Uncharted Territory: How Sarasota County navigates a growing charter school landscape

When a charter school works, it works.

The publicly funded, independently run schools are often subjected to scrutiny, but in Sarasota County, several operate without issue. Some even thrive.

Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences, for example, hit its stride years ago. An “A” school since 2006 after a batch of “A’s” and “B’s” following its founding in 1997, SSAS isn’t just one of the district’s top-performing charter schools: It’s one of the district’s top-performing schools in general.

Its blueprint is the kind of innovative, all-encompassing education that the charter school concept promised almost four decades ago. The school offers a slate of clubs, programs and activities to encourage students to explore their interests.

SSAS Principal Tara Tahmosh, who’s been with the school since 2000 and led it since 2012, said the curriculum seeks to foster emotional growth as much as it does academic success.

“We are trying to help kids not just have skills and knowledge but also kind of have some grit, also develop into good humans,” Tahmosh said. “They’re developing hobbies. They’re developing lifelong loves.”

SSAS has found its footing with Sarasota County Schools, Tahmosh said. While the district provides a charter school liaison to facilitate conversations between the district and its charters, Tahmosh said the district doesn’t interfere unless needed.

“They are typically hands-off if you don’t need assistance,” Tahmosh said. “If you’re really struggling, they are trying to help.”

The relationship between the district and its charter schools is something of a gray area, a “here if you need us, gone if you don’t” situation that allows charter schools to mostly go about their business unless intervention is needed. With schools like SSAS, that independence can be ideal.

The charter school landscape is changing, though, as more schools come into the fold. And as charters encroach on district enrollment and resources, they’re becoming impossible to ignore.

More: How do charter schools work in Sarasota County? Charter schools by the numbers

School choice — the concept that families can choose where their student attends school based on their unique needs regardless of financial obstacles or other barriers — is gaining traction, and Florida has surged to the forefront of the movement with waves of legislation meant to propel choice.

Millie Wheeler, Sarasota County Schools’ supervisor of school choice, has seen it happen firsthand.

“School choice is growing across the nation, but certainly in the state of Florida,” Wheeler said. “The laws are changing to support that.”

Instead of resisting, Sarasota County Schools has adapted to the changing landscape, embracing school choice and opting to compete in a growing school marketplace. But the school district and charter schools aren’t entirely adversarial: With charter schools under the district umbrella, the two are undeniably intertwined, and the success of each depends on the performance of the other.

Florida’s charter schools continue to grow

It was 1988 when Al Shanker, then the president of the American Federation of Teachers, had an idea. A new kind of school, publicly funded but independently managed, that would encourage teachers to experiment with how they educate their students.

Charter schools, Shanker envisioned, would free educators from the rigid regulations that constrained them. Innovative practices would spring from these new schools, and students of all backgrounds would be privy to top-notch schooling regardless of socioeconomic status.

Florida caught on eight years later, passing legislation that allows private entities to enter into charter agreements with school boards. Since that first charter school opened its doors in 1996, hundreds more have sprung up across the state.

Now, Florida has more than 730 charter schools with almost 400,00 students.

In Sarasota County, that number is up to 14 and growing. These are Sarasota County’s charter schools by the numbers:

• College Preparatory at Wellen Park: 417 students, grades K-8

• Dreamers Academy: 528 students, grades K-5

• Imagine School at North Port: 1,221 students, grades K-12

• Imagine School at Palmer Ranch: 432 students, grades K-8

• Island Village Montessori School: 528 students, grades K-8

• Sarasota Academy of the Arts: 190 students, grades K-8

• Sarasota Military Academy: 985 students, grades 6-12

• Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences: 745 students, grades 6-8

• Sarasota Suncoast Academy, 822 students, grades K-8

• State College of Florida Collegiate School, 285 students, grades 9-12

• SKY Academy Englewood, 321 students, grades 6-8

• SKY Academy Venice, 285 students, grades 6-8

• Student Leadership Academy, 326 students, grades 6-3

• Suncoast School for Innovative Studies, 93 students, grades K-5

The ideal is almost utopic, but the reality is a little murkier.

