School district, Education First for Newberry, continue releasing information 

A regular meeting of the School Board of Alachua County (SBAC) with a sparse agenda stretched on for two hours Tuesday night as board members and citizens sparked heated discussions over Newberry’s charter school conversion initiative. 

Though the charter conversion application goes to the state, not the school board, Tuesday night’s meeting still became a forum for disgruntled community members. 

Initiative spokespeople continue to affirm that they will be able to provide for the needs of all the school’s students without cutting anyone out. 

Education First for Newberry (EFN), a 501(c)4 organization, announced in February its call for votes to convert Newberry Elementary School, Oak View Middle School and Newberry High School into charter schools. Since then, social media and in-person informational meetings have been ablaze with questions and opinions. 

Though the affected communities in Newberry and Archer have voiced many questions and concerns, the loudest have centered on fears that their students will be deselected, or cut out, from the charter schools. 

In the vein of exclusion, parents of special needs students have expressed a concern that the charters would not be able to provide for their students, forcing them to return to ACPS schools that are farther away. Other advocates for the “no” side say the schools will become selective and push out students of color. 

Residents of Archer have expressed enough concern that the Archer City Commission approved a resolution in opposition of the initiative. They cited fears that residents of Archer and the rural surrounding areas would eventually be unincluded from the charter school’s automatic acceptance. 

Board Member Tina Certain, who expressed her opposition to the initiative in a previous meeting, has also been active on social media, posting responses to EFN claims on her public page including not only her opposition but also the district’s one mill expenditure information. She has left comments on posts in groups, one of which Chair Diyonne McGraw said was an assumption about other board members’ opinions that they had not expressed. 

Certain said the board attorney called her at the request of McGraw and Superintendent Shane Andrew, and she told him she could not honor a “request to stay quiet” on the charter school issue.  

Certain said she is not opposed to Newberry having charter schools, but that she is wholly against the conversion charter initiative “with every pound that’s in my body.” 

“The problem that I have is they want three public assets that the citizens all over Alachua County paid for,” Certain said. “They contributed tax dollars for that. And in getting those three buildings, they want the authority to say who can come to them. And they leave people out.” 

According to Joel Searby, one of EFN’s spokespeople, the organization felt it would be best to use the state’s conversion charter route to create a “small, up-close school system” to better serve students and the community.

Caroline Anderson, another EFN spokesperson, said the citizens of Archer and Newberry have also paid for the schools through their taxes over the years. 

Many concerns voiced by community members have stemmed from EFN’s inability to make guarantees, which Anderson said is a legal limitation—the organization cannot make any binding agreements until after the voting process. For now, parents and teachers must make decisions based on EFN’s good faith efforts. 

EFN’s proposed plan gives automatic acceptance to all currently-enrolled students in the three schools, through their high school graduation. It also promises to give preference to those students’ siblings. 

Some community members have voiced concern that even students within Newberry and Archer city limits will not be “safe,” as the schools will have to accept students by a random lottery. Searby said that may be true of standard charter schools but is not the case for Newberry’s proposed conversion charters. 

“As [a “community-based, public conversion charter], and supported by our lawyers expert analysis, we have unique flexibility to set both boundaries and capacity, in collaboration with the Alachua County School Board, to ensure that we can, in fact, fulfill our commitments to keep all students in these schools and provide room for future growth to avoid having to go to a lottery for ANY students who reside in the geographic area,” Searby wrote in an email. 

An analysis from Arnold Law Firm reinforces Searby’s statement, saying the charter schools’ capacities would be determined by the governing board in conjunction with the school board.

In an immediate response to the school board meeting, EFN reinforced its commitment to special needs students. According to Anderson, part of the motivation behind the charter conversion was to be able to create opportunities to serve special needs students at Newberry schools, some of whom are currently bused to the Sidney Lanier Center in Gainesville. 

In its next public meeting on March 26, EFN plans to host a panel discussion with charter school staff members from across the state describing how their schools accommodate students with the greatest needs. 

Anderson said the school board meeting was concerning to her, as multiple citizen commenters agreed with Certain’s comments with statements about exclusivity, and added concerns about transportation and curriculum. 

EFN has been in contact with a private busing company that works with charter schools, according to Anderson. She said those buses would even be able to cater to the needs of children with special physical or emotional needs, and that charter schools have the ability to provide vouchers to students who need busing. 

“What’s nice on our end, and what we who are doing the research understand, is that there are innovative ways to solve these problems,” Anderson said. “And I do think that because the district is bound by certain confines, that the people that are on the opposition don’t understand we actually have the ability to do things differently.” 

Anderson said curriculum can be similarly innovative, as students and parents can provide their input on what they would like to see. However, the curriculum would still have to meet state standards. 

The Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) district has been posting frequent updates to its website FAQs in response to promises EFN has made. 

On social media, the district has been spreading word of what Newberry schools receive through the One Mill for Schools property tax, which last is budgeted this year to bring about $1.8 million to the three schools for art, music, theater, band, librarians, counselors and more. The district says if the schools converted, their One Mill funding would decrease. 

Advocates for the charter conversion initiative have complained that Newberry’s school facilities are not being adequately kept up, an issue they have recognized is district-wide. ACPS has also posted to advertise the use of half-cent sales tax funding to build a $7 million, 16-classroom building at Oak View, as well as a new playground, car line canopy, furniture and other projects. 

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that a future governing board would make class size decisions in conjunction with the school board.