The Alachua County School Board voted in an emergency meeting May 1 to shut down Constellation Charter School, displacing nearly 90 students just weeks before the end of the academic year.
The news sparked debate among parents and local staff, who voiced concerns about the quality of life for the students who called the Waldo school home.
Emergency meeting decisions
The ACSB’s emergency meeting agenda had only one topic: the superintendent’s recommendation to terminate the charter.
According to a letter from the ACSB to the charter school’s governing board, there were “multiple serious violations” of Florida school safety and governance statutes.
The school exhibited systemic failures of administrative mismanagement and internal conflicts, according to the letter.
The school’s governing board reportedly allowed a parent to bring a firearm to a board meeting, a direct violation of Florida statutes. The principal was removed in March and replaced by an interim principal, but safety and compliance issues persisted.
The School Based Threat Management Team, a group mandated by state law to handle student safety concerns, disbanded after a series of resignations and disciplinary actions.
The team also failed to notify parents about threat management and allowed students to play violent first-person shooter games on school computers. Ongoing internal conflicts within the school’s leadership obstructed the required safety protocols.
The ACSB concluded that these failures posed an immediate and serious danger to the health, safety and welfare of students and staff, warranting immediate closure under Florida statutes.
During the May 1 meeting, board attorney David Delaney said the documentation describing the immediate dangers posed to the school would not be shared with the public to protect the confidentiality of those involved.
District staff were present on campus after the closure notice to inform families they would need to transfer their children to their zoned school. Families were also contacted by phone call, email and text message, Alachua County Public Schools Spokesperson Jackie Johnson wrote in an email.
Instead of the new student online enrollment form, the district “streamlined the process” of families transferring to another ACPS school by asking them to bring two proofs of address and a photo ID to their zoned school, Johnson wrote.
However, 80 out of 89 students at Constellation Charter had never attended a public school or a school in Alachua County.
“As the district shared with parents, we understand that the news was sudden and likely to cause distress,” Johnson wrote. “The decision to close the school was based on the utmost concern for the health and safety of the students.”
A pattern for Waldo
Waldo City Manager Kim Worley attended the May 6 school board meeting. She noted it was the second time in a decade a school in Waldo had closed.
The 2015 closure of Waldo Community School also displaced many students, leaving parents and staff confused.This decision came from a lack of enrollment and a plan by previous ACPS superintendent Owen Roberts to merge the school with Shell Elementary in Hawthorne, Florida.
With Constellation Charter closed, Waldo has no local schools. Before its 2023 opening, students were zoned to Shell Elementary and Hawthorne’s middle and high schools.
“This sequence of events sends a troubling message that smaller communities like Waldo do not matter,” Worley said. “That our students, our educators and our voices are disposable.”
Constellation received a grade of “C” for the 2023-2024 school year, with a 53% achievement in english language arts and a 32% achievement in mathematics across the student body.
Parent perspective
Jessica Rockstein, a teacher at Hawthorne Middle School and parent of a student at Constellation, said her child was “crying for days” after having to pack up his things.
“They were scrambling to get all their stuff out because the district was telling them that they were locking the building,” Rockstein said. “They didn’t know when they could get back in, [and] the kids watched all of that. It was really traumatic.”
She was grateful her partner could stay home with their children the day after the closure while they figured out a new plan of education, she said, noting that not all parents have the luxury to rezone “at the drop of a hat.”
Nicole Dodds, a Gainesville resident and parent of Constellation students, said she always felt safe at the campus after volunteering there.
Her fifth-grade daughter had access to many opportunities through the school, and she’s disappointed her younger son won’t have the same experience, she said.
Since the closure, her children are “still really processing why and how this happened,” she said. Other parents she spoke with questioned the thoroughness of the investigation.
“I feel like they didn’t care much about the 89 kids out in Waldo, that’s what it feels like,” Dodds said. “Because if they did, they would have asked more questions, and they would have tried to work with the school.”
Catherine Ferrera, a parent of a Constellation fifth grader, moved to Waldo from South Florida so her child could attend the school — a fact she stated at the school board meeting.
Choosing to homeschool her children before they moved, Ferrera said she trusted the school’s leadership because of the “beautiful experience” she’s had, despite her conflicts with the public school system.
Several other families were also looking to move to the district for Constellation’s unique approach to education, she said. It was a Waldorf-inspired curriculum, which emphasizes emotional and spiritual growth.
“I have families reaching out to me from South Florida that were in the process of enrollment with this school and moving their entire lives here,” Ferrera said. “It’s just insane how disruptive this is for everybody’s future.”
All students will have to relocate to their zoned public school or seek alternative arrangements for education.
Contact Sara-James Ranta at sranta@alligator.org. Follow her on X @sarajamesranta.
Contact Emmaly Simmons at sranta@alligator.org. Follow Emmaly Simmons on X @EmmalyRSimmons.
Sara-James Ranta is a journalism senior, minoring in sociology of social justice and policy. She previously served as Metro's K-12 education reporter. In her free time, SJ is watching a new show, listening to EDM or discussing Star Wars.
