignore.

More: How bash charter schools enactment successful Sarasota County? Charter schools by the numbers

School prime — the conception that families tin take wherever their pupil attends school based connected their unsocial needs careless of fiscal obstacles oregon different barriers — is gaining traction, and Florida has surged to the forefront of the question with waves of authorities meant to propel choice.

Millie Wheeler, Sarasota County Schools’ supervisor of schoolhouse choice, has seen it hap firsthand.

“School prime is increasing crossed the nation, but surely successful the authorities of Florida,” Wheeler said. “The laws are changing to enactment that.”

Instead of resisting, Sarasota County Schools has adapted to the changing landscape, embracing schoolhouse prime and opting to vie successful a increasing schoolhouse marketplace. But the schoolhouse territory and charter schools aren’t wholly adversarial: With charter schools nether the territory umbrella, the 2 are undeniably intertwined, and the occurrence of each depends connected the show of the other.

Florida's charter schools proceed to grow

It was 1988 erstwhile Al Shanker, past the president of the American Federation of Teachers, had an idea. A new benignant of school, publically funded but independently managed, that would promote teachers to experimentation with however they amended their students.

Charter schools, Shanker envisioned, would escaped educators from the rigid regulations that constrained them. Innovative practices would outpouring from these caller schools, and students of each backgrounds would beryllium privy to top-notch schooling careless of socioeconomic status.

Florida caught connected 8 years later, passing authorities that allows backstage entities to participate into charter agreements with schoolhouse boards. Since that archetypal charter schoolhouse opened its doors successful 1996, hundreds much person sprung up crossed the state.

Now, Florida has much than 730 charter schools with astir 400,00 students.

In Sarasota County, that fig is up to 14 and growing. These are Sarasota County’s charter schools by the numbers:

• College Preparatory astatine Wellen Park: 417 students, grades K-8

• Dreamers Academy: 528 students, grades K-5

• Imagine School astatine North Port: 1,221 students, grades K-12

• Imagine School astatine Palmer Ranch: 432 students, grades K-8

• Island Village Montessori School: 528 students, grades K-8

• Sarasota Academy of the Arts: 190 students, grades K-8

• Sarasota Military Academy: 985 students, grades 6-12

• Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences: 745 students, grades 6-8

• Sarasota Suncoast Academy, 822 students, grades K-8

• State College of Florida Collegiate School, 285 students, grades 9-12

• SKY Academy Englewood, 321 students, grades 6-8

• SKY Academy Venice, 285 students, grades 6-8

• Student Leadership Academy, 326 students, grades 6-3

• Suncoast School for Innovative Studies, 93 students, grades K-5

The perfect is astir utopic, but the world is simply a small murkier.

Charter schools bash person nationalist funding, but autarkic fundraising often makes up the quality for costs that authorities and territory allocations can’t cover. Charter schools are unfastened to each students successful the district, but immoderate cater to circumstantial demographics oregon areas of study. And though charter schools conception their ain curriculums autarkic of the schoolhouse district, their students are inactive held to the aforesaid authorities standards successful reading, mathematics and different tested areas.

Recent authorities has opened the floodgates for adjacent much charter schools to unfastened crossed Florida. If a territory denies a charter exertion and that charter appeals to the state, for example, the territory is connected the hook for the charter’s ineligible fees. The regularisation has deterred districts from rejecting charters: If a authorities overturn is inevitable, it’s wiser to prevention the wealth and o.k. the charter outright.

That occurred successful Sarasota County past March erstwhile the Sarasota School Board approved a charter exertion 4-1 for the Sarasota Classical Preparatory Academy contempt reservations from committee members. The schoolhouse is acceptable to invited 1,100 students successful the 2026-2027 schoolhouse year.

More: Sarasota charter schoolhouse person to Fruitville Road operation aft readying committee vote

School Board subordinate Tom Edwards said the authorities that cleared the mode for the caller schoolhouse strips the committee of its agency.

“The committee is handcuffed,” Edwards said. “Choice is present to stay, and that bid has near the station.”

Risk and reward

The liberty of a charter schoolhouse to trade its ain program and negociate its ain operations is simply a cardinal selling constituent for imaginable charter applicants. Dan Kennedy, founding main of the Sarasota Military Academy, said his schoolhouse thrived due to the fact that of the independence.

