The Florida Department of Education voted Wednesday afternoon to deny Alachua County School District's appeal and grant the charter conversion application for Newberry Community School.
This was the first time a Florida school district has tried to appeal the recommendation of converting a public school into a charter school.
A provision in the charter review commission statute allows any application to be appealed pursuant to the charter review commission statute. According to W. David Chappell, General Counsel to the Florida State Board of Education, although the statute specifically discusses appealing denials it mentions nothing about approvals.
“The charter review statute expressly articulates how a school that has been denied, can be appealed to the state board of education,” Chappel said, “Theres is no language in the appeals commission statute that expressly addresses what happens when the review commission decides to approve a school and the district wants to challenge that.”
The board decided to honor the language that any decision can be appealed, which was recommended to them, and then denied Newberry’s motion to dismiss the appeal from Alachua County School District.
With the dismissal of that motion, it then gave the state board the jurisdiction to rule on whether to recommend Newberry Elementary to be converted or not. After both sides were given five minutes to present their case, they voted to deny the school district’s appeal and grant the conversion application for Newberry Community School.
The controversy surrounding the conversion of Newberry Elementary School from a public to a charter school dates back to 2024
An initial vote was held in April of 2024 on potentially converting three schools, Newberry Elementary School, Oak View Middle School and Newberry High School, from public to charter schools.
Of the three schools, only Newberry Elementary School came close to meeting the thresholds of a majority vote from parents and teachers, with 149 of the 247 parents voting in favor, but a problem arose with the teacher votes.
With 44 eligible teacher votes, they would need to get 23 votes in favor to move forward with the conversion, but they only got 22 because the 23rd yes vote was not accepted due to improper voting procedures.
In February 2025, Florida Charter School Review Commission voted and approved Newberry Elementary School’s application for becoming a charter school in 2026 and began to move priorities toward a successful launch according to a release from the school.
With the most recent vote, 16 months after the initial process began, in the fall of 2026, Newberry Elementary School will convert to a charter school and be known as Newberry Community School.