New charter schools poised to pull students from under-enrolled Orange campuses
Orlando Sentinel | By Steven Walker |
Amid a burgeoning statewide controversy over a new law easing the way for private groups to launch public schools, two charter schools have announced plans to open in Orange County, moves that could pull students from neighborhood campuses already struggling to fill their classrooms.
One of the new charter schools hopes to take advantage of the enrollment declines in Orange County Public Schools. It has filed paperwork to move, rent free, into a campus in Pine Hills that is about half empty.
The other wants to recruit students from five other public schools, all under enrolled, including OCPS Academic Center of Excellence, whose opening eight years ago was viewed as part of the effort to revitalize the economically downtrodden Parramore neighborhood.
Both charters plan to open in Orange under Florida’s “Schools of Hope” program, started by the Florida Legislature in 2017 to improve education in neighborhoods with “persistently low-performing schools.” A last-minute revision to the law this year allows established charter schools — privately-run schools that take public funds but have wide latitude to run their operations — to use, at no cost, empty space in traditional public schools. That has sparked applications around the state to create new charter schools in such spaces.
But the new schools are receiving a chilly reception in an Orange County district that has seen a 6,500-student enrollment decline this year.
“I don’t know what they would have to offer that we don’t already offer,” said Angie Gallo, a member of the Orange County School Board.
Orange school leaders also fear the charter schools will put a strain on a district budget that is already stretched thin. Schools are funded on a per-student basis, so campuses that lose students can be a hardship for a district that still must cover fixed costs, such as a principal’s salary and utility bills. Adding to the anticipated difficulties, OCPS would be required to pay some of the charter schools’ bills.
Educators in other Florida districts characterized the moves as a “land grab” that could completely take over public school buildings in a few years.
Both charter school companies tout their schools’ academic achievement and college-preparatory focus.
The KIPP Team and Family charter school company submitted a notice to OCPS in August that it intends to build a K-12 campus and pull students now zoned for five district schools. All the campuses are under enrolled by at least 200 students. The schools all earned Cs from the state last year based on student performance on Florida’s standardized tests.
The KIPP network operates more than 270 charter campuses nationwide and says it creates “joyful, academically excellent schools.”
KIPP’s four Florida campuses, three in Duval County and one in Miami, earned Cs and Ds from the state last year.
The Miami-based Mater Academy wants to take over part of Ridgewood Park Elementary, rated a B by the state. The school now has 459 students on a campus meant for 896.
Ridgewood Park Elementary in Orlando, on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025. The school operates at about half capacity as of the 2025–26 school year, and could see a charter school take classroom space rent-free under the new Schools of Hope rules.
Mater bills itself as a network of “college prep charter schools” focused on “rigorous academics.”
This month, at least 15 Florida school districts have received requests from Mater to open schools of hope on an estimated 300 school campuses for the 2027-28 school year, said Andrea Messina, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association.
KIPP, which stands for “Knowledge is Power Program,” intends to find its own campus, but KIPP Co-President Gabriella DiFilippo said the network hasn’t ruled out the possibility of occupying an existing OCPS school.
KIPP hopes to open its Orange charter school in the 2028-29 school year and to enroll 2,600 students by its fifth year, according to its proposal.
It would pull students from Eagle’s Nest Elementary School, Eccleston Elementary School, Pineloch Elementary School, Rolling Hills Elementary Schools, and OCPS ACE.
All five schools enroll far fewer students than their campuses were built for, a trend across the district and the state this year where public school enrollment is down by about 70,000. Districts blame the enrollment loss on declining birth rates and the expansion of Florida’s school voucher program, which provides money for private school scholarships and homeschooling services and has lured many students away from traditional public schools.
OCPS ACE, which opened in 2017, offers specialized community services, including an early learning center and on-site healthcare. But the K-8 school currently serves 746 students in a facility built for almost 1,300, making it the most under-enrolled of the five.
Dismissal of the OCPS Academic Center for Excellence in downtown Orlando, on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. KIPP, a charter school company, sent a letter of intent to open a “School of Hope” in Orlando that would pull from OCPS ACE, among other schools.
DiFilippo said KIPP sees the enrollment declines as an opportunity to bring families back into public education through charter school options.
“We understand what the trends are, but that’s not necessarily a daunting proposition for us,” she said.
KIPP would recruit students by reaching out to families who live in the five schools’ attendance zones, with door knocking and presentations at apartment complexes, multilingual mail flyers and paid advertising, according to the group’s proposal.
Mater accidentally submitted its Orange letter of intent last week to the Osceola County school district, according to emails obtained by the Orlando Sentinel. Osceola Superintendent Mark Shanoff forwarded it to OCPS Superintendent Maria Vazquez the next day, saying it was “received in error.”
Gallo, who is also the president of the Florida School Boards Association, said the error was characteristic of Mater’s hasty approach to getting space in public schools. In sending Broward County Public Schools letters of intent for 27 of its schools, Mater accidentally sent the district one for a school in Collier County, too.
Osceola County received two notices from Mater, seeking to operate in Deerwood Elementary School and Osceola Technical College – Central Campus.
In a statement, Mater Academy President Roberto Blanch said the school had “a proven record of delivering results for students” and was looking to expand through “schools of hope” as a way to “increase access for families and bring students back into the classroom.”
Mater already operates another school in Orange near Lake Nona, which has its own campus. The group also proposed but never opened a school in Apopka in 2021.
In past years, school boards had more discretion about which charter schools, which need a board’s approval to open, could operate in their districts. But the “schools of hope” law and other rule changes makes a local school board’s vote largely procedural — meaning districts are forced to approve charter schools even if they don’t make sense for the district’s student population.
If Mater moves into Ridgewood Park, OCPS would be responsible for the cost of operating facilities that it could otherwise shut down to save money, and it would have to pay for transportation and food for Mater’s students.
Orange administrators have begun discussions about whether some OCPS elementary campuses might eventually need to be closed, consolidated or had wings or floors shut down because of low enrollment.
Lawmakers who approved the law’s changes said it makes sense to try to fill empty public schools.
Ridgewood Park Elementary in Orlando, on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025. The school operates at about half capacity as of the 2025–26 school year, and could see a charter school take classroom space rent-free under the new Schools of Hope rules.
“When you have a school that isn’t even at 50% capacity, and those are our hard-earned taxpayer dollars that went to go build that building, we have a responsibility to ensure that we are utilizing it to its full capacity for our students,” said bill sponsor Rep. Demi Busatta, R-Coral Gables, at a March 27 committee hearing.
But Liz Barker, a school board member in Sarasota County where Mater submitted three requests to operate in schools, called the effort a “blatant land grab” and a “hostile takeover of community-owned property,” speaking on Orange school board member Stephanie Vanos’ podcast last week.
Vanos shared similar concerns. “I just don’t know how parents and communities will stand for this once they see this happening,” she said.
