Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran’s signature Schools of Hope initiative would stick around for years to come under a plan agreed to by House and Senate budget negotiators.
The two chambers held their first round of talks on the PreK-12 education budget Wednesday night.
The Senate agreed to the House’s proposal to commit another $140 million to Schools of Hope in the 2018-19 budget. That’s the same amount lawmakers spent on the program last year.
The money is supposed to help lure top-performing charter schools to the state, helping them cover the costs of additional instructional time and other support for students.
Grant funding is also available to struggling district-run public schools that want to create whole-school transformations by offering wraparound services — like tutoring and health clinics. So far, districts have received tens of millions of dollars in funding through the program.
A big chunk of the money remains unspent. But a little-noted provision in HB 7055, the wide-ranging education bill now ready for a vote on the Senate floor, would ensure Schools of Hope funding remains available five years after lawmakers appropriate it. That would allow any unspent money to help pay for grants in future years.
That should bring some measure of certainty to nationally recognized charter operators considering Florida expansion plans. Time will tell whether it’s enough.
