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Charter Schools USA wants to run four new Hillsborough schools

 
Published Oct. 8, 2015

TAMPA — Charter Schools USA is back, and this time Hillsborough County officials are giving it a warmer welcome.

Subject to School Board approval on Tuesday, the Fort Lauderdale company will manage four new schools projected to serve as many as 4,650 students. That's in addition to 3,200 who now attend the Henderson Hammock, Winthrop and Woodmont schools, also managed by Charter Schools USA.

"They operate in our district, and they have operated two very good schools," said Jenna Hodgens, the district's general director of charter schools. "Woodmont has struggled, but they've gotten on track."

Criticized by former superintendent MaryEllen Elia for its state F grade in 2013, Woodmont is now a C school.

Charter schools, which use tax dollars but are run independently of government districts, are growing in popularity despite opposition from critics that include teachers' unions, which generally do not represent their workforce.

At last count, 16,656 of Hillsborough's 210,853 public school students — just under 8 percent — were in charters. Their growth, which steers tax money away from traditional public schools, is one reason why the investment community is concerned about Hillsborough's financial health.

A total of six charter proposals are on the School Board agenda as "consent" items, meaning they do not need to be discussed. The other two are smaller schools that would target high-poverty and minority communities.

Those in the Charter Schools USA group would be scattered in Plant City, south Hillsborough, Riverview and the northwest, all governed by an identical board chaired by local consultant Rod Jurado.

The recommendations for approval come in contrast to the district's reaction in 2013, when Charter Schools USA wanted to manage a new school at MacDill Air Force Base.

District staff rejected that proposal and continued to fight it in a state appeals process. Elia said there was not a clear enough separation between the local governing board and the for-profit management company.

She later challenged the company's three existing schools on a similar governance issue and said she would terminate their contracts if they did not clear up the confusion.

To satisfy concerns from the military community, she expanded Tinker Elementary to include the middle grades.

Hodgens said the issue concerning governance has been fully resolved, and the MacDill proposal had weaknesses that do not exist in the new applications.

Members of the board headed by Jurado — a group that includes state Rep. James Grant, R-Tampa — live in the Tampa Bay area. They've met with both superintendent Jeff Eakins and the district's facilities department.

"This group is actually engaging the district in their decision-making," Hodgens said. "They're offering a product parents like and putting them in different areas of the district."

Contact Marlene Sokol at (813) 226-3356 or msokol@tampabay.com. Follow @marlenesokol.