by Tyler Foerst
In February, right after qualifying ended for their City Commission with only the incumbents qualifying, the Mayor of Newberry, Jordan Marlowe, and his group launched a $115,000 effort to take over the three traditional public schools in Newberry and convert them to “public” charter schools. The difference being that traditional public schools have to take every child, whereas charter schools can be more selective while still receiving public funds.
In Florida, a parent can petition a public school to convert it into a charter school. The intention of the law was to enable small communities to keep their neighborhood public schools open in the face of school closures brought about by the defunding of public education by the Legislature.
But that’s not what’s happened in Newberry.
Instead, this small, highly funded, and well-organized group, led by Marlowe and a highly-paid political consultant, Joel Searby, launched a hostile takeover of all three traditional public schools in Newberry. If all converted, it would’ve left no public school in Newberry for any child to attend.
Despite Marlowe’s claims that this all magically came together in January, documents incorporating the organization were filed in November. Additionally, e-mails obtained through a public records request show that the mayor was ordering city staff to assist in the creation of budgets for Education First for Newberry back in December.
The Gainesville Sun reported on March 21 that “Naim Erched, a parent who signed onto the Newberry Elementary School conversion letter, said Wednesday that he, Searby, and “Education First for Newberry” board members Carsen Stefanelli and Chelsea Leming all put their ‘heads together’ about six to eight months ago and organically came up with the charter idea.” The organizers of the effort have never come clean about how or when this effort actually started.
Shortly after their first presentation, hyperlinks were discovered within their website that linked to their internal planning document which showed that Marlowe was assigned to create a “fundraising committee” as well as raising the $100,000+ they budgeted for the takeover campaign.
He and Searby were then to seek out ideal parents to lead each school’s charter conversion proposal through letters provided by their highly paid attorney, Shawn Arnold. They have not disclosed who their funders are, nor how much they raised. We do know that they raised enough to buy numerous large signs (near billboard size), yard signs, T-shirts, and to send tens of thousands of dollars of mail to teachers and parents leading up to the vote.
According to the Florida Administrative Code, for a school to convert, a majority of the parents participating must support it and at least half of the parents at the school must participate in the vote. A majority of teachers must also support the conversion and if they did not vote, it counts as an automatic “no” vote.
According to Rule 6A-6.0787.(3).d “If a majority of teachers employed at the school and a majority of voting parents support the charter proposal, the conversion charter application must be submitted…”
For Newberry Elementary, 52.7 percent of parents voted. Of those, 54.38 percent supported converting. However, of the total number of parents at NES who could’ve voted, only 28.65 percent actually supported conversion. 71.35 percent of parents either voted no or abstained.
For teachers, 21 voted against the conversion while 22 voted for the conversion out of a total of 44 teachers. One ballot was incorrectly submitted and tossed out. As the rule states that a majority is needed, and 22 is only half of 44, not a majority, they did not meet the required threshold.
The middle and high schools never met the 50 percent parent participation thresholds, though a strong majority voted overwhelmingly against each conversion.
Moreover, in their letters to the schools and at every public forum held, they made clear the threshold they needed to meet for the initiative to pass was a majority. Because they didn’t hit that threshold, they are now attempting to force the conversion by lying and saying it passed, even going as far as claiming the Department of Education offered an opinion to overturn the ruling, which it did not. Despite Chuck Clemons pleading for the DOE to step in, as of yet they have not weighed in.
Effectively, Marlowe and his group are demanding that Alachua County Public Schools ignore the Florida Administrative Code and allow them to reappropriate a public school for their private use.
The way to overturn a code is through a legal process, not arbitrarily based on the political needs of a few. And removing a public school, not adding to the choices, is exactly the opposite of what the law was intended to do.
We are grateful that Alachua County School Board Members Dr. Sarah Rockwell and Tina Certain have spoken out forcefully against this proposal and we hope SBAC stands by their determination and the original opinion of EFN’s own lawyers and reject any attempt to steal NES.