The Florida House is set to vote today on a bill that would expand public school choice. HB 669 would require school districts to create open enrollment plans, and give parents the right to send their children to schools across district lines.
While the measure is likely to pass, yesterday, lawmakers raised a number of questions about whether all parents would be able to take advantage of the new options.
Rep. Mia Jones, D-Jacksonville, wanted to know how expanding public school choice would affect desegregation.
This year, an investigative report by the Tampa Bay Times focused on the impact of resegregation in Pinellas County, where Rep. Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor and sponsor of the bill, lives. Public school choice might not solve the problem, he said, but it could offer new chances for parents who would otherwise be trapped in struggling schools to take their children elsewhere.
“We have schools that are at capacity, they’re full, they’re F schools,” he said. “We have schools that are not at capacity. There are seats that are empty, where kids can come and learn, and they’re A schools.”
Jones said that in her community, many students had left struggling schools using existing choice programs. As a result, she said, the schools with the greatest academic struggles tend to be the ones with room to accept new students, while the A schools are often full.
“Each year we have created opportunities for those kids to transfer to go to other schools, so my schools that are challenged are the schools that I have open enrollment in,” she said.
While some might suspect that A schools are overflowing while F schools sit half-empty, Sprowls said he’s run the numbers on some school districts in the state, and found that isn’t always the case.
“There are going to be challenges like transportation, but all we’re saying with this bill is, here’s one more tool in the toolbox for that parent to be able to get their child access to a better education,” he said.
Transportation could be a challenge, especially for parents who want to send their children to other districts. A little-known option in Florida’s tax credit scholarship program* offers $500 transportation scholarships for students who want to attend public schools across district lines.
Rep. Reggie Fullwood, D-Jacksonville, said he calculated the cost of public transportation from northern Jacksonville to neighboring St. Johns County, one of the most affluent and high-scoring districts in the state. He found the scholarship wouldn’t cover a year’s worth of bus service.
“If it’s $12 a day for public transportation, if I get a $500 voucher, it’s not going to last me throughout the school year,” he said.
There are parents in the Jacksonville area who have endured long commutes to reach better public schools for their children. Sprowls said he wished more help with transportation was available, but unless lawmakers expand public school choice, many parents won’t have the option of transporting their students at all.
*Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, helps administer the scholarships.
