JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 For the first time, the Duval County school board has made a public, unified stance against the Florida Department of Education\u2019s (FLDOE) recent \u2018Schools of Hope\u2019 expansion.<\/p>\n
The FLDOE said that the \u2018Schools of Hope\u2019 program started as a way of providing students with access to charter schools in areas with low-performing public schools. Last year, we reported when state lawmakers expanded the program to allow charter schools to move into, or \u201cco-locate\u201d in, public schools for free, if there is enough physical space to do so.<\/p>\n
Back in October, we reported when the Miami-based \u201cMater Academy\u201d charter school operator applied to move into 25 public schools in Duval County. This week, school board members shared that 23 of those applications have since been withdrawn, meaning that only Merrill Road Elementary and Fort Caroline School of the Arts are being considered as locations for \u2018Schools of Hope.\u2019<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n With state lawmakers set to meet again in Tallahassee this month for the next legislative session, the Duval County school board approved the following list of requested reforms to the \u2018Schools of Hope\u2019 program:<\/p>\n – Refine eligibility criteria so they accurately identify underperforming schools<\/p>\n – Update facility utilization metrics to reflect current classroom and building use,<\/p>\n instructional models, and student enrollment patterns<\/p>\n – Preserve the authority of locally elected school boards to manage district property and<\/p>\n – resources in fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities<\/p>\n – Clarify statutory definitions to provide consistent guidance for both districts and charter operators<\/p>\n Before the approval, close to two dozen parents and public school advocates shared their public comments with school board members, during which almost all of them spoke against Schools of Hope.<\/p>\n But the board approved its list of reforms with a 4-3 vote. No school board members advocated against reforms to the \u2018Schools of Hope\u2019 expansion, but some didn\u2019t see a need to put it on their platform for state lawmakers.<\/p>\n School board chair Charlotte Joyce shared a firm belief that Duval County would not end up seeing any \u2018Schools of Hope\u2019 after the next legislative session, and expressed confidence that the expansion to the statewide program would see major reforms. She argued that adding a call for reform from Duval County Public Schools could overlook the other local needs that will be advocated for.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re wasting your time when you could be advocating for other things,\u201d Joyce said, \u201cthis is going to be fixed.<\/p>\n Other board members, like Darryl Willie, argued that adding \u2018Schools of Hope\u2019 reforms to the district\u2019s legislative platform was too important an opportunity to pass up.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we should all be in favor of [these reforms], because this is detrimental,\u201d Willie said.<\/p>\n School board members said they planned to talk about their proposed \u2018Schools of Hope\u2019 reforms more in-depth during their workshop planned for January 20th.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 For the first time, the Duval County school board has made a public, unified stance…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":498176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,5229,76541,13816,12187,175277,223843,46583,61251,223847,3188,723,134578,223846,2609,11561,7310,425,164614,223845,380,3060,223844,223842,13036,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-498175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-ax_news","11":"tag-ben_becker","12":"tag-duval_county","13":"tag-duval_county_school_board","14":"tag-duval_school_district","15":"tag-finn","16":"tag-finn_carlin","17":"tag-finn_karlin","18":"tag-fl","19":"tag-florida","20":"tag-florida_department_of_education","21":"tag-fort_caroline_school_of_the_arts","22":"tag-hope","23":"tag-jack","24":"tag-jacksonville","25":"tag-local","26":"tag-matter_academy","27":"tag-merrill_road_elementary","28":"tag-miami","29":"tag-schools","30":"tag-schools_of_hope","31":"tag-sneaky_hughes","32":"tag-south_bank","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-united-states-of-america","35":"tag-unitedstates","36":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","37":"tag-us","38":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}