Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday directed the Florida Department of Education to suspend four schools from the state’s school-choice scholarship program because of their alleged “direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party.”
“Through a thorough investigation, FDOE has determined that Lower and Upper Sagemont Preparatory Schools in Weston, Parke House Academy in Winter Park, and Park Maitland School in Winter Park have direct ties to the CCP and their connections constitute an imminent threat to the health, safety, and welfare of these school’s students and the public,” the DeSantis administration said in a statement.
The Florida DOE is working with nonprofit scholarship-funding organizations to help affected students enroll in nearby schools that are accepted under the program. DeSantis’s order comes after he signed in May a bill that prohibited any school affiliated with a “foreign country of concern” from participating in Florida’s school-choice scholarship programs.
DeSantis did not substantiate the claims that the schools were connected to the CCP. However, K–12 private school Park Maitland falls under the umbrella of the Spring Education Group, “a network of more than 230 private schools,” the Orlando Sentinel found on its website. The bottom of the website states that the company “is controlled by Primavera Holdings Limited, an investment firm (together with its affiliates) principally based in Hong Kong with operations in China, Singapore, and the United States, that is itself owned by Chinese persons residing in Hong Kong.”
In January 2022, Primavera acquired well-known academic platforms Princeton Review and Tutor.com, the Wall Street Journal reported. The latter provides its products free of charge to U.S. service members and has contracts with multiple school districts across the country, including Loudoun County, Va. However, Primavera only received regulatory authorization to buy the pair of companies after 15 months went by following the transaction.
Sagemont, which DeSantis also cut off from the voucher programs, is also part of the Spring Education network.
“The Chinese Communist Party is not welcome in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said in a statement obtained by the Sentinel. “We will not put up with any attempt to influence students with a communist ideology or allow Floridians’ tax dollars to go to schools that are connected to our foreign adversaries.”
In May 2022, DeSantis signed legislation to create a “Victims of Communism Day” each year on November 7, at which time public-school teachers would be required to spend at least 45 minutes teaching students about communist leaders and how people have suffered under their regimes.