Charter schools do receive public funding, but independent fundraising often makes up the difference for costs that state and district allocations can’t cover. Charter schools are open to all students in the district, but some cater to specific demographics or areas of study. And though charter schools construct their own curriculums independent of the school district, their students are still held to the same state standards in reading, math and other tested areas.

Recent legislation has opened the floodgates for even more charter schools to open across Florida. If a district denies a charter application and that charter appeals to the state, for example, the district is on the hook for the charter’s legal fees. The restriction has deterred districts from rejecting charters: If a state overturn is inevitable, it’s wiser to save the money and approve the charter outright.

That occurred in Sarasota County last March when the Sarasota School Board approved a charter application 4-1 for the Sarasota Classical Preparatory Academy despite reservations from board members. The school is set to welcome 1,100 students in the 2026-2027 school year.

More: Sarasota charter school closer to Fruitville Road construction after planning board vote

School Board member Tom Edwards said the legislation that cleared the way for the new school strips the board of its agency.

“The board is handcuffed,” Edwards said. “Choice is here to stay, and that train has left the station.”

Risk and reward

The liberty of a charter school to craft its own curriculum and manage its own operations is a key selling point for potential charter applicants. Dan Kennedy, founding principal of the Sarasota Military Academy, said his school thrived because of the independence.

A former Sarasota High School principal, Kennedy found himself connecting with the Reserve Officer Training Core, or ROTC, students. He decided a school full of them — polite, driven, sharply dressed — wasn’t a half-bad idea.

Kennedy implemented the innovative attitude he’d developed at Sarasota High when the military academy opened in 2002, especially when it came to financial management. While at Sarasota High, the district gave him a lump sum and allowed him to hire his maintenance services at his discretion instead of assigning him district-chosen providers. At the end of the school year, Kennedy had $75,000 to spare.

“That sold me on the concept of charter schools,” Kennedy said. “The freedom to go into the marketplace and buy things, to design a curriculum that is innovative yet structured.”

But with financial and educational freedom also comes risk. If the school starts to slip financially, it’s difficult to climb out.

Fayth Jenkins, principal at Suncoast School for Innovative Studies, found herself in a tough spot when she took the helm in 2022. The school fell into financial crisis post-pandemic with a loss of students and subsequent funding, and it was up to Jenkins to move the needle back into the positive.

The school’s grades had also slipped during this time, hovering between a “C” and a “D” from 2013 onward. In the wake of Suncoast School’s struggles, the district instituted a corrective action plan that the school is in the process of carrying out.

Suncoast School has been on the upswing recently, one of three charter schools to improve its grade from the 2022-23 school year to the 2023-24 year. Fundraising efforts have also proved successful, Jenkins said, with But in the throes of crisis, Jenkins said she had to defend her charter to the district or face closure.

Though the school district has guided Suncoast School in its rebound, Jenkins said the process has been largely up to her and her staff.

“We’re a ‘D’ school, we have no donorship, our enrollment is low,” Jenkins said. “There isn’t anything else to do but roll your sleeves up.”

Charter schools and school districts are intertwined

This independence from district standards, when it’s successful, is part of the charter school appeal. But the ties aren’t totally severed.

Charter schools occupy a tricky sort of in-between — half independent, half under the district umbrella. School districts don’t dictate charter school curriculum, but charter school students are still subjected to state standardized testing, and their performances play into the district’s overall grade.

In the 2023-24 school year, 51 schools in Sarasota County averaged a school grade of 65.3% from the state Department of Education. The county’s 14 charter schools averaged 61.6%, and removing them from the equation bumps the district average up to 66.4%.

It’s a difference of only a few points, but that minutia is critical: The threshold for an “A” grade is 62% percent. If local charter schools made up their own school district, that district would receive a “B.”

But, like traditional public schools, charter school performance isn’t uniform. And a clear division between traditional public school performance and charter school performance is nonexistent.

Student Leadership Academy’s score of 76 was the sixth highest of all the schools in the district, immediately followed by State College of Florida Collegiate School’s score at 75. Both Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences and Sarasota Suncoast Academy ended up in the top 20. And the bottom 10 scores saw an even five-five split between charter schools and traditional public schools.

