Duval County rolls over to Charter Schools USA while other cities fight back.

From the Tampa Tribune:  Four months after the Hillsborough County school board denied an application for a charter school at MacDill Air Force Base, the district is raising questions about who’s in charge at three other schools operated by the company that proposed it, Charter Schools USA.

Those calling the shots at Henderson Hammock, Winthrop and Woodmont charter schools are from out of town, a violation of their contracts with the school board, district charter school director Jenna Hodgens said.

State law doesn’t require local control of charter schools, which are public schools operated privately, but it does give school districts wide latitude to establish their own conditions.

“We feel strongly about a local board,” Hodgens said. “Other districts don’t push the issue, but we do.”

http://tbo.com/news/education/hillsborough-district-scrutinizes-charters-leadership-20140419/

We would be one of the districts that doesn’t push the issue.

I pointed out to our school board that none of the members of the charter schools board were from Jacksonville but this revelation was met with a collective shrug of its shoulders.

Jason Fischer also took campaign donations from charter schools USA, and coincidently enough it is in his district where the new school is being built, oh it started construction even before it received approval.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a board that was more interested in doing what is right for our students than adding to the bank accounts of millionaire, mercenary charter school operators?

That’s obviously a priority in Tampa.