School board votes to appeal Newberry charter school decision despite acknowledging there is no appeal process

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their March 12 business meeting, the School Board of Alachua County voted to appeal the Charter School Review’s Commission decision to approve a conversion charter school in Newberry and “explore all available legal actions” while also acknowledging that there is no appeal process.

Board Attorney David Delaney introduced the agenda item, saying that when the Newberry Community School submitted its application to the Charter School Review Commission (CSRC) last year, the school district submitted a response “explaining that, first of all, the charter vote had failed, and secondly, pointing out deficiencies in the application, both of which would be reasons for the Charter School Review Commission to not approve the application.” However, the CSRC approved the application on February 26, “and there is now a deadline approaching to consider an appeal to the State Board of Education, as well as presenting a proposed contract… to the Newberry Community School.”

Motion

Member Tina Certain said, “I do believe that the vote failed and all of that stuff, so I move that we… authorize the Superintendent and legal counsel to file an appeal with the Florida Department of Education,… challenging the approval of the Newberry charter school and to explore all available legal actions to that approval by the Charter School Review Commission.” Member Thomas Vu seconded the motion.

Certain then revised the motion to specify that the appeal should be submitted to “whatever the appropriate agency is,… the State Board of Education.”

Ten people spoke during public comment, all supporting the motion and opposing the charter school.

Certain: “The vote failed [and] it’s really a municipal charter that’s masquerading as a conversion”

When the discussion returned to the dais, Certain said she had failed to mention that she attended the Charter School Review Commission meeting with attorney Amy Envall, who was hired by Alachua County Public Schools to represent the district. Certain asked Superintendent Kamela Patton whether the district had “received a call to do an interview about our application.” Patton replied, “Not at all, not to any of our knowledge – not the application, nor the letter that you all sent from the attorneys.”

Envall’s firm, Sniffen and Spellman, P.A., was hired on November 26, 2024, to represent the district “related to General Education and other matters from time to time” through June 30, 2025. Attorneys are paid $200 per hour, with a maximum total billing of $25,000.

Certain said that at the CSRC meeting, she was initially told that the state would get five minutes, the charter school board would get five minutes, “and we [Certain and Envall] would have an unlimited amount of time to discuss the application.” She said she stepped out to take a phone call from Patton, and when she re-entered the meeting room, she was told that the district would have five minutes.

[Editor’s note: At the beginning of the CSRC meeting on February 26, immediately after the Pledge of Allegiance, Chair Jay Boggess said the following: “When we come to each of the two applications on the agenda today, we will first hear from the Department of Education, or Department, and the Charter Institute on the review of the application and the recommendation being made to this Commission; they will have a combined five minutes to speak. The applicant, if present, also will be provided five minutes to give an overview of the application, and the district with whom the school would, if approved, enter into a charter agreement, will also be provided five minutes to address the Commission, only to the input that the district provided during the application period.”]

Certain said that during her five minutes, she “really tried to drive home” the deficiencies in the application, “and then I spent the last couple minutes really trying to drive home the fact that… the vote failed [and] it’s really a municipal charter that’s masquerading as a conversion and that they spent a lot of money and City time, Newberry, doing this, and that school districts are organized on the county concept by the State Constitution and we participate in the Florida Education Finance Program – that’s how schools are funded.”

Certain said the citizens of Newberry “are going to be additionally burdened by this whole process because in the application, as well as in the meeting, they said that the City of Newberry would be the financial backstop for this thing.” She said the City raises revenue through property taxes and fees, “and what I can in my mind envision happening is, the citizens of Newberry and even their governmental officials are going to be saying they don’t want to pay the school tax because they have their school out there in their community.”

Certain: “I am ready for doing a whole lot more than that”

She concluded, “I really do hope that you guys will support the motion, we’ll file the appeal, and I am ready for doing a whole lot more than that… I just think we just have to fight… I think keeping the school under the district control is the best path [to benefit the most students].”

Vu: “They lost the vote, it was never contested, and no one’s ever ruled otherwise with any authority”

Vu said, “Yeah, they lost the vote, it was never contested, and no one’s ever ruled otherwise with any authority… Even Florida’s Attorney General refused to comment and rule on this, if that tells you anything… These people did not follow the rules at any step of the way. Their whole campaign started with a lie. They said they were a grassroots effort, and then I don’t know how a grassroots effort finds $120,000 to do this. I don’t know how a grassroots effort is organized by a Mayor, utilizing City staff to organize this, research it, and do it. I don’t know how a grassroots effort recruits a high-level political consultant who works at national politics to do this, and let’s talk about that high-level consultant for a little bit, Joel Searby, who’s currently in jail right now, awaiting charges and a trial for heinous crimes against children. Let’s think about that for a second and how this group embraced this man and defended him. Even after he was arrested, their first reaction was, this was a conspiracy. Not condemning him. The Mayor said nothing for over a week and used the fact that he was out of the country as an excuse, as if somehow he didn’t know – again, shirking his duty to his town and the community at large and to the very kids he’s claiming he’s doing this for.” 