A erstwhile Sarasota High School principal, Kennedy recovered himself connecting with the Reserve Officer Training Core, oregon ROTC, students. He decided a schoolhouse afloat of them — polite, driven, sharply dressed — wasn’t a half-bad idea.

Kennedy implemented the innovative cognition he’d developed astatine Sarasota High erstwhile the subject academy opened successful 2002, particularly erstwhile it came to fiscal management. While astatine Sarasota High, the territory gave him a lump sum and allowed him to prosecute his attraction services astatine his discretion alternatively of assigning him district-chosen providers. At the extremity of the schoolhouse year, Kennedy had $75,000 to spare.

“That sold maine connected the conception of charter schools,” Kennedy said. “The state to spell into the marketplace and bargain things, to plan a program that is innovative yet structured.”

But with fiscal and acquisition state besides comes risk. If the schoolhouse starts to gaffe financially, it’s hard to ascent out.

Fayth Jenkins, main astatine Suncoast School for Innovative Studies, recovered herself successful a pugnacious spot erstwhile she took the helm successful 2022. The schoolhouse fell into fiscal situation post-pandemic with a nonaccomplishment of students and consequent funding, and it was up to Jenkins to determination the needle backmost into the positive.

The school’s grades had besides slipped during this time, hovering betwixt a “C” and a “D” from 2013 onward. In the aftermath of Suncoast School’s struggles, the territory instituted a corrective enactment program that the schoolhouse is successful the process of carrying out.

Suncoast School has been connected the upswing recently, 1 of 3 charter schools to amended its people from the 2022-23 schoolhouse twelvemonth to the 2023-24 year. Fundraising efforts person besides proved successful, Jenkins said, with But successful the throes of crisis, Jenkins said she had to support her charter to the territory oregon look closure.

Though the schoolhouse territory has guided Suncoast School successful its rebound, Jenkins said the process has been mostly up to her and her staff.

“We’re a ‘D’ school, we person nary donorship, our enrollment is low,” Jenkins said. “There isn’t thing other to bash but rotation your sleeves up.”

Charter schools and schoolhouse districts are intertwined

This independency from territory standards, erstwhile it’s successful, is portion of the charter schoolhouse appeal. But the ties aren’t wholly severed.

Charter schools inhabit a tricky benignant of in-between — fractional independent, fractional nether the territory umbrella. School districts don’t dictate charter schoolhouse curriculum, but charter schoolhouse students are inactive subjected to authorities standardized testing, and their performances play into the district’s wide grade.

In the 2023-24 schoolhouse year, 51 schools successful Sarasota County averaged a schoolhouse people of 65.3% from the authorities Department of Education. The county’s 14 charter schools averaged 61.6%, and removing them from the equation bumps the territory mean up to 66.4%.

It’s a quality of lone a fewer points, but that minutia is critical: The threshold for an “A” people is 62% percent. If section charter schools made up their ain schoolhouse district, that territory would person a “B.”

But, similar accepted nationalist schools, charter schoolhouse show isn’t uniform. And a wide part betwixt accepted nationalist schoolhouse show and charter schoolhouse show is nonexistent.

Student Leadership Academy’s people of 76 was the sixth highest of each the schools successful the district, instantly followed by State College of Florida Collegiate School’s people astatine 75. Both Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences and Sarasota Suncoast Academy ended up successful the apical 20. And the bottommost 10 scores saw an adjacent five-five divided betwixt charter schools and accepted nationalist schools.

The territory and its charter schools are monetarily intertwined arsenic well, with a information of the district’s $1.7 cardinal fund for this schoolhouse twelvemonth allocated to charters. Thanks to the mode authorities backing works, charter schools person seen much backing arsenic enrollment has grown.

The Florida Education Finance Program, which dictates backing allocations from the authorities to each of its 67 schoolhouse districts, calculates however overmuch a territory receives based connected the fig of students enrolled. The fig is called a Full Time Equivalent, oregon FTE, and it changes with the colonisation of a schoolhouse district.

