Latest news with #charterschool
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Polk County charter high school keeps students' hopes of earning diploma alive
The Brief A charter high school is celebrating the graduation of nearly 200 students. The charter school offers a standard high school diploma up to the age of 24. There's a growing need for non-traditional education in Polk County. LAKELAND, Fla. - A charter high school is celebrating the graduation of nearly 200 students who've been thrown curveballs and obstacles in life and have overcome them. Big picture view New Beginnings High School, which started in 2011 in Polk County, gives its students from all walks of life a second chance. The charter school offers a standard high school diploma up to the age of 24. Follow FOX 13 on YouTube It also offers a flexible schedule and a digital platform, allowing students to work at their own pace if they have jobs, childcare responsibilities or others they need to care for. "It's absolutely powerful, because these are students that many people wrote out and who some of them actually gave up themselves. So, for them to get to this point tonight is monumental," said principal, Marvin Pitts. Local perspective Zach Roth, 18, is one of 197 graduates this year, 60% of whom will seek post-secondary education. Others become entrepreneurs, enter the work force, or join the military. READ: Lake Bonny residents brace for new hurricane season after Milton's devastating flooding It has been a bumpy road getting to this point after losing his mother at 10 years old, but Roth now has a full-ride scholarship to play college baseball, and he's thankful to those who didn't give up on him. "I didn't care about high school my freshman year. I flunked high school and slept in every class. I just didn't care, but now they gave me a chance, and I focused and worked hard," said Roth. "It feels amazing someone took a chance to give me another shot, and they didn't regret their decision." What's next Because of the growing need for non-traditional education, the high school is looking to open a fourth campus next year in the Four Corners area in the northeast side of the county. The high school serves more than 1,300 students in and around Polk County. The Source The information in this story was gathered by FOX 13's Carla Bayron. WATCH FOX 13 NEWS: STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 13 TAMPA: Download the FOX Local app for your smart TV Download FOX Local mobile app:Apple |Android Download the FOX 13 News app for breaking news alerts, latest headlines Download the SkyTower Radar app Sign up for FOX 13's daily newsletter
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Yahoo
NYC bus driver allegedly held students captive on way to school and claimed Jews killed Jesus in antisemitic rant
A school bus driver at a Brooklyn charter school pulled off the road and held the children 'captive' while he went on an antisemitic rant, in which made one Jewish kid cry with a lecture that claimed the Jews killed Jesus, sources said. The driver allegedly pulled over as he headed to the Brooklyn Prospect International Elementary Charter School and launched the impromptu diatribe about his religious beliefs and Jesus to a group of students, a few whom are Jewish, one parent said. 'The only one who can deliver you isn't religion, it's Jesus,' the bus driver, who has since been suspended, allegedly said to confused youngsters, according to the parent. When one student asked the unidentified driver if Jesus was a Jew, the driver allegedly offered a centuries-old canard about Jewish people's role in Jesus' crucifixion that is widely condemned as antiemetic. 'Yes, he was a Jew and basically Jews — his own kind — killed him,' the driver told students, the parent claimed. 'They basically killed him because he said he was the son of God … These were religious leaders who killed him.' The assertion that Jews killed Jesus has long been shot down by the Catholic Church. In the Vatican's 'Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions,' it stated the crucifixion of Jesus 'cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today,' the Anti-Defamation League noted. Some students texted their parents about the remarks in real-time and one Jewish student even broke down in tears, the parent said. At one point, the driver also allegedly asked students to recite a prayer while handing out white 'I Am With You Always' hats with a black cross inscribed between the words, the parent said. 'What pissed me off is the kids were late to school,' one parent told The Post. 'The driver definitely held the kids captive.' Students arrived about 30 minutes later than they were supposed to. The school confirmed in a note to parents Friday that the driver 'stopped the bus for a period of time to make religious remarks and distribute religious merchandise to students,' though it did not confirm the specific of the off the rails sermon. The school administration also said it contacted the driver's employer, Jofaz Transportation in Brooklyn, to 'file a formal complaint and request a new driver.' The driver also allegedly told the students that Jesus sacrificed for their sins and 'If we believe in him, we will be saved' and 'The only one who can free you all is Jesus Christ,' the parent said. He allegedly delved into the existence of heaven and hell while criticizing atheists for embracing the Big Bang theory. 'Well, who created the 'Big Bang,' the driver allegedly said, according to student accounts. 'They ain't going to be able to answer you. They're going to get stuck.' While the bus driver was taking students to a charter school — which is privately run but publicly funded — transportation companies are hired by the New York City Department of Education. DOE officials confirmed Jofaz Transportation has a contract with the city, but pending the outcome of an investigation by the bus company, the driver won't transport Big Apple students. Jofaz Transportation could not be reached for comment. Parents were outraged the driver as an authority figure took advantage of the students. 'The Jewish parents were most upset for sure,' the parent added.
