Charter groups behind ads attacking Dentel in school board race

Florida’s leading charter school companies have helped pay for political ads attacking Karen Castor Dentel as she seeks re-election to the Orange County School Board.

The glossy political mailers — one calling the former elementary school teacher “public enemy #1”

— were sent to voters in Castor Dentel’s district 6, which stretches from Pine Hills to Dover Shores and includes Audubon Park, Baldwin Park, College Park, Maitland and Thornton Park.

The mailers were from a new group called Florida Education News, which through early August received $175,000 from a political action committee called

Conservatives in Action. That committee’s biggest contributors, accounting for more than half of its donations, were from charter school management companies and charter school developers in Florida, records from the Florida Division of Elections and the Internal Revenue Service show.

One ad criticized Castor Dentel as someone who “opposes school choice” and “keeps kids trapped in failing schools.”

Castor Dentel, who taught for more than 15 years in Orange elementary schools, served two years in the Florida House and was elected to the school board in 2018 to fill out the term of a board member who resigned.

She has voted against two of the three charter school applications that have come before the board since she took office, raising questions about teacher qualifications at one and objecting to another because buildings paid for with taxpayer money could revert to private owners, if the school closed.

One of the charter schools Cas

tor-Dentel voted against is operated by Charter Schools USA, which has more than 60 schools in Florida. Charter Schools USA contributed $20,500 to the political action committee.

Its founder and CEO, John Hage, is influential in Florida school politics. Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Hage to his reopening task force and appeared with him this week at a company school, where DeSantis discussed school reopening plans.

Charter schools are public schools, funded by public money, but run by private groups or management companies. They operate after being granted a contract, or charter, from a local school board. There are more than 30 in Orange County.

Castor Dentel said she was disappointed in the mailers, which urge voters to support her opponent, Jonathan Hacker, a hospitality industry worker.

“I kind of feel sorry for my opponent. I don’t think he understood he was going to be the poster boy for attacking a school board member,” Castor Dentel said.

Hacker, a former methamphetamine addict who faced criminal charges in Georgia, says that God and his Christian faith helped him turn his life around.

“I can’t imagine God led to this. That’s not very Christ like,” she added. “I haven’t attacked him.”

Hacker did not respond to a phone call and email requesting comment. He has said he supports educational options for parents, including charter schools and state vouchers that can be used to pay for private schools.

One of the ads calls Hacker “the champion we need for our children” and someone who will offer “more choices and control” to parents.

The ads targeting Castor Dentel also were mailed to the homes of at least three other Orange school board members. Those board members do not live in district 6 and cannot vote in Castor Dentel’s race.

Sending the mailers to other school board members was uncalled for, Castor Dentel said. “It’s just an intimidation tactic, and it’s a threat,” she said.

“I don’t think it’s going to work. They’re pretty independent,” she said of her board colleagues.

Board members Melissa Byrd, Angie Gallo and Pam Gould said the mailers attacking Castor Dentel arrived recently at their homes, located in Apopka, east Orange and Windermere, respectively.

“I would kind of think they were firing warning shots,” Gallo said.

Surprised anyone would pay to send her a political ad about a race she could not vote in, Gallo said she asked a few neighbors if they had received it, too. They had not, making her think it was targeted to her.

Byrd had a similar reaction.

“They’re trying to send out a message that they’re watching” and that they didn’t like that “Karen has been pretty vocal in her decisions.”

She said it would have no impact on how she votes. “This board has definitely got what’s best for children in their hearts,” she said. “I’ve seen it with Karen.”

The five biggest donations to the Conservatives in Action committee were from charter school companies, including Charter Schools USA.

Charter Schools USA operates four schools in Orange, all using the Renaissance name, and Castor Dentel voted in June against giving the Renaissance Charter School at Goldenrod a five-year extension.

School Development HC Finance LLC donated $47,000. Its manager is Ignacio Zulueta, one of the founders of Academica, the South Florida charter school management company that now operates some 200 schools.

Charter School Associates donated $30,000. It operates about 20 charter schools in Florida, including Orange County Preparatory School.

SMART Management LLC donated $29,500. SMART Management manages charter schools under the BridgePrep Academy name, including one in Orange.

Red Apple Development, which helps build charter schools including some of the Renaissance ones and is affiliated with Charter Schools USA, donated $20,500.

A spokeswoman for Charter Schools USA declined to comment. The others did not respond to requests for comment.

Hacker has said he trained as a chef and now works in the hospitality industry but declined to name the company at his employer’s request. While abusing drugs, he “lived in the gay lifestyle” and worked in the “gay adult film industry,” according to an interview he did with the Orlando Sentinel and a story he posted on the website of the group CHANGED, which uses the hashtag “#oncegay.”

Hacker lived in Atlanta at the time, and a report from the Atlanta Police Department shows Hacker was arrested there in 2009 and charged with drug possession after an officer stopped the car he was riding in and found meth, marijuana and a Xanax pill in his pants pockets. At the time, there were also outstanding warrants for him from the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, the report said.

It could not be determined from public records, however, if Hacker was convicted of any of the charges. He declined to answer that question when asked in July by the Sentinel.

Hacker said his life changed when he entered a faith-based recovery program to help him with his drug addiction. His now married, and he and his wife have two young sons.