Sarasota County’s FTE allocation for the 2024-25 schoolhouse twelvemonth was $14,669 per pupil erstwhile adjusted for inflation, according to the schoolhouse district’s 2024-25 budget. The full allocation has climbed arsenic enrollment crossed the territory has accrued — and, arsenic charter schools person seen the biggest percent leap successful enrollment implicit the past fewer years, they’ve been important benefactors.

Purchased services for charter schools person steadily grown implicit the past 5 years, jumping 31% from the 2020-21 fund to the 2024-25 budget. The district’s 2023-2024 fund allocated an further $10 cardinal to charters with the summation of College Preparatory astatine Wellen Park.

But there’s nary nonstop correlation betwixt a charter school’s summation and a accepted nationalist school’s loss, Sarasota County Schools CFO Bonnie Penner said. While it’s existent that accepted nationalist schools person much backing with much students, an exiting pupil from a accepted nationalist schoolhouse besides represents an exiting cost.

“I’ve heard sometimes folks say, ‘Well, you’re losing this wealth to backstage schools oregon to charter schools,’” Penner said. “It’s not a one-to-one ratio successful that each dollar that goes to a charter is simply a dollar lost.”

The interplay betwixt the schoolhouse territory and charter schools has raised questions of accountability that nary 1 tin look to hold on. Traditional nationalist schoolhouse proponents reason a schoolhouse territory doesn’t person capable powerfulness to decently close the vessel of a wayward charter school, portion charter schoolhouse administrators accidental they’re held accountable from each angle.

State statute outlines respective circumstances successful which a territory tin shutter a charter school, namely if they neglect to enactment successful the state’s accountability system, neglect to conscionable accepted fiscal absorption standards, interruption the instrumentality oregon show “other bully cause.” But adjacent extracurricular ineligible guidelines, supporters accidental charter schools are ne'er wholly harmless from a shutdown.

Lynn Norman-Teck, enforcement manager for the Florida Charter School Alliance, said parents and students clasp the charter accountable conscionable arsenic overmuch arsenic a territory sponsor does. If the charter fails to conscionable pupil needs, she said, the schoolhouse volition inevitably shutter.

“Parents volition locomotion distant if you’re not gathering your ngo and vision,” Norman-Teck said. “That’s your funding. Your backing follows the child.”

School prime incites competition

School prime buy-in has grown with authorities authorities support. Since Gov. Ron DeSantis established cosmopolitan schoolhouse prime successful 2023, more than 1.4 cardinal Florida students person utilized a schoolhouse prime program.

The headwinds stroke successful favour of schoolhouse prime nationally, too. The Trump Administration precocious directed the departments of labour and acquisition to explore directing much nationalist backing toward charter schools, backstage schools and different alternate options successful the sanction of increasing schoolhouse choice.

The expanding scenery means Sarasota County Schools person had to vie with alternate schoolhouse options similar backstage schools, virtual schoolhouse and, yes, charter schools. The territory has poured wealth into selling initiatives to pull and clasp students, launching an online magazine, a podcast and a caller slate of video contented connected its YouTube transmission since Superintendent Connor took the occupation successful 2023.

"We person to run similar a business," Connor said. "With the enlargement of schoolhouse choice, we person to deliberation much business-oriented."

The conflict for students is 1 accepted nationalist schools are inactive winning handily. According to the 2024-25 budget, 69% of Sarasota County Schools’ 49,962 students enrolled successful a accepted elementary, mediate oregon precocious school.

Connor said he’s assured accepted nationalist schools volition proceed to beryllium the superior choice. While charter schools connection immoderate programs that accepted schools lack, similar a dual connection program oregon precocious STEM options, Connor said the district’s mastery of the basics volition proceed to pull students.

"It's a contention approach," Connor said. "Choice is important. I privation to beryllium the choice."

Charter schools, meanwhile, inactive look an uphill battle. Once a charter schoolhouse finds a groove and builds assemblage confidence, it tin tally uninterrupted. But it has to beryllium itself to get there.

And if it doesn’t, SSAS Principal Tahmosh said, determination isn’t overmuch of a information net.

“It creates this endurance instinct,” Tahmosh said. “You person to marque it. Nobody’s going to prevention us.”

Contact Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Heather Bushman astatine [email protected]. Follow her connected Twitter @hmb_1013.

This nonfiction primitively appeared connected Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Charter schools are growing. How Sarasota County is handling it