{"id":166857,"date":"2026-02-24T12:28:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T12:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/166857\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T12:28:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T12:28:38","slug":"changes-approved-to-schools-of-hope-critics-say-not-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/166857\/","title":{"rendered":"Changes approved to Schools of Hope, critics say not enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Changes are coming to Florida\u2019s Schools of Hope<\/a> program after a vote by the State Board of Education on Friday. Schools of Hope allows certain charter schools to co-locate in schools deemed under capacity.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Once nicknamed \u201cSchools of Nope\u201d by critics, the state\u2019s Board of Education is making some changes to the controversial Schools of Hope<\/a> program
\n
Some changes include defining what counts as vacant space, saying a school would have to be under 75% capacity, and that schools less than four years old can\u2019t be targets
\n
There are differences of opinion on whether the changes are enough<\/p>\n

The board voted unanimously on the changes, saying it made them in response to concerns brought up by school board members across the state, but some education advocates say the fixes don\u2019t go far enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once nicknamed \u201cSchools of Nope\u201d by critics, the state\u2019s Board of Education is making some changes to the controversial Schools of Hope program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s missing the component that allows parents, community members, (and) teachers to come together, create a plan, to control what we can,\u201d said Damaris Allen.<\/p>\n

Allen is the executive director of Families for Strong Public Schools. She spoke at Friday\u2019s State Board of Education meeting in Key West ahead of the vote and says the changes they made aren\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t settle for what small incremental changes we\u2019ve been given. We should absolutely demand that our students have every opportunity to succeed, and this pulls away their opportunities,\u201d said Allen.<\/p>\n

Some changes include defining what counts as vacant space, saying a school would have to be under 75% capacity, and that schools less than four years old can\u2019t be targets. There is also a restriction now on how many notices of intent to co-locate a charter can send, and one of the bigger changes is allowing districts to charge school operators for some of the added costs of co-location.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis doesn\u2019t even take effect until the ’27 – ’28 school year, and so the hysteria was overly dramatized,”\u00a0said Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas. “But the adults again, in the room, the school board members who demonstrate true leadership skills and work with us behind the scenes to make sure we get this to a place, that not just helps out the districts, but makes sure students’ opportunities are not limited. I think this landed in a great spot, and that is what we appreciate at the department.”<\/p>\n

Allen disagrees. She says that even with the changes, school districts will incur costs with co-location and the system is still first-come, first-serve, meaning fewer choices for public school families.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a step in the right direction, but it isn\u2019t where we need to be, it isn\u2019t where parents want us to be, and so that is still a huge concern,\u201d said Allen.<\/p>\n

Schools of Hope co-location is set to take effect in the 2027-28 school year.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Changes are coming to Florida\u2019s Schools of Hope program after a vote by the State Board…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4996,274,113,5711,276,2200,115,135,137,136,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-166857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-education","tag-app-top-stories","tag-education","tag-fallon-silcox","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}