An Underreported & Important Win for the Private School Ecosystem in Florida

A Q&A with Danny Aqua about the new SB182 and what it means for private schools in Florida.

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Just in the last month, the Florida legislature passed Senate Bill 182. It has a little bit of everything in it. There is new language requiring students in specific grades to receive instruction in cursive writing. There is also language stating that each public school in the state must display portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in a “conspicuous place” within the building.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the bill, however, has nothing to do with handwriting or past presidents with faces on our currency. Instead, it has to do with private schools that enroll less than 150 students. Specifically around fire code, zoning restrictions, and traffic studies (lines 197-235 of SB182).

Last year, my colleague Mike McShane wrote an amazing account of a small private school in Florida, Star Lab, and the school’s attempt to navigate through Florida’s zoning and permitting system along with its outdated fire code regulations. It really is a fascinating and frustrating read.

The new language around private schools in SB182 might be thought of as a remedy to the chief issue in the Star Lab story.

To learn more about the new language in the bill, and the implications, we reached out to Danny Aqua of Teach Coalition. Danny played a big part in getting this language included in the bill and was gracious enough to take time out of his schedule to talk to us about it.

Danny Aqua is the Director of Special Projects for Teach Florida. Teach Florida, a division of the Teach Coalition, was founded in 2016 to advocate on behalf of Florida’s nonpublic schools and parents. Prior to working for Teach Florida, Danny practiced real estate law as an associate at Blank Rome, LLP. Before that, Danny was a teacher in both elementary and middle school. He is uniquely qualified to talk about things happening at the intersection of K-12 education and building code/zoning laws.

Below is our recent Q&A with Danny about Florida’s SB182, what it means for private schools in the state, and what he has learned throughout this process. We hope you enjoy:

CR: Why should school choice supporters care about fire codes?

DA: To have school choice, families need school options. One of the least visible barriers to creating those options is fire code. Fire code classifies a school as a place where as few as six or more students learn for 12 hours or more per week. Along with that comes unique, expensive requirements that are often cost prohibitive for small schools. Here is one example.

CR: I think a lot of people assume there is just one fire code that schools need to meet, but is that the case? What are the different fire codes and what do they mean for schools?

DA: There is not a single, uniform fire code. In the United States, two primary model codes shape fire safety requirements: the International Fire Code (IFC) and the National Fire Protection Association’s Life Safety Code (NFPA 101). States adopt and apply these codes differently. Some use one as the primary standard, while others incorporate both. In Florida, for example, the state adopts an NFPA-based fire prevention code while also incorporating the IFC through its building code. In practice, schools may need to comply with whichever standard is stricter. For small providers, navigating these overlapping systems can be complex, time-consuming, and expensive.

CR: How much can it cost for a school to get up to code?

DA: The costs can be substantial. Anyone who has ever renovated a home knows how costly, time-consuming and expensive it can be to do simple permitted renovations. Schools must do those but also make quasi-infrastructure requirements like installing automatic sprinklers, which can cost six figures and take years to complete. These requirements can make it extremely difficult for small or startup schools to open or expand.

CR: The Florida legislature has a bill progressing now that might address these issues. What is SB182? What inspired it? What will it do?

DA: SB182 makes it easier to open schools. The first thing it does is allow small schools to open by zoning right in any commercial district. The second thing it does is adopt common sense fire code reform for small schools by doing two things: 1) requiring fire officials to recognize alternative fire safety methods that are already in the code, and 2) treating similar facilities like day cares and churches as existing schools when applying the fire code. The goal is not to reduce safety, but to ensure that regulations designed for large, traditional schools are applied more appropriately to smaller educational environments.

CR: Florida has embraced large-scale private school choice, but the success of those policies ultimately depends on whether new schools can actually open and expand to meet the diverse needs of parents. From your perspective, what is the optimal policy strategy, for states that want a robust supply of schools: should they first pass school choice laws and then address regulatory barriers, like fire codes, occupancy rules, and facility requirements, or should policymakers try to align choice policy and regulatory reform at the same time?

DA: For states with tight budgets, it makes sense to begin with regulatory reform as they phase in school choice scholarships. However, for true school choice to be successful, families need both scholarship funding and access to different school options, which can be accomplished through reducing regulatory barriers for new providers.

CR: SB182, if signed, will help microschools and other small educational learning environments (under 150 students) that aim to register as private schools. What options exist for microschools that prefer to operate as something other than a private school?

DA: Unfortunately, the law only amends the private school statute, so the fire code reform might not help microschools that are operating under a different umbrella. This remains to be seen based on a potential administrative rule that could be adopted by the State Fire Marhsall. The silver lining is that those microschools are sometimes considered businesses under city zoning codes, so are already permitted by zoning in commercial districts. The best path for those microschools is to target the homeschool and unique ability populations since those students have more flexibility with their state scholarships in Florida in terms of how to spend their funds (through the PEP and FES-UA scholarships).

CR: What has been the most surprising thing you have learned throughout your time working with schools on regulatory issues?

DA: By far the lack of thought that goes into city planning for zoning and national model fire code development when it comes to the changing landscape around school choice. These codes were written for a time when almost all kids went to the 1,000 student neighborhood public school and have yet to reflect the new reality.