Glory Reitz
Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) has finalized details for the upcoming vote on the potential conversion of three Newberry schools into charters. Newberry Elementary School, Oak View Middle School and Newberry High School will all hold voting during the same week.
Last month, a nonprofit organization called Education First for Newberry announced its intention to call for the vote and sent formal requests to the schools on Feb. 20. State law requires the school district to hold a vote within 60 days of the requests, and after discussions with Alachua County Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton, ACPS has scheduled six school days for the vote: April 5-12.
State law dictates that classroom teachers each get one vote, and one member of a student’s primary household also gets one vote. Families with more than one child in a school do not get more than one vote, but teachers whose children attend the schools get both a parent and teacher vote.
The teacher and parent votes are tallied separately, with different requirements.
For teachers, any failure to vote will count as a vote against the conversion. For parents, at least 50% of the households must participate, or the initiative automatically fails. With at least 50% participation, a simple majority of households must vote in favor for the conversion to be approved.
The Supervisor of Elections will provide two locked ballot boxes for each school—one for teachers, one for parents. The elections office will also provide two supervising staff members to each school for all voting days.
“We appreciate Supervisor Barton and her team for their willingness to play such a critical role in this very important process,” Superintendent Shane Andrew said in a district press release. “Their involvement will ensure that this is a smooth and fair vote.”
Outside of voting periods, the ballot boxes will be locked in a secure location on each campus, according to the release.
At 8:30 a.m. on April 17, a public meeting will take place at the Mentholee Norfleet Municipal Building for an independent arbitrator to unseal and count the votes. Based on state rules, the district and EFN will jointly select the arbitrator.
ACPS has posted information about the voting process and charter conversion FAQs on its website, including additional information about how households will receive their ballots.
The school district has been watching daily for updates on the EFN website, and responding with updated responses on its own website.
District spokeswoman Jackie Johnson said EFN can only make promises at the current stage of the initiative. Many community questions cannot be answered definitively until after the vote is taken, but the organization has promised things like giving staff a 3.5% raise over whatever the district pays next year.
Johnson clarified that no salary offers have been put forward yet, as negotiations on the 2024-25 contract just began. She also noted that the district pays an automatic step increase of about 1% to its returning employees each year.
“Whatever salary schedule [EFN] prepares would obviously not take effect until the 2025-26 school year, when the charter schools would open,” Johnson wrote in an email. “That means there would be not one, but two more years worth of raises negotiated between the district and ACEA before we come out with a salary schedule for 2025-26.”
Despite what state law says, shouldn’t it be the _public_ that votes on the matter, not just teachers and parents of current students? After all, this proposal would do away with Newberry’s public schools for the duration, not just until current students have graduated. What if parents of students yet to attend, or even yet to be born, prefer their schools to be administered by ACPS and not “Education First for Newberry” (whatever that is)?