Sarasota School Board approves for-profit 'classical' charter school despite protest

As members of the public continued to urge board member Bridget Ziegler to resign, the Sarasota County School Board voted 4-1 to approve a for-profit charter school Tuesday.

The Sarasota Classical Preparatory Academy, which wants to open for the 2025-26 school year, is affiliated with the for-profit Charter Schools USA, a fact several public commenters pointed to as reason the board should deny the application. SCPA's estimates its opening enrollment at 885 K-10 students, with hopes to expand to 1,235 K-12 students by its fifth year, according to the school's 600-page application submitted to the district in December.

Board member Tom Edwards, who was outspoken in his opposition to the charter school, cast the dissenting vote.

The last charter school approved by the School Board was the College Preparatory Academy at Wellen Park, a K-8 charter that was initially unanimously denied. However, the school appealed the decision and the board, which had two new board members as a result of the August 2022 election, voted 4-1 in favor.

The charter school describes its education plan in three steps: grammar, logic and rhetoric. Grammar encompasses K-5 grades, logic grades 6-8 and rhetoric 9-12. The charter references "The Great Works" of Plato, Homer and Shakespeare for high school students.

The school is separate from The Classical Academy of Sarasota, an existing private school affiliated with the conservative, Christian Hillsdale College. However, the school's proposed location is the same address as The Classical Academy's current campus off Fruitville Road.

At an earlier board workshop on Feb. 20 about the charter, School Board members expressed hesitation with the "classical" school's application. Concerns ranged from whether enrollment projections are realistic given other nearby schools, the school's physical location, and the representatives' lack of preparation for the meeting, as the charter did not have a presentation for the board.

However, the board moved to approve the charter despite the concerns. During the meeting, School Board legal counsel Patrick Duggan said that much of the board's discretion on charter school votes has been taken away by the Florida Legislature.

Instead, the board votes on whether the charter meets state-mandated criteria, which it did for 21 of 22 items. If the district were to deny the charter, Duggan said the district would be compelled to pay all the legal fees of the charter school should it challenge the district at the state level.

Ziegler spoke in favor of approving the charter school, noting that it was a "foregone conclusion" that the district would not prevail should it vote against the school.

"We have battled and we have not been successful in that avenue before..." she said. "... It's practically a foregone conclusion."

Edwards, who spoke vehemently against approving the charter school, said he still had many questions regarding the school's application.

He pointed to the school's interpretation of classical education, the unclear status of the school's physical location and the $350,000 budget line for custodial services as causes for confusion.

"That's going to be the cleanest school on the planet," Edwards said.

Edwards said the board didn't receive any emails or public commenters speaking in support of approving the charter school. He also said he requested a special workshop to discuss the charter school further but was denied, and pushed the board to fight the charter school at the state level.

"Sarasota has to be the best at everything," he said. "This charter school application is not the best at all."

Following the vote, board member Tim Enos said he wasn't impressed by the charter school but felt it was best to approve it because of the potential legal fees.

"We had the same exact thing with the same fees that we were caught, so it would be over $120,000 that we're going to lose because Tallahassee has taken that away from us," Enos said. "You still have to do what's good cause."

Protest and public comment on Bridget Ziegler

Before the meeting, a rally organized by the Social Equity through Education Alliance, or SEE Alliance, continued to urge Ziegler to step down from her position on the board following an investigation into an alleged sexual assault against her husband Christian Ziegler in which police and prosecutors declined to press charges.

Ziegler told investigators she was involved in a three-way sexual relationship with the woman who accused Christian Ziegler of sexual battery, a fact many in the public have pointed to as hypocritical in the context of Ziegler’s anti-trans social media posts and advocacy for the Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by critics.

Zander Moricz, the founder of SEE Alliance and alumnus of Pine View School in Sarasota County, spoke at the meeting to call on Ziegler to step away. He'd previously urged her to resign in comments that gained hundreds of thousands of views on social media.

"Bridget Ziegler, you have blasted homophobic and transphobic rhetoric on this dais and across the country and on your social media," Moricz said. "You have gay and trans students who are telling you that because you've done that, you being here makes them feel unsafe."

For the past several meetings, the SEE Alliance helped to mobilize Sarasota County high school students to come speak to the board. Hannah Silva, a senior at Suncoast Polytechnical High School, said she didn’t feel the board was listening to the public commenters.

"If your motto is 'every student, every day,' then my voice as a student should matter,” she said. “Listen to it.”

Before the meeting, Moricz and the organizers of the SEE Alliance helped more than 20 people prepare their speeches at the organization's downtown offices.

The SEE Alliance seeks to continue bringing national attention to Sarasota and the current state of the School Board, Moricz said in an interview ahead of the meeting. He said he wants to change the narrative that Florida is a “lost cause” for progressives.

“The fact that this local community is working hard, week after week to resist the fascism they're experiencing and the School Board,” he said. “It gives a very clear and easy argument for national organizations to see that there's a winnable fight here, to see that there's not a monolithic community, to see that it's not a deep red state, but rather a diverse community that is being disenfranchised by its government.”

Other items

The board also approved job descriptions for new positions, some replacing previous jobs in the district. The board unanimously approved postings for a human capital officer, career technical education/adult career specialist, literary interventionist, supervisor of instructional materials and library services, and data coach/testing coordinator.

The board also approved the advertisement of revisions to 20 district policies, including adding a line requiring teachers to stay in the room if there's a guest speaker in class and adding guidance on using artificial intelligence as a teacher-authorized supplement.

Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at sbwalker@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota School Board approves 'classical' for-profit charter school