HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — A Hillsborough County School Board meeting this week will address poor performing charter schools in the county.

School officials said seven charter schools received D grades and one got an F when school performance grades were released recently.

On Tuesday, the board will discuss those grades and hear from individual school officials on plans to improve.

BridgePrep Academy of Tampa, BridgePrep Academy of Riverview, Excelsior Prep Charter School, Florida Connections Academy, Kid’s Community College Riverview Southeast, Village of Excellence Academy and Walton Academy for the Performance Arts all received a D grade.

The Colaboratory Preparatory Academy received an F grade.

The schools will send a director and a representative of their governing board to Tuesday’s workshop.

According to the Florida Department of Education, less than 4% of all in Florida earned a “D” or “F” grade.

The state also said of the 602 charter schools with a grade in 2024, 69% received “A” or “B” in 2024.

Still, Hillsborough School Board Vice Chair Jessica Vaughn said the schools on the list have seen dropping letter grades over the past four years.  

Vaughn said the district spends about $250 million a year in funding overall to charter schools but has little control on how the schools are run.

“We’ve had a lot of conversation around — can the school board even do anything about a D and F school?” Vaughn said. “And over the last several years, the legislation has pretty much tied our hands from doing anything around charter schools.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, the representatives from each school will tell the board how they plan to raise student performance. And once those plans get approved by the board, the schools will need to put that plan into action.

State law dictates that if a charter school gets two consecutive “F” grades, their contract is terminated automatically.