An Open Letter To Charter School Families & Friends
You may have read or heard about the current controversy between the charter schools of Polk County and the Polk District Office.
Florida’s charter school law requires the District to perform certain services for all public schools, which includes charter schools. To pay for those services, the District has been charging the maximum amount allowed by law. Over the years the amount charged and paid has exceeded $14 million — money that could have gone for the education of charter students.
The services provided by the District have been necessary, but the value of those services to the charter schools has not come anywhere close to the $14 million paid for them. Charter requests for the District to account for the actual cost of those services have been denied.
The Legislature stepped in this year and substantially reduced the amount Districts could keep for performing the services.
Without consulting School Board members, the District office reacted by cutting all the services it could cut on short notice. In addition, the District terminated its contracts to provide food service and bus service to charter schools beginning January 1 — in spite of the fact that charter schools pay the actual cost of those services and the terminations would gain the District nothing. (The District has since reversed course on the termination of food service.)
The charter schools want to pay for the actual cost of the services provided. We don’t want to overpay or underpay. If we overpay, our students suffer. If we underpay, District students suffer.
We have decided that we should no longer be at the mercy of unilateral decisions handed down by the District. We have filed an action in Circuit Court asking the Judge, serving as an objective third party, to decide the matter in a way that will be fair to both charter students and District students.
In the meantime, we will see to it that all essential services are provided and that our students continue to receive the quality education they deserve.
LAKE WALES – Janie Howard Wilson Elementary students earned the right to take part in Splash Day on Sept. 3 as part of the school’s new Positive Behavior Support program. More than 500 students earned tickets to the first monthly celebration, which included a Splash Zone provided by Lake Wales Firefighters.
LAKE WALES – Learning to read is tough, especially when you are only 5 years old. To help her new kindergarten students get excited, Polk Avenue Elementary teacher Amy Alvarado provided a little motivation – two new bikes.