[Editor’s note: We have asked Member Vu for the letter from the Attorney General, refusing to rule on the vote, and we will add that if we receive it. He responded and said he didn’t have it but would try to find it. According to the Attorney General’s website, “Attorney General Opinions are intended to address only questions of state law, not questions of federal law, questions of fact, mixed questions of fact and law, or questions of executive, legislative, or administrative policy.”]

Vu: “This whole plan of theirs is just terrible. It might as well be thrown in the mud.”

Vu continued, “So all those lies, and then there was the whole lie that this is going to work and be better. Even their own budget, like some of you all pointed out, shows that Newberry Elementary School, on its own, cannot financially support itself. And this is also evident in that the City of Newberry had to take a $2 million loan with their underwriting to support this school, again, telling everybody this is not financially feasible. And so to me, they’re going to do everything they can to put window dressing on a pig, but this whole plan of theirs is just terrible. It might as well be thrown in the mud. But now I’m just getting a little bit into invective, and maybe I don’t need to do that. But you know, to me, it’s really clear what’s happening. It’s really clear that this is part of some greater movement. This isn’t isolated. This wasn’t grassroots. You don’t get the state approving something like this unless they were already going to do so. You don’t get $120,000 in case you have big, financial, connected backers. You don’t get a high-level political consultant who was clearly morally terrible and willing to do morally terrible things to do this, again, unless you have big backing. And so, to me, everything about this is part of something bigger. I’m going to again vote to oppose the conversion vote… just for that very reason, because we can’t sit idly by and do it. The school cannot support itself, and we have to do everything we can to make sure that we keep it.”

Chair Sarah Rockwell said she supported the motion to file an appeal: “I believe that we need to ask the Board of Education to weigh in here, and if they refuse to weigh in or they weigh in in a way that violates their own rules that were in place at the time, I want to see that in writing. I want them on the record saying that that is what they’re doing.”

Does the appeal affect the district’s 30-day deadline to provide a proposed contract?

Rockwell asked Delaney what the appeal would mean for the 30-day deadline for the district to provide a proposed contract to the charter school. Delaney responded, “The rules are not clear on that.” He said the district had just received official notification of the Charter School Review Commission’s decision that day, and “that might affect the starting date for that timeline.”

Florida Statute 1002.3301(4) requires the school district to provide an initial proposed charter contract to the charter school “within 30 calendar days after the commission’s decision granting an application.”

Patton: “To remind you, there is no appeal. We don’t have an ability to appeal it.”

Patton said, “To remind you, there is no appeal. We don’t have an ability to appeal it… If the answer was no, then Newberry could appeal.” Statutes allow the applicant to appeal a denial, but there is no provision in the law for the district to appeal the decision.

Delaney said, “The statute and the rules implementing the statute are not written to create a level playing field; the rules and the statute… [are] silent as to whether the district has the option of making an appeal. We want to push this issue as far as we can by going ahead and citing those rules and that statute and submitting an appeal to the State Board of Education.”

Rockwell: “They have not specified an appeal process for us. We’re going to go ahead and try to submit one, anyway, if this motion passes.”

Rockwell said, “I guess that clarifies what Dr. Patton said… They have not specified an appeal process for us. We’re going to go ahead and try to submit one, anyway, if this motion passes.” She asked again whether the appeal affects the 30-day deadline for an initial proposed charter contract and what the consequences would be if that doesn’t happen.

Delaney said he was “speculating a little bit… [about] about what actions the Department of Education might take – I would have to guess – but one of them might be that they impose a contract or they approve whatever terms the Newberry applicant is requesting. So we are going to work to avoid that as an outcome.” He said work on a contract has already begun: “We’re working to give the district as many options as possible.”

Patton clarified, “Just because it’s obviously a very hot topic: I think what I’m hearing is that you’re going to put an appeal into the State Board and not worry about litigation locally.”

Delaney responded, “I think Ms. Certain’s motion focuses on the appeal. If there are other legal or litigation actions, I think we would be authorized if we thought we could recommend…” and Patton spoke over the rest of his statement and said, “to do something.”

Vote

The motion passed, 4-0.