{"id":96634,"date":"2025-12-26T21:19:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T21:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/96634\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T21:19:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T21:19:06","slug":"number-of-duval-county-schools-targeted-as-schools-of-hope-down-to-2-jax-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/96634\/","title":{"rendered":"Number of Duval County schools targeted as Schools of Hope down to 2: Jax Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Months after saying it was planning to open charters inside 25 existing Duval County public schools under the \u201cSchools of Hope\u201d law, Miami-based Mater Academy withdrew 23 of those letters of intent this month, according to a report from our news partner, Jacksonville Today.<\/a><\/p>\n

Only Merrill Road Elementary and Fort Caroline School of the Arts remain \u201cunder active review\u201d as potential locations for the charter school operator, Jax Today learned.<\/p>\n

Mater\u2019s move to share space in those schools 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

Letters from Mater in October targeted 25 schools across DCPS<\/a>, but on Dec. 12, the district received notices from Mater withdrawing 23 of those letters of intent, district spokesperson Laureen Ricks confirmed to Jacksonville Today this week<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The withdrawal came \u201cthrough sustained engagement and advocacy by both the School Board and the District,\u201d Ricks wrote in an email to\u00a0Jacksonville Today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ricks told Jax Today that Duval Schools is now evaluating the remaining two notices \u201cin full compliance with (Florida) Senate Bill 2510 and applicable state guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe District and School Board will continue to advocate on behalf of our students, families, and schools,\u201d Ricks wrote. \u201cTransparent communication remains a priority, and updates will be shared as the process moves forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Mater Academy\u2019s for-profit parent company, Academica, and Mater Academy President Roberto Blanch did not respond to requests for comment from Jax Today.<\/p>\n

For more on the two schools still being targeted by Mater as \u201cSchools of Hope,\u201d visit JaxToday.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Months after saying it was planning to open charters inside 25 existing Duval County public…\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-96634","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\/96634","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=96634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96634\/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=96634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}