A struggling rural North Florida district could soon choose one of the state's largest charter school networks to lead an unprecedented turnaround effort.
Somerset Academy is the only organization still in the running to operate Jefferson County, Fla.'s public schools. The school board is set to vote on the charter group's application Tuesday.
Depending on the local board's vote, the state Board of Education might address the issue when it meets Wednesday in Tallahassee.
Somerset is a nonprofit network associated with the management company Academica. It runs a total of 50 schools serving nearly 17,600 students, according to its website.
The network would run a turnaround effort unlike any Florida has seen. The state Board of Education approved the move in response to more than a decade of academic and financial turmoil in Jefferson County schools.
Jefferson County's newest school superintendent, Marianne Arbulu, told the state Board of Education she wants to turn things around.
Next week, the Florida Board of Education could make history.
For the first time, it may be poised to approve a plan that would convert all the schools in a single district to charters.
The district in question is Jefferson County, a small rural community east of Tallahassee, which operates a single elementary school and one middle-high school. Both have been mired in academic turmoil for the past decade, with school grades that languished as D's and F's.
This school year, the state board grew frustrated with an endless cycle of district-managed turnaround plans, and demanded the local school board return with a proposal that would either turn its schools over to outside operators or close them.
This week, WFSU reports, the school board opted for charter conversions in a 4-1 vote. That plan will come before the state board when it meets Thursday in Gainesville. Now, a big question is whether it can find an operator willing to serve just over 700 students — more than 80 percent of them children of color, nearly all of them economically disadvantaged.
