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Our Schools

Nine more charter schools are on horizon

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published September 15, 2006

If the numbers are any indication, people like choosing their own schools.

This year, 12,874 Hillsborough students are enrolled in 23 magnet programs outside their traditional attendance zone, representing 6.7 percent of the student population.

Another 3,595 students attend 24 charter schools, which often offer programs not available in the mainstream public education system.

Most have waiting lists, some very long.

So students and their parents should be pleased to learn that another nine groups have proposed starting charter schools, some reaching areas that currently have none. The eight that want to open in 2007 would add 1,492 student seats next year. The ninth, which wants to open in 2008, aims to put another 850 seats in play.

Two of the proposed schools would serve the Brandon area, and a third would be in Plant City. Neither area has a charter school now.

Another three are looking to the east Tampa-Temple Terrace region that has a healthy variety of charter options already. The communities surrounding the University of South Florida house two Patel charter schools, Village of Excellence, Terrace Community Middle and Carl Sagan Academy, to name a few.

"I would love to see them spread out so I can tell people there's one here, or there, as opposed to telling them they have to come to Hillsborough Avenue or Fowler Avenue," says Jenna Hodgens, who coordinates charter schools for the district. "I love to hear from people from Plant City. We have nothing out there."

Of course, there's no guarantee that everyone who applies to open a charter school will win School Board approval. If the board were that undiscriminating, it would have opened more than 25 new charter schools in the past two years.

Instead, it denied several applicants and closed a handful of charter schools that had failed academically, financially or both.

One such operator, Mary White of Wilbesan Charter School, has returned with a new proposal called Padah's Academy. Even as she sues the school district, claiming it shuttered her school at least in part because she is black, White is asking to open a high school for at-risk teens, starting with 100 students.

School officials must treat the application as new and review it on its merits. But that rule doesn't preclude them from looking at White's past history, or asking tough questions about her capacity to run a charter school. And the district has made no bones about its position that White can't do it well.

Who are some of the others?

A group that runs two charter schools in New York state has joined forces with former Tampa City Council member Bob Buckhorn and NAACP vice president Curtis Stokes to create East Tampa Charter, which would serve at-risk elementary school students.

The group chose Hillsborough County because it has ties to a developer, Savarino Construction, that does business here and because Florida has a growing charter movement while New York has reached its limit of 100 startup charters. Its existing schools, Niagara Charter and Enterprise Charter, focus on learning through hands-on experiences and individualized lessons.

They also bring community services to students and families.

"I would say it's our first step into Florida," principal Greg Norton says of the group's effort. "The charter population growth is going to continue."

A collection of USF engineers and professors have joined with some parents to propose a math and science school for sixth- through 12th-graders in either Brandon or the university area. Lead applicant Ismail Guvenc says the school, called New Springs, would focus on how to apply science and math in useful ways.

"The important thing is that we have you get your hands dirty," Guvenc says. "You see the real life implications of the theories."

On the other end of the spectrum, Yvette Swain wants to open a performing arts and technology high school in or near Seffner.

"A lot of schools don't offer these things, and it seems like this is a time when the kids fall off," she says.

Swain works at Rebirth Academy, a charter school in east Tampa, and many of her founding board members also are affiliated with Rebirth. But her proposed charter would not be connected to the existing school.

Also on the table are a college prep high school, an arts and technology elementary school and a reincarnation of the closed Richard Milburn Academy. Richard Milburn, a Massachusetts-based charter school company with schools in Florida and Texas, has appealed to the State Board of Education the board's decision to close its Tampa facility because of continued poor student performance.

A district-level review committee will interview applicants and make its recommendations to the superintendent later in September.

The School Board has scheduled a workshop on charter schools for Oct. 18, and must act on all charter requests by Nov. 1 or reach an agreement for an extension.

Have ideas for future columns? Contact Jeffrey S. Solochek at solochek@sptimes.com or (813) 269-5304.

[Last modified September 14, 2006, 10:31:27]