State Sen. Gaetz also talked about his bill, S 278, that reforms how charter schools are governed. Last year, the Florida Senate passed a similar bill, but the House refused to take it up.
“The few in the House that blocked it last year are no longer there,” Gaetz says. “The bill passed unanimously in the House and Senate.”
The bill lets the school board have oversight over the charter school under certain financial emergencies:
– Failure within the same fiscal year in which due to make lloan payments
– Failure to pay uncontested claims from creditors within 90 days after the claim is presented, as a result of a lack of funds.
– Failure to payroll taxes or retirement contributions.
The Governor and the Department of Education must be notified and there is a fixed time to remedy the problem.
In an additional press release just released by Sen. Gaetz:
Gaetz say he wants the charter industry to be “successful but clean†and wrote into the bill prohibitions against charter school board members and owners engaging in less-than-arms-length financial transactions with their schools.
The state’s auditor general and Department of Education found that some charter operators have been diverting funds meant for student instruction to purchasing luxury cars, hiring unqualified relatives, leasing buildings at far more than market prices, and paying excessive administrative salaries.
About a fourth of Florida charters are operated by for profit companies. A disproportionately large number of those schools experienced financial management problems, according to the Legislature’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability.
Nearly half of all charters do not receive a letter grade from the state, which means they can avoid letting parents know how well or poorly the school is doing and aren’t subject to corrective actions which neighborhood public schools must take to improve academic performance.
Under Gaetz’s bill, more charters will be graded and parents will be given accurate information about their student’s performance as well as the school’s academic standing.
As an Okaloosa County School Board Member and Superintendent, Gaetz was a charter school proponent but later became concerned when scandal surfaced at two charters in his Northwest Florida senate district.
One of the schools, Okaloosa Academy, was labeled an “F†school by the state and then, through a legal loophole, became “ungraded.†Escambia Charter School hired out students to cut roadside grass and weeds during class time and falsified attendance records. The school pleaded no contest to grand theft and few of its students were able to read at grade level.
“The charter movement has been a very good thing for Florida education, Gaetz noted. “Charters have brought choice, competition and innovation and, in my experience as a superintendent, helped make our traditional schools better and more customer-friendly. But a ‘hear no evil, see no evil’ attitude from the state has allowed some bad actors to enter the business with the result that children have suffered and taxpayers have been bilked. That has to stop.â€
The legislation provides technical help to charter organizers, including financial training, to help schools manage their funds and operate effectively.