Sigsbee Charter School, and the board that operates it, were frustrated and disappointed last week, when school district officials discussed a five-year plan for school and athletic field upgrades that did not include funding for the charter school on Navy property in Key West.
“Where is the money that Sigsbee has been told we were going to fit into our budget for the 2024-25 school year?” district school board member Mindy Conn asked at the Oct. 25 school board meeting in the Upper Keys. “My concern is that in an agreement with Sigsbee, they agreed to lower their funding request from $10 million to $5 million, and were encouraged to believe that at this meeting, their $5 million would be on our five-year work plan.”
Pat Lefere, a former commander of Naval Air Station Key West who is now the school district’s director of operations and planning, told Conn, “We are very well aware of that request from Sigsbee, and we considered it for this report, but because it has not really been discussed by the full board yet, I did not identify in our five-year plan.”
Lefere said he anticipates a lengthy school board discussion about charter school construction funding at an upcoming school board retreat, which had not yet been scheduled as of the Oct. 25 school board meeting.
Lefere added that there is approximately $5 million tentatively in place for the ’24-’25 school year that could potentially be for Sigsbee, but it is listed as “not yet identified.”
Conn sought assurance that “not yet identified” would be identified as a Sigsbee capital, or construction, project, but Lefere hesitated to designate the funding as such until after a board discussion at its retreat, calling it instead a “placeholder.”
Meanwhile, the charter school’s governing board is growing increasingly frustrated by what its members perceive as a continued and intentional lack of funding for a school that has received minimal attention since it was built in 1959.
The Sigsbee Charter School board includes former NAS Key West commander and current County Commissioner Jim Scholl, sheriff’s office attorney Michelle Maxwell and Gary’s Plumbing owner Gary Centonze.
“To say I was disappointed (by the Oct. 25 meeting) would be an understatement,” Centonze told the Keys Weekly on Oct. 31. “But we haven’t been given our fair share of the school district’s sales tax revenues in several years. All the other charter schools in the county combined don’t equal half of Sigsbee’s enrollment, which is over 500 students.”
Centonze added that if Sigsbee were to close its doors tomorrow, the school district’s other schools don’t have the capacity or the teaching staff to absorb its enrollment.
The school district deeded the Sigsbee building to the charter school, but if the charter group ever fails to use it as a school, the building reverts back to the school district, “which would then HAVE to spend even more money to maintain it,” Maxwell said.
“We’d just be happy with enough money to move forward,” Centonze said. “If we had $5 million in the bank or promised from the school board, then we could move forward with a $10 million upgrade. We’ve saved money, and our principal, staff and parents are absolutely amazing, along with the support we get from the local Military Affairs Committee and from visiting ships who spend days volunteering at our school, which is A-rated, by the way.
“We’re not gonna back off,” Centonze said. “We want our fair share. But apparently, we don’t rise high enough in their priorities, although they can spend up to $20 million on a new Tommy Roberts Memorial Stadium for Key West High School. Don’t get me wrong, I love that stadium and it certainly needs to be replaced, but our school was built in 1959 and has never been replaced like the rest of the campuses in the county.”
Maxwell added, “We haven’t gotten a dime for capital projects in our past 12 years as a charter school.”
Conn told the Keys Weekly that she understands Sigsbee’s frustration and added that she, too, was disappointed with the Oct. 25 board discussion and Sigsbee’s absence from the five-year plan.
Centonze told the Keys Weekly his board was grateful for Conn’s support, but was additionally upset because the Sigsbee board, parents and staff had helped the school district by supporting the renewal of the school district’s half-cent sales tax funding that pays for capital projects and has to be renewed by voters every few years.
“Charter schools are supposed to get a portion of that funding based on enrollment, which is the reason we helped the school board get that sales tax renewed,” Centonze said. “Then we find out that nearly all of that sales tax money goes to pay the school district’s debts on prior school replacement projects. What’s the point of us supporting that sales tax if we’re not getting our fair share?”
As of now, the Sigsbee board and its parent teacher organization is awaiting word on when the district school board will hold its retreat, so they can listen to the board’s discussion about charter school funding.
