In Florida, Charter Schools and Public Schools play by different rules

From the Orlando Sentinel

By Dave Weber, Orlando Sentinel

School-district officials across Central Florida and the state say they are tired of charter schools getting all of the breaks, and they want the Legislature to give them more freedoms, too.

With a budget crisis hampering many school districts, officials in Seminole, Orange and other districts are eager to unload costly provisions of state law, such as requirements to bus students to school.

"Let's level the playing field."

Simmering dissatisfaction with the disparity between requirements for traditional schools versus the charter schools favored by the Republican-led Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott has reached a flash point in several districts. Orange and Seminole are calling for changes to state law, and the Florida School Boards Association is expected to ask the Legislature when it meets early next year to consider lifting restrictions on all districts in the state.

"It just does not make sense that we all do not get what they have given the charter schools," said Wayne Blanton, head of the School Boards Association.

Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland, who heads the Senate's education appropriations committee, said giving traditional public schools more freedoms is "certainly something worth discussing."

"It is important that we foster charter schools that are accountable and doing a good job," Simmons said. "And it is important that we likewise foster our traditional public schools."

The law authorizing charter schools, which are independently operated but funded with tax dollars, provides that they are exempt from all but a handful of the most basic school laws.

Charters have to administer the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and similar required exams, must provide services to disabled students, can't discriminate and must abide by certain health and safety regulations.

Charters also have to follow public-meeting and records laws, and will have to adhere to the strict new teacher-contract and evaluation requirements adopted by the Legislature earlier this year.

On everything else, they get to slide.

"I know the state is not going to give us a lot of extra money next year, so second-best would be to release us from some of their unfunded mandates," said Tina Calderone, a Seminole School Board member.

While regular public schools are struggling to provide teachers and classrooms to meet Florida's class-size limits, for example, charters are permitted to exceed the restrictions by using a schoolwide average.

The Renaissance Charter School that hopes to open in Seminole next fall plans from the start to routinely exceed limits in many of its kindergarten-through-eighth-grade classes and aim for a schoolwide average.

In addition to class-size requirements and busing, school officials point to a slew of costly requirements that state lawmakers have written into law through the years while not providing adequate funds for compliance.

End-of-course exams, physical-education courses, strict school-construction codes, online instruction and virtual textbooks are among items on the growing list.

Seminole and Orange school boards will ask the Legislature to at least allow school districts that the state has designated Academically High Performing to have the same exemptions from law as the charters. Seminole has the designation, based largely on student FCAT performance, and Orange hopes to attain it.

"If we are performing at a high level, give us some freedom to do what we want to do," said Bill Sublette, chairman of the Orange School Board.

dweber@tribune.com or 407-883-7885

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/os-districts-want-charter-rights-20110905,0,200108.story