The local school board – which presides over what has become one of the best school districts in Florida – is seeking your help. The five board members are unanimously asking county residents to contact legislators and voice their opposition to new changes in Florida law that they fear will be a disaster for local public schools. This legislation, passed literally in the dark of night at the end of the Florida legislative session, would let select charter school operators move into certain public schools where there are underused, vacant or surplus facilities, and begin operating, their own school rent free. The school districts would be required to provide janitorial, cafeteria, security and other services to their unwanted tenants at no charge. No surprise then that charter schools are jumping on the opportunity. Two weeks ago, the local school district received a letter from Miami-based Mater Academy, which provided preliminary notice of its intent to request space at Pelican Island Classical Magnet School in Sebastian. “I don’t think people understand the gravity of the potential issues that this could bring, not just for us but for public schools everywhere,” two-term board member Jackie Rosario said, referring to the Florida Legislature’s votes to remove most restrictions from the state’s “Schools of Hope” program. This program was established in 2017 to recruit high-performing charter-school operators – which receive significant state and federal funding, as well as other financial assistance – to compete in communities where public schools consistently underperformed. In 2019, legislators expanded the program by broadening the definition of “persistently low performing” and including school districts within “opportunity zones,” which are neighborhoods identified as economically depressed by the U.S. Treasury Department. Florida has more than 400 such zones, including one in Indian River County, where it is located primarily west of I-95 and includes land within the Fellsmere city limits. Under a Florida Department of Education rule spawned by the new law, Schools of Hope may seek to occupy available space in under-used public schools located in opportunity zones, or within five miles of the attendance zone of a public school deemed to be underperforming. The school district here received an “A” grade from the state education department in each of the past two years and ranks No. 5 among the 67 in Florida. It’s clearly not underperforming. But the Pelican Island school – where the school district is phasing in a classical education program, which will be only the second district-operated public classical program in Florida – is located in an area that would appear to qualify under the new state rule. Pelican Island, though, doesn’t have enough available space to accommodate the 300-plus students that Mater wants to locate there, said county School Superintendent David Moore “There’s no way they can go to Pelican Island,” Moore said. Still, board members are alarmed, treating the possible incursion as a hostile takeover. In fact, several of them raised the possibility that a Hope operator could decide to conduct school events on Saturdays, forcing the district to absorb the additional costs of providing services on days when the building would otherwise be closed. Rosario and school board member Gene Posca were so disturbed by what she called an “extreme overreach” by the Legislature that they broke with their ideological allies in Tallahassee. “I am so mad about this!” Rosario, a staunch school-choice advocate, said at the workshop. “I think every board member in every district across the state needs to speak up.” School board member David Dyer, who was elected last year and represents most of the 32963 ZIP code, shared her ire. “This infuriates me,” Dyer said of the statute, which legislators hastily amended before the close of their extended session last summer. “It has infuriated me for a while, because of what they’ve done financially.” To Dyer, the change in the law to accommodate Hope charter operators was another example of the state government’s wrongheaded efforts to cripple, and ultimately dismantle, public education in Florida. He referred to the continued growth of the state’s voucher program – which diverts public funds to parents who choose to educate at home or send their children to private schools – and legislation that requires school districts to share locally generated tax dollars with charter schools. Such initiatives, he said, take much-needed money from already-underfunded public schools. “It’s unbelievable what’s going on in Florida,” Dyer said in a phone interview Sunday. “People need to understand: These legislators have a plan to defund and minimize public schools, and to privatize education. “If they succeed, the only kids left in public schools will be those with parents who aren’t involved and special-needs kids who have nowhere else to go,” he added. “Is that really what we want?” Dyer said state funds are going to vouchers used by “private-school kids who never attended public schools” – money he believes should be going to public schools. “We’ve also got state and federal money going to charter schools,” Dyer continued. “Now, additionally, we’re being told we must allow some charter schools to cohabitate in our public schools, and we have to cover the costs of providing all the services needed to operate the facility.” Board Vice Chair Peggy Jones raised questions about how a cohabitated building – with different rules enforced by different principals overseeing different curriculums – would function. “Who’s in charge?” she asked. “What if they’re doing something we don’t like? What happens then?” School board Chair Teri Barenborg said she was thrilled that the local school panel was unanimous in objecting to the Legislature’s heavy-handed tactics and “drawing a line in the sand.” She said the Florida School Board Association plans to join the fight, but she added that community action is also needed to prevent the state from disrupting Moore’s efforts to take the district to unprecedented heights. “We have to let people know how important it is to push back,” Barenborg said. According to Moore, Hope operators may begin making official requests for space starting on Nov. 11. “The train has left the station and it’s chugging right at us,” Moore told the board. He said there’s “zero need in this community” for Hope charters and that the Indian River County school district has – through its performance the past five years – “earned the right” to be excluded from the mandate. Moore also warned the board members that opposing the mandate puts the school district on the “wrong side” of the law, which he said must be obeyed for as long as it remains in place. However, he said he and his staff continue to study the enrollments and capacity of the district’s schools, exploring ways to more efficiently and effectively utilize its facilities. He expects to present the board with a plan in the next couple of months. “This team moves fast, is aggressive and is willing to be extremely creative and transparent on how we want to use the space to serve the community that we have,” Moore said. Dyer, meanwhile, hopes school board and community members will put pressure on local state legislators – House Rep. Robbie Brackett and Sen. Eric Grall, both of whom voted in favor of the new law – to push their colleagues to revisit the flawed legislation.