TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Senate committee Tuesday approved a proposal that could help expand the use of “schools of hope,” a type of charter school, in areas with low-performing traditional public schools.
The Senate Pre-K-12 Appropriations Committee voted 6-1 to support the bill (SB 1708) filed by Sen. Alexis Calatayud, R-Miami. According to a Senate staff analysis, Florida has 12 schools of hope, which operate in the attendance zones or within five miles of what are considered “persistently low-performing” public schools.
The bill, in part, would expand a state law definition of persistently low-performing schools. Under the proposal, that designation would begin to apply to public schools that have been in the bottom 10 percent of schools statewide for student performance on third-grade standardized English-language arts or math exams in at least two of the previous three years.
The staff analysis said the change would “greatly increase the number of schools being designated as persistently low-performing schools” and, as a result, increase the areas where Schools of Hope could operate.
“This creates a pathway for more high-performing, high-outcome (schools of hope) operators to enter into communities,” Calatayud said. Sen. Rosalind Osgood, a Tamarac Democrat who cast the only dissenting vote, raised questions about whether the lowest-performing students would be able to get spots in the schools of hope.
The bill must clear the Senate Rules Committee before it can proceed to the full Senate. Two subcommittees have approved a House version (HB 1267), which is pending in the House Education & Employment Committee.
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