A charter school in Miami created two years ago through last minute maneuvering is getting a second look from lawmakers who aren’t comfortable with how the school is being run or how it was created.
The SEED school in Miami is a charter boarding school that houses low-income and academically struggling students five days a week. It was created in 2011 through a last-minute amendment on an unrelated bill on the last day of the legislative session. Senator Nancy Detert (R-Venice) has long questioned SEED’s high cost per student and did so again during a recent Education Committee meeting:
“If we spend $32,000 per-student we’d get a probably better than 56 percent of them going to college, so I really question the SEED school frankly. The other thing is... this year’s focus is to expand charter schools, vouchers, etc. And, we’re not putting $32,000 a kid into that.”
The school plans to open in August but is struggling to recruit students. The Florida Department of Education has requested $1.5 million for SEED for the upcoming school year, a cost of $25,000 per-child. The rest of the money would come from the Miami-Dade school district and other sources.
