ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — LaQuinda Thomas and Alicia Rosario herded their children past the entrance gate of Orange Center Elementary [OCE] school as a boisterous group of kids chattered and waited for the crossing guard to whistle them through.
The school, long a staple of Orlando’s southwest side, earned rave reviews from the young mothers, who were impressed by the programming and engaging teaching style.
“It’s an awesome school so far,” Thomas said. “The kids are always busy.”
OCE already stands out among public schools. Billed as a STEM magnet school, its fortunes have advanced thanks to heavy involvement by community nonprofit Lift Orlando, which is focused on developing the neighborhood’s prospects from education and jobs to housing.
Lift Orlando now wants to go a step further, and has submitted a request to Orange County Public Schools [OCPS] to transfer operations of the public school to an independent organization and board that it would set up.
“This is a chance to let our educators be educators while we care for our children in every other way,” Lift Orlando President Eddy Moratin said.
Under the draft agreement submitted to the district, the new entity, the Neighborhood Schools Initiative, would assume day-to-day responsibilities of the school and operate it like a charter school, making curriculum and personnel decisions. The school would gradually expand to serve grades K-8.
OCPS would retain ownership of the school and get two seats on the newly created school board. There would also be a community advisory committee. Should the program fail, OCPS would be able to resume operation of the school, Moratin said.
Florida law requires a vote by parents before any public school is converted into a charter school.
Moratin said the new model would allow the organization to experiment with the curriculum without the bureaucracy of one of the nation’s largest school districts, while allowing the school to collaborate with Lift Orlando’s early childhood, after school and college readiness programs. He said he drew inspiration from schools in other cities like New York that have seen success with similar models.
“Really advancing innovation through a public private partnership that still has transparency, accountability, reporting and all the authority that the district should have,” Moratin explained. “We’re not going through this kind of these for-profit, private models that want zero accountability, zero transparency and zero partnership with the district.”
In an initial conversation about the proposal during a workshop Tuesday, board members received the idea warmly – even as their staff warned there was still “a long way to go” as they examined what the impact would be to the wider district.
“You see the things that they’re doing with the community. It is re-imagined. It’s different,” Vicki-Elaine Felder, who represents the district, said.
Moratin said he wants the agreement signed during this school year, which means he’ll be under a tight timeline to convince the more skeptical parents.
“What they trying to teach and what they trying to tell the kids?” Charmaine Davis wondered. “Like, what they trying to take over to make them learn better?”
If the model is adopted and works, the agreement opens the door for Lift Orlando to begin working in and potentially bring the same model to the other elementary schools in the 32805 zip code, including Catalina, Washington Shores, Rock Lake and Pineloch.
Each of those schools feeds into Jones High School. Moratin re-confirmed he had no interest in expanding to the older grades, a prospect that drew swift and strong opposition from community members when it was floated as a rumor on social media back in May.
Despite some hesitation and general unfamiliarity with the concept, many parents, including Rosario, were all in favor of the concept for the younger kids.
“I wouldn’t care personally who’s running the school,” she said. “They’re into the books and the kids learning and [accelerated reader] points, so that’s good points for me.”
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