New York Times
23-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Religious Education Lost at the Supreme Court. But It's Winning Everywhere Else.
A surprise Supreme Court ruling on Thursday prevented the nation's first religious charter school from opening in Oklahoma, in a 4-to-4 vote that seemed to put the brakes on a conservative movement to expand government funding for religious education. But the ruling may prove to be only a speed bump for the conservative education agenda. Conservatives are poised to get much of what they want, and more, through a powerful school voucher movement that has raced through Republican state legislatures and is on the precipice of coming to all 50 states. On the same day that the Supreme Court rejected government support for religious education in charter schools, the House narrowly passed an all-encompassing piece of domestic policy legislation that creates, for the first time, a federal school voucher program. The bill sets aside $5 billion to fund vouchers for families, who can use the money to pay for K-12 private school tuition, home-schooling or virtual learning. It would bring vouchers even to liberal states like New York and California that have long resisted the concept, and is expected to reach as many as 1 million students nationwide with much of the money going to pay for religious education. Nearly 80 percent of private school students attend a religiously affiliated school. 'On balance, this is a massive day of victory,' said Tommy Schultz, chief executive of the American Federation for Children, which supports the school voucher movement. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, he predicted 'growth in religious school choice in America,' driven by increased political support for vouchers. More than 1 million American students already use taxpayer dollars to pay for private education or home-schooling costs, double the number from 2019. Last month, Texas became the last large Republican-leaning state to pass private-school choice legislation, and advocates quickly shifted their attention to Washington. The program that passed the House is structured as a $5 billion tax credit. It amounts to a dollar-for-dollar tax write-off, for every dollar in cash or stock donated to certain nonprofits that then grant private-education scholarships to students. A vast majority of American households with children would be eligible to receive a scholarship, as long as they do not earn more than 300 percent of their area's median income, which is equal to over $300,000 in some parts of the country. The option to fund the scholarships is expected to be popular with wealthy taxpayers. It offers a much larger tax break than donations to other charities, including churches and community nonprofits. 'It's unprecedented,' said Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal think tank. He said many donations could come in the form of stock, potentially allowing donors to avoid paying capital gains taxes. The plan now heads to the Senate, where Republicans are generally supportive, though they may still adjust some of the program's details. Some Republican senators, like Ted Cruz of Texas, support a larger program of $10 billion, with no income constraints on who can use vouchers. Because the bill would be passed using a special budget process, it can become law with only 51 votes in the Senate. Republicans hold 53 seats. While voucher advocates once focused on providing more options to low-income students, students with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups, they are now pushing vouchers for most everyone. The movement is backed by powerful conservative donors, like the billionaire Jeff Yass, who have funded the political campaigns of Republican voucher supporters. They have overcome resistance from some conservatives who — like many liberals — long worried that vouchers would harm public schools, by decreasing enrollment and funding levels. Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, said the bill would 'siphon crucial funding from public schools — serving 90 percent of students — and redirect it to private institutions with no accountability.' Riding a wave of pandemic dissatisfaction with public education, 10 states now operate private-school choice programs that are available to all or nearly all students, up from just two states in the 2022-23 school year. Five more states — Alabama, Idaho, Louisiana, Tennessee and Wyoming — are set to begin similar programs next school year, according to FutureEd, an education think tank at Georgetown University that has tracked legislation. In many cases, early reports show that expansive voucher programs often subsidize fairly affluent families whose children were already enrolled in private school. The Supreme Court allowed school vouchers to be used for religious education in 2002. The court said that vouchers do not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from establishing religion, because parents act as intermediaries and can choose from an array of school options, both secular and religious. The case in Oklahoma sought to take government funding of religious education a step further, with direct public funding of a religious charter school. Across the country, charter schools are public, nonsectarian and funded with taxpayer dollars, similar to traditional district schools. But they are run independently, often by nonprofits, and are meant to offer alternatives to families, who can attend regardless of ZIP code. In Oklahoma, an online Catholic school proposed by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa sought to open as a charter. It would have been fully funded by taxpayer dollars, but its curriculum would have incorporated Catholic doctrine. Supporters of the school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, challenged charter schools' status as public schools, arguing that they are in practice more like private schools in contract with the government, not public entities. The Supreme Court rejected that plan without explanation, in a 4-to-4 vote that was possible because Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself. The tied vote sets no national precedent, leaving open the possibility that the court, which has expanded the role of religion in other cases, could take up the issue again later with its full conservative majority. The Oklahoma case was championed by supporters of religious freedom, who argue that barring religious groups from operating charter schools, when other groups are free to do so, is religious discrimination. Some school choice advocates celebrated the court's ruling and the House bill as the best of both worlds, noting that it avoids the complicated legal battle and upending of the education landscape that could have resulted from redefining charter schools as private. 'It's really a win for the school choice movement on both counts,' said Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a center-right think tank, who supports school choice and was among those who worried that allowing religious charters would have posed problems for charter schools in blue states. 'It preserves charters as a strong option in the public school system,' he said. 'But it opens the door to private school choice everywhere.' A federal voucher program could be a boon to Catholic schools in particular, which make up the largest share of private school enrollment, at 35 percent. 'We've been supporting it all along,' said Sister Dale McDonald, vice president of public policy for the National Catholic Educational Association, which represents Catholic school educators. The federal bill was in many ways 'more significant' than the Oklahoma case would have been, she said, because if it passes, families across the nation will be able to use it to help pay for tuition at existing schools. Even in Oklahoma, the spread of vouchers means that St. Isidore may still be able to use public money to support its goal of offering online Catholic education to students in rural parts of the state. Around the same time St. Isidore was initially approved as a charter, Oklahoma passed legislation giving parents up to $7,500 per child for private school tuition. After the Supreme Court ruling on Thursday, the board for St. Isidore said in a statement that it was 'exploring other options' for offering virtual Catholic education statewide.
Wall Street Journal
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
A Religious Charter School Falls Short at the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court's big religious-liberty case ended with a whimper Thursday, and what a pity. A ruling in favor of St. Isidore, a proposed Catholic charter school in Oklahoma, could have bolstered religious freedom and educational options. Instead the Court split 4-4. That means the state judiciary's decision against St. Isidore stands. How did the Roberts Court's remarkable run on religious liberty end here? The deadlock was possible because Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond. She didn't explain why, as is common practice at the Court. Some speculate that the reason is her association from her Notre Dame days with a Notre Dame law professor who advised St. Isidore.