The district and its charter schools are monetarily intertwined as well, with a portion of the district’s $1.7 billion budget for this school year allocated to charters. Thanks to the way state funding works, charter schools have seen more funding as enrollment has grown.

The Florida Education Finance Program, which dictates funding allocations from the state to each of its 67 school districts, calculates how much a district receives based on the number of students enrolled. The figure is called a Full Time Equivalent, or FTE, and it changes with the population of a school district.

Sarasota County’s FTE allocation for the 2024-25 school year was $14,669 per student when adjusted for inflation, according to the school district’s 2024-25 budget. The total allocation has climbed as enrollment across the district has increased — and, as charter schools have seen the biggest percentage jump in enrollment over the last few years, they’ve been substantial benefactors.

Purchased services for charter schools have steadily grown over the past five years, jumping 31% from the 2020-21 budget to the 2024-25 budget. The district’s 2023-2024 budget allocated an additional $10 million to charters with the addition of College Preparatory at Wellen Park.

But there’s no direct correlation between a charter school’s gain and a traditional public school’s loss, Sarasota County Schools CFO Bonnie Penner said. While it’s true that traditional public schools receive more funding with more students, an exiting student from a traditional public school also represents an exiting cost.

“I’ve heard sometimes folks say, ‘Well, you’re losing this money to private schools or to charter schools,’” Penner said. “It’s not a one-to-one ratio in that every dollar that goes to a charter is a dollar lost.”

The interplay between the school district and charter schools has raised questions of accountability that no one can seem to agree on. Traditional public school proponents argue a school district doesn’t have enough power to properly right the ship of a wayward charter school, while charter school administrators say they’re held accountable from every angle.

State statute outlines several circumstances in which a district can shutter a charter school, namely if they fail to participate in the state’s accountability system, fail to meet accepted fiscal management standards, violate the law or display “other good cause.” But even outside legal guidelines, supporters say charter schools are never totally safe from a shutdown.

Lynn Norman-Teck, executive director for the Florida Charter School Alliance, said parents and students hold the charter accountable just as much as a district sponsor does. If the charter fails to meet student needs, she said, the school will inevitably shutter.

“Parents will walk away if you’re not meeting your mission and vision,” Norman-Teck said. “That’s your funding. Your funding follows the child.”

School choice incites competition

School choice buy-in has grown with state government support. Since Gov. Ron DeSantis established universal school choice in 2023, more than 1.4 million Florida students have utilized a school choice program.

The headwinds blow in favor of school choice nationally, too. The Trump Administration recently directed the departments of labor and education to explore directing more public funding toward charter schools, private schools and other alternative options in the name of growing school choice.

The expanding landscape means Sarasota County Schools have had to compete with alternative school options like private schools, virtual school and, yes, charter schools. The district has poured money into marketing initiatives to attract and retain students, launching an online magazine, a podcast and a new slate of video content on its YouTube channel since Superintendent Connor took the job in 2023.

“We have to operate like a business,” Connor said. “With the expansion of school choice, we have to think more business-oriented.”

The battle for students is one traditional public schools are still winning handily. According to the 2024-25 budget, 69% of Sarasota County Schools’ 49,962 students enrolled in a traditional elementary, middle or high school.

Connor said he’s confident traditional public schools will continue to be the primary choice. While charter schools offer some programs that traditional schools lack, like a dual language curriculum or advanced STEM options, Connor said the district’s mastery of the basics will continue to attract students.

“It’s a competition approach,” Connor said. “Choice is important. I want to be the choice.”

Charter schools, meanwhile, still face an uphill battle. Once a charter school finds a groove and builds community confidence, it can run uninterrupted. But it has to prove itself to get there.

And if it doesn’t, SSAS Principal Tahmosh said, there isn’t much of a safety net.

“It creates this survival instinct,” Tahmosh said. “You have to make it. Nobody’s going to save us.”

Contact Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Heather Bushman at hbushman@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @hmb_1013.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Charter schools are growing. How Sarasota County is handling it