The Pinellas County School District unveiled a plan Tuesday to prevent outside charters from moving into public schools, in response to a Florida law passed last year that expanded a program called “Schools of Hope.”
As a result, last year, a series of charters — some run by for-profit companies — applied to “co-locate” rent-free inside hundreds of Florida’s under-enrolled public schools.
The Pinellas County strategy entails closing two elementary schools, merging two schools and expanding another to serve grades kindergarten through eighth grade…