{"id":85418,"date":"2025-12-16T16:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T16:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/85418\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T16:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T16:10:07","slug":"private-and-charter-schools-booming-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/85418\/","title":{"rendered":"Private and Charter Schools Booming in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jupiter Christian School,\u00a0located\u00a022 miles north of Palm Beach, Florida, has\u00a0700 students<\/a>\u00a0on their waiting list. The head of Grandview Prep, also near Palm Beach,\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0that the number of applications to private schools\u00a0in the area\u00a0increased by almost\u00a050%\u00a0between\u00a02017-2018 and 2022-2023. A charter school that\u00a0serves<\/a>\u00a0students in grades K-8 near the heart of Orlando reports\u00a0just\u00a0three open seats and only across the 6th-8th\u00a0grades.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In sum: There is high\u00a0demand<\/a>\u00a0for private schools and public charter schools in Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, at least\u00a0two\u00a0traditional\u00a0school districts\u00a0in Florida\u00a0are\u00a0reporting thousands of open seats, and taxpayers are paying for school buildings with declining enrollment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last\u00a0week, Orange County Public School officials announced that so many students are leaving the district that administrators could close seven buildings\u2014paving the way for private and charter school operators to gain access to the facilities. One Orange County middle school on the list of underused buildings has\u00a0more<\/a>\u00a0than 900 open seats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, around\u00a0the country, public school districts have been notorious<\/a>\u00a0for holding on to underused or even vacant facilities\u00a0so private schools and charter schools cannot use the buildings. Heritage Foundation research has documented examples from\u00a0Detroit<\/a>, where the city\u2019s public school district blocked charter school operators from accessing a building the school district did not even own.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Between 2010 and 2017, the Tucson Unified School\u00a0District was maintaining\u00a0at least a\u00a0half-dozen closed district school buildings, even as the district had some 13,000\u00a0empty<\/a>\u00a0seats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pew Research\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0that Philadelphia closed 30 schools between 2010 and 2015 and found dozens of vacant buildings in Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, to name just a few\u00a0states<\/a>\u00a0identified\u00a0in their research.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida lawmakers\u00a0have adopted provisions that\u00a0prevent\u00a0public school boards from holding on to vacant school\u00a0buildings. Not only do empty buildings become an unnecessary expense for taxpayers, but the facilities can be objects of vandalism\u00a0and\u00a0attract other forms of crime.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Under state law, public\u00a0charter schools<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0operate\u00a0in areas with low performing traditional schools can be\u00a0designated\u00a0as\u00a0\u201cschools of hope\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and access empty public school buildings. The traditional district would still\u00a0be responsible for\u00a0facility costs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida lawmakers could give\u00a0parents\u00a0and\u00a0children still more great\u00a0options<\/a> for a child\u2019s education\u00a0by\u00a0expediting\u00a0the process by which private school leaders could\u00a0purchase\u00a0these properties.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0combination of\u00a0parents\u00a0seeking\u00a0great learning options for their children\u00a0and more vacant public-school facilities creates exciting education\u00a0possibilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For example,\u00a0innovative educators should see\u00a0the vacant\u00a0buildings as an opportunity to expand the number of\u00a0private\u00a0classical schools. Surveys find that parents want\u00a0character<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0virtue<\/a>\u00a0taught more in schools, as well as a greater emphasis on\u00a0civics<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Classical schools focus on developing responsibility and manners in young students and design their curricula around\u00a0great books, rhetoric, memorization, and etiquette\u2014instruction\u00a0that\u00a0is\u00a0noticeably absent from traditional\u00a0public-school\u00a0classrooms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Orange County school board members are looking for ways to prevent schools of hope from accessing their buildings, but state lawmakers and\u00a0parents should not let them get away with acts of subterfuge. <\/p>\n

The\u00a0burgeoning\u00a0enrollment figures in the state\u2019s ESAs, along with long waiting lists for private schools and public charter\u00a0schools\u00a0are\u00a0evidence that parents are looking for more than what assigned schools offer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida policymakers\u00a0should\u00a0take note of the evidence from other states and prevent\u00a0school district administrators\u00a0from\u00a0hoarding empty school buildings.\u00a0Officials should see the facilities as opportunities for new private or public\u00a0charter\u00a0school\u00a0learning opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jupiter Christian School,\u00a0located\u00a022 miles north of Palm Beach, Florida, has\u00a0700 students\u00a0on their waiting list. The head of Grandview…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113,9535,28,30,29,7538],"class_list":{"0":"post-85418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-education","9":"tag-education-choice","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-florida-headlines","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-school-choice"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85418","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=85418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}