Al Jazeera
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
US Supreme Court hits deadlock in case of publicly funded religious school
The United States Supreme Court has reached a deadlock in a case over whether a religious charter school in Oklahoma should be publicly funded. Thursday's tie vote allows a lower court ruling to stand. Previously, Oklahoma's state-level Supreme Court had barred the use of government funds to establish the St Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, citing constitutional limits to the government's role in religion. But the US Supreme Court's split vote on Thursday leaves an avenue open for other, similar cases to advance. With no decision from the highest court in the country, no new precedent has been set to govern funding for charter schools, which are independent institutions that receive government funding. It is relatively rare, though, that a Supreme Court case should end in a tie vote. The Houston Law Review in 2020 estimated that there had only been 183 ties at the Supreme Court since 1791, out of more than 28,000 cases. Normally, there are nine justices on the court's bench — an odd number, to ensure that the judges are not evenly split. But Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the hearings over the St Isidore school. Though she did not indicate her reasons, it is widely believed that Barrett stepped away from the case to avoid potential conflicts of interest. Barrett has a close personal relationship with an adviser to the St Isidore school, lawyer Nicole Garnett. As young legal professionals in the late 1990s, they clerked together on the Supreme Court, and they eventually taught together at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. When US President Donald Trump nominated Barrett to the Supreme Court in 2020, Garnett even wrote an opinion column in the newspaper USA Today, praising her friend as 'remarkable' and describing their lives as 'completely intertwined'. The Supreme Court's brief, two-line announcement on Thursday acknowledged Barrett's absence. 'The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court,' it read. 'JUSTICE BARRETT took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.' That left the court split four to four, though the precise breakdown was not provided. Chief Justice John Roberts is thought to have joined with the three left-leaning justices on the bench to oppose the school's use of government funds. The Supreme Court currently has a conservative supermajority, with six justices leaning rightward. In the past, the court has signalled receptiveness to expanding religious freedoms in the US, including in cases that tested the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution. While that clause bars the government from 'the establishment of religion', what qualifies as establishing a religion remains unclear — and is a source of ongoing legal debate. The Oklahoma case stretches back to 2023, when the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City submitted an application to open a taxpayer-funded charter school that would share Catholic teachings. The school would have been the first of its kind, offering public, religious education online for children from kindergarten through high school. The plan was to open the following year. The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board initially voted down the proposal in April, only to give it the go-ahead in June by a narrow vote of three to two. That teed up a legal showdown, with opponents calling the school a clear violation of the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state. But supporters argued that barriers to establishing a Catholic charter school limited their freedom of religion. Plans for the school even ended up dividing Oklahoma's government. The state attorney general, Gentner Drummond, opposed the charter school as a form of 'state-funded religion'. The governor, Kevin Stitt, supported the proposal. Both men are Republicans. In Oklahoma, as in the majority of other US states, charter schools are considered part of the public school system. When the case reached the state-level Oklahoma Supreme Court in 2024, that distinction became pivotal. The fact that St Isidore was a public — not private — school ultimately caused the court to strike it down, for fear of constitutional violations. The judges ruled in a six-to-two decision that establishing St Isidore with state funds would make it a 'surrogate of the state', just like 'any other state-sponsored charter school'. The school, the judges explained, would 'require students to spend time in religious instruction and activities, as well as permit state spending in direct support of the religious curriculum and activities within St. Isidore — all in violation of the establishment clause'. The school's backers appealed to the Supreme Court, leading to arguments being held in April. It was unclear at the time which way the high court seemed to be leaning, with Roberts pressing both sides with questions. But conservatives on the Supreme Court's bench seemed in favour of backing St Isidore's appeal. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for instance, argued that withholding taxpayer funds from the religious school 'seems like rank discrimination against religion'. 'All the religious school is saying is, 'Don't exclude us on account of our religion,'' he said. The left-leaning justices, meanwhile, indicated that a ruling in favour of St Isidore would pave the way for public schools to become religious institutions, a slippery slope that could require the government to fund faith-based education of all stripes. On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has backed a separate lawsuit against the school, framed the deadlock at the Supreme Court as a victory for the separation of church and state. 'The very idea of a religious public school is a constitutional oxymoron. The Supreme Court's ruling affirms that a religious school can't be a public school and a public school can't be religious,' said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU's Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. But proponents pledged to keep on fighting. Jim Campbell, who argued in favour of St Isidore on behalf of Oklahoma's charter school board, noted that the court may 'revisit the issue in the future', given the deadlock. 'Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer,' he said.
