{"id":19399,"date":"2025-10-24T19:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T19:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/19399\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T19:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T19:42:08","slug":"charter-school-company-hopes-to-operate-within-25-duval-public-schools-jax-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/19399\/","title":{"rendered":"Charter school company hopes to operate within 25 Duval public schools : Jax Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami-based charter school operator Mater Academy, which is targeting school districts across the state under the expanded \u201cSchools of Hope\u201d program, has major plans for Duval County, according to a report from our news partner, Jacksonville Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to documents Jacksonville Today received from the district through a public records request, Duval County Public Schools received letters<\/a> from Mater Academy<\/a> detailing its plans to open charters inside 25 existing schools, which the company referred to as \u201cunderused\/vacant\/surplus\u201d facilities.<\/p>\n

The move takes advantage of recent expansions to Florida\u2019s Schools of Hope program<\/a>, which allows a handful of charter operators to move into neighborhoods served by struggling traditional public schools. <\/p>\n

New rules compel districts to allow \u201cSchools of Hope\u201d to use district buildings rent-free, and to allow existing schools to share common areas and resources with the private operators.<\/p>\n

The letters from Mater, dated Oct. 8, asked the district to provide the schools\u2019 floor plans and to allow Mater before- and after-hours access to the buildings \u201cfor facility tours and vendor walkthroughs.\u201d <\/p>\n

News4JAX previously reported on similar letters sent to the St. Johns County School District<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to Jacksonville Today\u2019s reporting, the 25 Duval County schools Mater Academy identified are mostly elementaries, four of which have closed during district consolidations<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Of the remaining 21, more than 75% are in School Districts 4 and 5<\/a>, represented by Darryl Willie and Reggie Blount, and which include Northwest Jacksonville and a large swath of the Northside.<\/p>\n

Eight of the schools are at more than 50% student capacity. Four are at above 60%. Highland Estates Academy is at 99%.<\/p>\n

All but one, George Washington Carver Elementary, received a C grade or better last year. Two of the schools \u2014 Pickett and Rufus E. Payne elementaries \u2014 received A grades from the state last year. Carver is already scheduled to consolidate with Payne<\/a> and close soon.<\/p>\n

Of the 25 schools Mater Academy named, only seven were designated by the state this year as persistently low performing<\/a>. Sixteen schools that were labeled as persistently low-performing were not selected by Mater Academy. <\/p>\n

Mater says the schools in Duval County will open in August 2027, and the company projects it will have enrolled more than 11,000 Duval students within five years. <\/p>\n

Because the district receives about $9,000 per student in state funding, Mater Academy\u2019s proposal could divert almost $100 million away from Duval\u2019s traditional public schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo decisions have been made, and we are carefully reviewing these requests in accordance with state law,\u201d Duval Schools spokesperson Arwen FitzGerald tells Jacksonville Today.<\/p>\n

For the full list of schools and more on this story, visit JaxToday.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami-based charter school operator Mater Academy, which is targeting school districts across the state under the expanded \u201cSchools…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7093,1039,113,28,116,118,117,14229,7535],"class_list":{"0":"post-19399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-charter-schools","9":"tag-duval-county","10":"tag-education","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","14":"tag-jacksonville-news","15":"tag-jacksonville-today","16":"tag-mater-academy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19399","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=19399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}