EDUCATION

UWF Trustees Approve Charter Role for Somerset Academy — After Months of Saying It Wasn’t a Charter

Board of Trustees unanimously approves UWF as charter authorizer for Somerset Academy Escambia, taking oversight away from the elected Escambia County School Board and placing it with the university.

The University of West Florida Board of Trustees voted unanimously on June 18 to make the university a charter school authorizer for Somerset Academy Escambia.

• The vote removes oversight authority from the Escambia County School Board and places it with UWF, since under Florida law, the entity that authorizes a charter school is the entity that oversees it.

Evolving Story: It is the latest, and most formal, chapter in a story that has changed shape every few months since September 2025, when UWF employees were told the university was “exploring” a tuition-free K-3 school for their kids.

• What’s new: Somerset Academy Escambia plans to open Aug. 12 with up to 180 students in kindergarten through third grade, housed in trailers behind Argo Village.
• Growth plan: The school is projected to become a full K-5 campus with a capacity of roughly 580 students — 270 in year two, 360 in year three, and 470 by year four.
• Who runs it: UWF President Manny Diaz Jr. told trustees the school will be operated by Somerset, Inc., not UWF. The university’s role is oversight, compliance and working with the Florida Department of Education and the Florida Charter Institute (FCI).

From “Benefit” to Charter

Diaz has spent the better part of a year insisting this wasn’t a charter school.

• In January, he told trustees the proposed campus school “is not a charter school…It’s a private, philanthropically funded small school.” He said it would seat “about 40, 45 students” filled mostly by the children of UWF faculty, staff, and students.

That framing is now gone. The June 18 vote makes UWF a charter authorizer, the school’s enrollment target is 180 students at opening, and Diaz himself estimated that fewer than a third of the students enrolling will have any connection to the university at all — a sharp reversal from the original pitch sold to faculty and staff as a benefit for their own kids.

• According to the Somerset website, the tuition is $3,750 per semester.

More Confusion: According to the Pensacola News Journal, Diaz described the academy to trustees as a K-12 school. The application materials describe a K-5 campus capped at 580 students.

Concerned Argos, again

An anonymous group calling itself “Concerned Argos” — the same name attached to a January letter to the Florida Auditor General over Diaz’s charter-industry ties — sent the Board of Trustees a detailed memo before Tuesday’s vote.

• It raises questions echoing concerns Inweekly has reported on since September: the speed of the process, the lack of shared governance input, and Diaz’s personal and financial connections to the charter school industry.

“Concerned Argonauts notes publicly available information regarding President Diaz’s personal and financial relationships with entities connected to the private school sector, including Academica, the parent organization of Somerset. Clarification is requested regarding his role in the development and advancement of this proposal.”

The memo lays out its concerns in three categories:

Process and conflicts of interest: The group says the proposal moved from senior administration to the state and then to the Board of Trustees “without meaningful consultation or input from shared governance bodies, including faculty, staff, and students.”

Somerset’s full application wasn’t included in the BOT agenda materials.

• The group asked what safeguards exist to prevent actual or perceived conflicts of interest, given Diaz’s ties to Academica, Somerset’s parent organization.
• The memo also flags that the Florida Charter Institute report notes (page 11) a lack of local presence on Somerset’s board, and asks whether UWF will have representation on that board — and if so, how those representatives would be chosen.  Read Somerset Application Review.

Financial viability: The group points to risks the FCI report itself identified in hitting the 180-student enrollment target, especially with the school opening in less than two months.

• The application materials note that if enrollment falls short, staff would be cut and services for both high-achieving students and students with disabilities would be reduced.

“What is the concrete financial plan to bridge the gap between initial opening and long-term sustainable enrollment? What compensation or cost-recovery mechanisms are in place to ensure that UWF is made financially whole?”

Community impact: The memo asks why a local demographic analysis wasn’t conducted, why a collaborative model with Escambia and Santa Rosa public schools wasn’t pursued, and how the proposal accounts for competition with public schools already under financial strain.

Diaz-Academica Connection

Diaz has long-standing ties to the charter industry that predate his time at UWF. He served as chief operating officer of Doral College from 2013 to 2022, a role he held simultaneously with his election to the Florida Legislature, where he chaired education committees and championed charter school legislation.

• Doral College, created in 2010, offers dual-enrollment courses on Somerset campuses and is affiliated with Academica, Somerset’s parent company.

Diaz’s wife, Jennifer Diaz, is the former vice-chair of the governing board of Tallahassee Classical School, a Hillsdale College-affiliated charter school. In October, the Diaz family filed incorporation papers for MDJ Consulting Group LLC, a for-profit education consulting firm, while Diaz was serving as UWF’s interim president.

Pensacola State College Difference

Northwest Florida already has a working example of a college-sponsored charter school, and it looks nothing like the Somerset arrangement.

The Pensacola State College Charter Academy opened in 2022 with 42 juniors and seniors and has grown to roughly 200 students in grades 9-12. It’s a dual-enrollment high school: students work toward a diploma and an Associate in Arts or Associate in Science degree simultaneously, with PSC providing the college-level instruction.

• Who authorizes it: The Escambia County School District sponsors and authorizes the PSC Charter Academy. The school board reviewed the nearly 400-page application, and the superintendent and board signed off before it opened—the opposite of the Somerset arrangement, where UWF’s vote removes the school board from that role entirely.
• Who operates it: Pensacola State College runs the school directly, using its own faculty resources and administrative staff. There is no outside management company. Somerset Academy Escambia, by contrast, will be run by Somerset, Inc., a Miami-based charter operator.

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