Once Again, Academica Makes Bank
According to Florida Statute 1002.33, “All charter schools in Florida are public schools and shall be part of the state’s program of public education.” In reality, Florida’s charter schools are publicly funded but privately managed and are exempt from many of the requirements placed upon public schools (f.s. 1002.33(16)). In practice, charter schools are public schools when it benefits them but, otherwise, behave as private businesses.
When in comes to accessing millions of dollars of Covid relief funds, it’s advantageous to be a charter.
When Congress passed its Covid Relief package, which included the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan program designed to provide a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll during the Covid-induced shutdowns, some charter schools said “why not?”
Public schools, as government entities, did not qualify for the PPP loans but both charters and public schools qualified for their share of the $2 trillion CARES funding. Both traditional public schools and charter schools, also, received full funding for the 2019-2020 school year, so their payroll should never have been at risk. Still, when Payroll Protection Program was offered, some charters found it difficult to say no.
For example, let’s look at Senate Education Committee Chair, Manny Diaz Jr.’s employer and Florida’s largest for-profit corporate charter chain, Academica:
Academica is the parent company, or Education Service Provider, of Pitbull’s SLAM (SLAM Sports Leadership and Management), Doral Academy, the Ben Gamla charter schools, Mater Academies, City of Belle Isle charters, Theodore and Thelma Gibsoncharter, Integrated Science and Asian Culture charter and Doral College, where Senator Diaz serves as the Chief Operating Officer. Despite receiving their entire 2019-2020 state funding and qualifying for CARES stimulus funding, these Academica businesses went back to the public trough and received Payroll Protection Program risk-free loans, which will be forgiven if they retain their staff. Altogether they qualified for loans of up to $19.7 MILLION dollars, to protect the payrolls that our Florida tax dollars had already paid for…
After his employer, Academica, received the full 2019-2020 Florida Education Finance Program state funding for their schools and, essentially, double dipped into both PPP and CARES stimulus funding, Senator Diaz joined two of his Senate Education Committee members, Senators Baxley and Simmons, and 10 State Representatives, including House Ed Committee members Randy Fine and Byron Donalds, and signed an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) letter opposing any federal bailout for state and local governments, which include public schools. Instead, they wrote, “states should work to craft a priority-based budget.”
Question: Who thinks that, after more than a decade of systematically defunding public education, these Florida legislators will prioritize public education funding in their Covid era budgets?
Anyone? Anyone?
In case you were wondering, these are the legislators who are on this November’s ballot who joined Diaz in signing the ALEC letter:
- Rep. Randy Fine running for HD-53
- Rep. Stan McClain running for HD-23
- Rep. Mike Hill running for HD-1
- Rep. Anthony Sabatini running for HD-32
- Rep. Byron Donalds running for US Congress CD-19
- Rep. Ana Maria Rodriguez running for Florida Senate SD 39
- Rep. Spencer Roach running for HD-79
- Rep. Tommy Gregory running for HD-73
- Rep. Juan Fernandez Barquin running for HD-119