<\/p>\n
A charter school operator has notified Duval Schools of its intention to claim space in more than two dozen public school buildings for its own schools, according to documents Jacksonville Today received from the district through a public records request.<\/p>\n
The documents show Duval Schools received letters<\/a> from Miami-based 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. 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, 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 Mater says the schools will open in August 2027, and the company projects it will have enrolled more than 11,000 Duval students within five years. 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 Which schools?<\/p>\n The 25 Jacksonville schools Mater Academy identified are mostly elementaries, four of which have closed during district consolidations<\/a>. 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 The state of Florida has approved six vendors for the Schools of Hope program. Duval Schools spokesperson FitzGerald says so far only Mater Academy has \u201cexpressed interest in our DCPS campuses.\u201d IDEA Public Schools already operates two Schools of Hope charter schools in the district and is constructing a third. <\/p>\n Around the state<\/p>\n School districts across the state have received similar notices<\/a>, though Duval appears to have received more than most. Local media outlets report Broward County received<\/a> 27, while Hillsborough County<\/a> received \u201cnearly 30.\u201d Both have about 50% more traditional schools than Duval. St. Johns County received one letter<\/a> of intent from Mater. <\/p>\n The new rules leave school districts with few options, as they\u2019re mostly required to approve Schools of Hope applications like Mater Academy\u2019s. (Though some districts say Mater Academy sent the notices too early<\/a>, it\u2019s unclear what impact that timing might have.)<\/p>\n This week, Indian River County\u2019s superintendent, who was named the 2025 Florida Superintendent of the Year, characterized Schools of Hope as a \u201cthreat to local control\u201d and asked his community to push back, according to Sebastian Daily<\/a>. In Sarasota County, which received three letters from Mater Academy, a school board member called it a \u201chostile takeover.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Angie Gallo, president of the Florida School Boards Association, said in an email to Jacksonville Today that the association is \u201cclosely monitoring\u201d the Schools of Hope proposals. She says they\u2019re \u201cconducting a comprehensive review\u201d on what it will mean for school districts across the state.<\/p>\n \u201cWe remain committed to transparency and accountability to Florida\u2019s taxpayers,\u201d wrote Gallo, who also sits on the Orange County School Board<\/a>. \u201cAll future actions will carefully consider the impact on district overall budgets and long-term facility planning.\u201d<\/p>\n On Wednesday at a press conference in Sarasota, reporters asked Gov. Ron DeSantis about the concerns that district leaders there have raised<\/a>. He pushed back on the criticism, saying the charter schools aren\u2019t \u201centitled to any students\u201d and would have to win parents\u2019 support. <\/p>\n \u201cIf those schools aren\u2019t doing the job, then parents are going to choose to go elsewhere,\u201d DeSantis said. \u201cAnd I think what our school districts have had to do is they\u2019ve had to innovate, they\u2019ve had to offer more choices to parents.\u201d<\/p>\n What is Mater Academy? <\/p>\n Mater Academy was founded in the late 1990s by Fernando Zulueta. It\u2019s a nonprofit that, according to its website<\/a>, now operates 44 charter schools, most of which are in South Florida.\u00a0According to its website, Mater specializes in a college preparatory curriculum. \u201cWe are especially proud of the success of our students which are historically underrepresented in college. For us, helping low income students and creating first generation college graduates is a core part of our mission,\u201d the school says<\/a>. <\/p>\n Mater Academy\u2019s parent company, Academica, is a for-profit company<\/a> that operates a large network of charter schools and is an influential player in Florida\u2019s school choice politics. Campaign finance records show Academica donated $100,000 to Florida Federation for Children, a political organization run by John Kirtley, the founder of Step Up for Students, which administers Florida\u2019s school choice voucher programs.<\/p>\n In 2018, Academica made a $14,000 contribution to a different Jacksonville-based PAC called Inform Florida. Days later, Inform Florida made two $4,750 expenditures in Duval County School District races, including one labeled as specifically for District 6 at the time that current board Chair Charlotte Joyce was competing with Dave Chauncey<\/a> for her seat.<\/p>\n In total, Duval County has more than 40 charter schools, which are tuition-free public schools operated by various nonprofit and for-profit operators. <\/p>\n The post Charter school company hopes to operate within 25 Duval public schools<\/a> appeared first on Jacksonville Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A charter school operator has notified Duval Schools of its intention to claim space in more than two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[749,16686,116,118,117,14229,266,748],"class_list":["post-21026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-breaking-news","tag-charter-school-company-hopes-to-operate-within-25-duval-public-schools","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jacksonville-today","tag-local-news","tag-newsbreak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21026","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=21026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n