Hundreds of adults were packed into a meeting room at the Seminole campus of St. Petersburg College last Wednesday. All seats were filled. More than 100 adults stood shoulder-to-shoulder.
But it was the voice of one child that best captured the reason they were there.
“I do not understand why some grownups are trying to close my school,” said Zoe Sanchez, a nine-year-old who attends SouthShore Charter Academy in Hillsborough County. “I cannot say enough how much I love my school.”
Attorneys and teachers and members of the state and local board had come to challenge the Hillsborough County School Board’s decision to close four charter schools, including SouthShore.
At that meeting, the state Board of Education unanimously agreed with young Zoe Sanchez and said the Hillsborough board had violated state law with their abrupt decision to close those schools.
Subsequently, the Hillsborough board has scheduled an emergency meeting on the morning of Tuesday, July 20, to reassess its previous decision.
Last week’s meeting highlighted one of the core problems in education: a failure to put what’s best for students at the center of each decision adults make.
More than 2,000 students attend the four schools threatened with closure. Every one of those students is now in limbo, as Hillsborough schools are set to reopen in just a few weeks.
Adding to the dilemma, the Hillsborough board did not come up with an alternative for those students. Nor have they shown any tangible reason for closing the schools other than vague warnings about finances and their political dislike for public charter schools.
With responsibility for administering public education for all students in Hillsborough County – the school board is acting against the very interests of its students in exercising authority to limit a child’s access to an education that meets their needs.
Parents chose to attend those schools, and they were rightfully indignant at the Hillsborough board’s readiness to close schools that provide a better learning option than a geographically assigned school.
Florida’s Commissioner of Education, Richard Corcoran, summed up the board’s actions in just a dozen words: “This loyalty or bias toward a system and not students is reprehensible,” Corcoran said.
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