An academically struggling military charter school in Central Florida is set to close, after the state Board of Education denied it a special waiver.
Acclaim Academy in Osceola County was the only high school to succumb this year to the state’s “double F” rule, which requires automatic closure of charter schools that receive the lowest possible scores on the state’s grading scale two years in a row.
Earlier this year, eight elementary and middle schools faced a similar fate.
During the state board’s Wednesday meeting in Tallahassee, Acclaim representative Dennis Mope asked the board to make an exception. The school, which served grades seven through 12, is part of a network that operates charter schools elsewhere in the state (and has applied to open even more). Its Osceola campus, he noted, was one of the state’s relatively few high-poverty, Title I charter schools.
The narrow exception to the state’s automatic closure rule is aimed at schools that serve disadvantaged students. If a charter’s students are making greater progress than those at similar schools, the board can give them a one-year waiver to remain open. The Department of Education’s analysis suggests the Acclaim school fell short of that requirement in reading; its performance in math looks better but was still mixed.
“We tried our best with the students that we had,” Mope said. “We are serving a population that is difficult to serve.”
The state board also sided with a Polk County charter that appealed the local school board’s rejection of its application to open a new high school, and rejected an appeal by a proposed charter school from Broward County.
