Schools of Hope — co-location is the right move for taxpayers, Florida families

Public schools across Florida face a quiet but costly problem: empty classrooms. In many communities, schools built for 800 students now serve only a few hundred. Entire wings sit unused, yet taxpayers continue paying to heat, cool, secure and maintain them.

Meanwhile, families in these same neighborhoods are demanding better options: schools with strong academics, safe environments and the results that set students up for long-term success.

This contradiction is more than inefficient. It is unfair to Florida’s children and Florida’s taxpayers.

The reality is simple: we cannot keep wasting money on unused space while students remain trapped in underperforming schools. This is why Florida expanded the Schools of Hope initiative to provide additional options for persistently low-performing schools across the state. Instead of pouring millions of dollars into new construction, charter schools with a track record of success can be placed directly into the buildings we already have through a strategy known as co-location.

Charter-district co-location is not a radical idea; it is a common sense and fiscally responsible one that is already practiced in other states. When a school is operating at half capacity, taxpayers are still footing the full bill for utilities, custodial staff, security personnel, cafeteria operations and transportation routes. By co-locating a School of Hope operator on the same campus, waste is immediately reduced, and efficiency is increased. Two schools can share safety resources, transportation infrastructure and other services.

Rather than paying twice for what is essentially the same service, Floridians get far more value for every tax dollar.

This approach is especially powerful because of the Schools of Hope operators and the additional accountability they face. The Schools of Hope law, passed by legislators in 2017, was aimed at recruiting the highest-performing charter school networks from across the nation. And it worked. Networks such as KIPP Public Charter Schools, IDEA Public Schools and Success Academy have a proven record of improving outcomes for students in some of the toughest communities. Their presence in Florida gives parents real choice, as these operators have opened schools or have committed to operating in Florida’s most impoverished ZIP codes.

Only six elite operators in Florida hold the Schools of Hope designation, which grants them access to co-location opportunities, allowing them to serve students immediately without waiting for new construction, investing in unnecessary capital projects, or wasting public dollars. These schools are subject to the same assessment program and grading system as traditional public schools, but they also operate under a performance-based agreement with their district sponsors. Failure to meet these stringent standards will result in the closure of the School of Hope.

Co-location is how we meet families where they are, rather than forcing them back into systems that were failing their students. It is a way to restore life to campuses, fill classrooms with engaged students and ensure that public buildings designed and built for education are actually used for education.

Florida has long been a national leader in educational innovation, and this is the next step in that leadership. By bringing high-performing operators into underutilized buildings, we are honoring families’ choices, respecting taxpayers’ money and refusing to settle for empty seats when they could be filled with students receiving world-class instruction.

Empty classrooms do not serve children. Great schools do.

Co-location through the Schools of Hope initiative is how Florida delivers both educational excellence and fiscal responsibility to its lowest-performing students. It is the right move for our students, our communities and our future.

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Anastasios Kamoutsas is Florida’s Commissioner of Education.