Florida has 36 SPED charter schools; learning differences-autism, dyslexia, ADHD "on the rise"

Summer 2025, Education Next: Inside Florida’s Charter Schools for Exceptional Students

https://www.educationnext.org/inside-floridas-charter-schools-for-exceptional-students-parental-choice

How parental choice is reshaping special education in the Sunshine State

As soon as I step onto South Florida Autism Charter School’s (SFACS) sprawling campus, nestled in the outskirts of Miami, I’m greeted by the school’s principal, Tamara Moodie. She’s overseeing one of the school’s three different arrival schedules, split between its elementary, middle, and high school grades. Moodie exerts a calm yet commanding presence in the hallways of SFACS. She asks a high schooler named Chase, along with a staff member, to guide me on a short tour of the school.

Chase, wearing the school’s red uniform hoodie, sports a paper crown adorned with the words “King Chase.” As he leads us up the staircase, he tells us about a ring he won at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant the previous weekend. We make our way through the hallway, and I notice I can see inside of each classroom through large clear windows—transparency is a hallmark here. Another student, emerging from an elementary class with his teacher, tells us he won the recent school spelling bee with the word “giggle,” which he then proudly spells. . . .

Moodie, along with a group of community leaders, founded the school in 2009 to provide families in South Florida with the region’s first public school for students with autism. First housed in a library and enrolling 81 students, the charter school moved into its current two-story facility in 2021 and now serves nearly 300 students. With the help of a fundraising arm and multiple related nonprofits, including an adult center housed within the school building, SFACS also provides resources and services, from housing to employment, for people with severe autism. Students can remain at the school through age 22, after which they have the opportunity to transition to the adult center. . . .

SFACS is one of at least 36 charter schools in Florida dedicated to serving students with special needs, the highest number in any state. While some schools only require students to have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) to enroll, others, like SFACS, further limit eligibility to students who are taught through a modified curriculum, have a specific diagnosis such as autism, or have additional cognitive or behavioral differences.

Florida, long a self-professed haven for education choice, specifically allows charter schools to focus on special needs students, or “exceptional students,” in their enrollment process (across the country, states vary widely on the permissibility of enrollment preferences for charter schools). Some of Florida’s earliest charter schools, like Princeton House Charter School in Orlando, were private schools for students with disabilities that took advantage of the law and converted to charter status in the late 1990s. For decades, families of students with special needs in Florida have also benefited from a specialized education savings account for exceptional students, which can be used to cover private school tuition or services such as therapy.

Meeting a Critical Need

Florida’s culture of school choice has seeped into its greater education community. SFACS’s autonomy, Moodie recounts, was supported from the start by Miami-Dade County’s public school district. The school has also benefited from the state’s funding formula, which significantly multiplies base funding for students who require the most intensive and personalized learning services. While there may be a financial incentive for charter schools to enroll students with special needs, the greatest benefit has been to the students themselves. In traditional public schools—and especially in charter schools that lack the same level of financial support—the amount of physical resources and services available at SFACS would be out of reach.

In the U.S., students receiving special education services now make up at least 15 percent of the public school population, a figure that has doubled over the last four decades.

Diagnoses of specific learning differences, such as autism, dyslexia, and ADHD, are on the rise. Yet special education students continue to struggle academically and behaviorally compared to their peers—they are more frequently disciplined and referred to law enforcement, and they report being harassed or bullied at rates that exceed their share of enrollment.

Across the country, teacher shortages are most pronounced in special education, driven by the increasing number of students receiving services and by the adoption of more labor-intensive service models. Teachers report being underprepared to meet these students’ unique needs. In Florida, during the 2021–22 school year, exceptional student education as a subject represented 16 percent of all courses taught by teachers not certified in the relevant field. Out of more than 60,000 total ESE courses, nearly 9,000 were taught by teachers not certified in special education.

Before founding SFACS, Moodie served as education director of a $45,000-a-year private school for students with disabilities. At that time, few public school options existed for parents of children with special needs, and she saw many students leave the school when tuition became unsustainable for their parents. Today, the SFACS community is made up of families seeking an alternative to their traditional school districts, which many parents felt were unprepared to teach their children. Some have moved near the campus, even from other states, to take advantage of the school’s extensive wraparound services. Moodie says that as many as 30 prospective families tour the school each month, hopeful for a spot.

A recent Florida policy, however, has limited parents’ ability to enroll their students at the school. As required of all states by the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, Florida offers an alternate assessment for students with disabilities who are unable to participate in the regular state assessment; however, the state restricts eligibility for this option to students with an IQ score below 68. This constraint is designed to comply with federal law, which caps such assessments at 1 percent of a state’s student population. Since SFACS is built specifically around Florida’s alternate curriculum and assessment for students with significant cognitive needs, those who could benefit from its services but don’t meet the IQ threshold for an alternate assessment are no longer eligible for enrollment. The use of IQ tests to determine school eligibility, particularly for students with significant cognitive disabilities, has sparked controversy and widespread criticism among the charter leaders I spoke with in Florida. . . .

Moodie agrees that the debate over inclusion overlooks the profound differences that exist between the individuals we label as students with disabilities. Even at her own school, she points out, “no two kids with autism are the same.” Instead, it’s more helpful to consider the individual supports and goals spelled out in those students’ IEPs, which should be collaboratively developed by parents, teachers, and specialists. These, rather than more traditional academic metrics like test scores, are a more accurate measure of success for students with more severe needs.