State plan to help charter schools irks Palm Beach County School Board
By Jason Schultz
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Some Palm Beach County School District officials are incensed at a state proposal to offer once again millions of dollars next year for capital improvements at charter schools — and none at traditional public schools.
That plan, those officials say, has set up a political fight for the legislative session that begins in March. School officials in Palm Beach County have estimated their buildings and grounds have $1.4 billion in capital improvement needs over the next 10 years.
“It’s absurd,” said Chuck Shaw, county school board chairman. “I don’t know where the state seems to think we’re supposed to come up with the money to maintain our schools.”
Advocates of the funding point out that public schools can levy property taxes to raise money for their capital improvements and that charter schools cannot.
Charter schools are alternatives to traditional public schools. They receive taxpayer funding but are freed from meeting some state requirements — such as in curriculum, hiring and classroom sizes — in exchange for targeting specific classroom results from their students. They often are run by private companies, some of them for-profit.
The state Department of Education last week gave a Florida Senate subcommittee a report on the state Board of Education’s
