The School Board of Alachua County (SBAC) unanimously approved the contract for the Newberry charter school during a special meeting on Monday.
The contract for Newberry Community School, formerly Newberry Elementary School, will take effect July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2031, with the school opening in August 2026.
The approval came after the board voted on June 3 during a regular meeting to hold off on approving the contract until its members had more time to review the document, which they received from the state the day before the meeting.
Staff drafted the contract after the Florida Charter School Review Commission unanimously voted in February to approve the application to convert Newberry Elementary School into a charter school.
Although the SBAC’s appeal of the charter school is still active with a hearing set for July 16, legal counsel said the district had to move forward with approving the contract, which is a standard state charter contract, due to mandatory timelines from the state.
On Monday, Board Chair Sarah Rockwell confirmed that if the board didn’t vote on the contract, the state would impose one. Even though it passed unanimously, as well as the charter’s facilities management agreement, Members Thomas Vu and Tina Certain voted, “begrudgingly, aye.”
They and other members cited concerns about the charter school receiving preferential treatment over district schools for transportation, meal services and facility maintenance.
Vu said the contract includes elements the school said it wouldn’t do, such as continuing the use of portables for student facilities, but is now included in their vision for the school.
“Portables at Newberry Elementary was one of the very reasons they said this conversion needed to happen, yet here we are seeing a plan that requires and relies on portables,” he said. “More things they said, yet they’re doing otherwise, which is very on brand for them.”
The board said that in order to help make the transition as smooth as possible for families who were being forced to go to new schools because of the charter, they would consider the circumstance a hardship and provide them with transportation to those schools.
The approved charter school contract and facilities management agreement will now be sent to Newberry for final signatures.
Thomas Vu is certainly embarrassing to the community.
not as embarrassing as being duped by a charter that lied to get its way
Is PK Yonge a charter school?
P. K. Yonge Developmental Research School is a PreK-12 public laboratory school, a one-school school district, that is also a department of the University of Florida College of Education. Its mission is to design, test, and disseminate innovations in K-12 education by serving a diverse student community.