State to consider limiting recently expanded School of Hope program

By Jay Waagmeester, The Florida Phoenix

The state’s newly expanded charter school co-location program could be limited after the Florida Department of Education received “a lot of feedback,” an administrator said.

The department hosted a rule development meeting Monday, soliciting feedback for Schools of Hope rules, the program that lawmakers vastly expanded in the waning hours of the 2025 legislative session.

Since the last-minute change approved by lawmakers, traditional public schools have been overwhelmed by newly-enabled charter school operators applying to open inside unused portions of public schools.

The department had not finalized rule language as of Monday. The state said it anticipates the language will be posted this week to the state’s website and that the state Board of Education will review language during its Feb. 20 meeting in Key West. The state website provides room for members of the public to submit feedback. 

Adam Emerson, director of the Office of School Choice at the department, was the only speaker during a teleconference Monday. He said since the state implemented the expansions in the fall, there has been “a lot of feedback.”

According to Emerson, some “high-level components that we will consider” in further Schools of Hope administrative rules include:

• Limits around the number of building notices submitted by a single Hope operator. “We are limiting the number of building notices in this particular rule development.”
• “We are looking at greater assurances around a Hope operator’s proposed co-location with a district school.”
• More provisions with mutual management plans “with a goal of offsetting some of the costs that are associated with that co-location.”

“We will be looking at tweaking the criteria to approve the Hope operator” and setting timelines for operators to submit notices of intent to co-locate, Emerson said. 

The Schools of Hope program was created under former House Speaker Richard Corcoran to allow charter schools to open near “persistently low performing” schools, but the 2025 Legislature expanded the area and scope that these publicly funded and privately operated charter schools that may open in areas adjacent to “persistently low performing” traditional public schools may serve.

It allows these schools to open in low-income zones or even outside such zones if there is a suitable underused, vacant, or surplus facility, and in the attendance zone of a “persistently low performing school.”

Under the new law, “hope operators” are allowed to open in vacant spaces inside public schools at no cost. School districts must provide custodial, maintenance, safety, food, nursing, and transportation services if the school of hope requests it.

In September, the day after the Board of Education implemented the law, Gov. Ron DeSantis and billionaire Ken Griffin announced that a New York-based charter operator would open in Miami.

Less than a week after the rule went into effect last fall, the Florida Policy Institute, a non-partisan policy research organization, reported that charter operators had sent 690 “letters of intent” to co-locate inside of public schools in 22 counties.

Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas defends the program, and the GOP-led Legislature has not indicated a move toward addressing school concerns in this legislative session, although Democratic legislators have proposed changes to the laws passed less than a year ago.

These proposed administrative rules could be the first try at addressing concerns.