Carvelli &Associates and Del Toro Law Combine Efforts To Overturn Palm Beach School Board Charter Application Denial at Florida Charter Appeal Commission State Hearing.
September 26, 2025 – Tallahassee, FL – A long journey successfully ended on September 26, 2025, when the Palm Beach School District paid $45,000 in legal fees after American Academy of Palm Beach successfully appealed a denial of its Charter School application. Carvelli & Associates — a valued FCSA Marketplace partner — and Del Toro Law combined forces to secure a victory for the charter school.
The process began on April 4, 2024, when Carvelli & Associates assisted American Academy of Delray Beach in submitting a new K-8 charter school application, and the Palm Beach School Board voted to deny the application on September 4, 2024. Del Toro Law assisted the team by filing directly with the Florida Charter Appeal Commission in Tallahassee, where a five-hour hearing was held on March 13, 2025. At that hearing, the Florida Charter Appeal Commission found the American Academy applicant’s due process rights were violated. American Academy alleged that the state-required evaluation tool was not used, that the school district altered enrollment estimates and then erroneously failed the budget section, the ESE section review was flawed, no applicant capacity interview was held, and the Palm Beach School Board violated Florida statute by taking 153 days to vote on the application, well outside the 90-day requirements.
John Carvelli, CEO, Carvelli & Associates, stated, “We did everything we could to work with the Palm Beach School District, even meeting with them to warn of the many process violations and suggested ways to avoid a costly appeal process. The violations were excessive. It was an expensive lesson for the District.”
After the hearing’s outcome, the Palm Beach School Board opted to approve American Academy of Palm Beach’s charter school application versus appearing before the State Board of Education. They approved the K-8 charter school’s initial charter contract on May 28, 2025.
Attorney Peter Del Toro summed it up, “We knew it was a strong case and our team took it on contingency because we felt it was an excellent idea for a unique charter school – Sports, Arts, and Classical Spanish Language. Parental school choice, American Academy’s founders, and the community all won with this outcome”.
For more information, contact John Carvelli at (772).
