Jesus Martinez-Cruz, right, and his brother, Christian, receive the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options to attend Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic School in Palm Coast, Florida.
PALM COAST – Every school day at 7 a.m., a small bus rolls to a stop in front of the rectory of the Catholic church in Crescent City. Waiting to board are a handful of students, including Jesus Martinez-Cruz and his little brother, Christian.
They are headed on a 50-minute ride to Saint Elizabeth Ann Seaton Catholic School in Palm Coast.
Jesus and his schoolmates are part of the Rural Education Initiative, a program started during the 2020-21 school year by the Diocese of St. Augustine as a means of creating opportunities for a Catholic education to students who live in sparsely populated areas that cannot support a Catholic school.
Crescent City’s population is under 1,700, and St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, where Jesus and his friends catch the bus, does not have a Catholic school.
If not for the REI, these children would not receive a Catholic education. And if not for the scholarships managed by Step Up For Students, many of those families would not be able to attend a Catholic school.
Jesus, a sixth-grader, and Christian, a second-grader, receive the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options.
“To have the (Rural Education Initiative), for his parents to be able to choose a Catholic school that they want so much for their children and Jesus wants for himself, they would never have that opportunity without Step Up,” said Saint Elizabeth Ann Seaton Catholic School principal Barbara Kavanagh.
There have been days when the bus broke down and the boys’ parents had to drive them back and forth to school. That’s more than 90 minutes round trip, twice a day. As it is, the bus returns the students to Crescent City at 4 p.m.
But Elvira Cruz and her husband, Jesus Martinez-Puente, are not deterred by the distance and the drive from their home to their children’s school.
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Editor’s note: This commentary from Daniel Martnez, director of external affairs for Americans for Prosperity – Florida and a reimaginED guest blogger, is an exclusive to reimaginED.
The 2023 legislative session was truly historic, marking the beginning of truly meaningful education choice for parents across the state. This will result in even brighter futures for Florida's children. By enacting HB 1 into law, state leaders have dramatically boosted the opportunity for every child in the state to receive an education carefully tailored to their individual needs.
Major school choice reform was the number one legislative priority of Americans for Prosperity-Florida, and we couldn’t have achieved this success without a supportive Legislature – and, equally important, the overwhelming support of our members across the state.
So, when the new law takes effect July 1, what will it mean for you and your family? The biggest change is that it allows all Florida children to have Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), which will provide families with the freedom and flexibility to use state education funds to open up a wide range of education options – including public, private, magnet, or charter schools or home education, whether online or in person.
This legislation guarantees that the state money allocated for each student follows them, even if they leave the one-size-fits-all monolith of traditional public schools. Students and their parents will now be able to make the choice that’s best suited for each child’s unique abilities – opening access and opportunity by removing the barriers that ZIP codes or financial status currently pose for students hoping to receive a different form of education.
How can your family take advantage of this new educational opportunity? We expect school choice to be in full effect quite soon, so to begin your application, you’ll need to provide:
Once approved, you’ll be able to access a portal where you can view your funds and apply the money toward tuition and other pe-approved expenses.
To learn more about the scholarship programs, visit the Florida Department of Education.
As Florida continues to be a trendsetter in education, showing other states the path to true educational excellence, we look forward to seeing the far-reaching positive impacts of this education reform. We’re confident that it will continuously transform education in our state for the better, changing the lives of young Floridians and their families.
None of this would have been possible without Florida’s dedicated leaders, especially House Speaker Paul Renner and bill sponsors Rep. Kaylee Tuck, Rep. Rene Plasencia, Sen. Corey Simon. We thank them for their dedication to ensuring brighter futures for all of Florida’s children. With leadership like this, Florida will continue to lead the way for years to come.
Rachel Hayon Sabbah, at the lectern, was among advocates who spoke in favor of HB1 in March, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, far right, signed the historic legislation into law.
On this episode, reimaginED senior writer Lisa Buie talks with Rachel Hayon Sabbah, a nurse and mother of four daughters, including two who receive the Florida Family Empowerment Scholarship for students with Unique Abilities. Her eldest daughter, Elisheva, 8, has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and younger daughter Ahavah, 4, has experienced speech delays.
Hayon Sabbah, who lives in Ft. Lauderdale, spoke at Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signing of HB 1, which expanded scholarship eligibility to all Florida students and converted all traditional scholarships to education savings accounts. The legislation also allowed the Family Empowerment Scholarship for students with Unique Abilities to expand its annual growth rate from 1% to 3% of the state’s total exceptional student education population, excluding gifted students, to eliminate the need for waitlists.
Rachel Hayon Sabbah and three of her four daughters
Ahavah, who was on the waitlist, recently was awarded a scholarship and will start voluntary pre-kindergarten next year.
“(The scholarship program) has been really, really helpful in terms of just allowing us at this time to pay for private school tuition. Both of our girls are in Jewish private schools here in South Florida, and it's made it a much easier decision to homeschool our daughter next year because the funding can be used toward educational expenses.”
Episode Details:
Relevant Links:
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ADHD page
HB1 was a top legislative priority of House Speaker Paul Renner, who has called it “a transformational opportunity,” that allows parents to guide their child’s education regardless of ZIP code or income level.
The 2023 Florida legislative session ended Friday with lawmakers passing a record $117 billion budget for the fiscal year that will start July 1.
Many education-related items were included in bills tied to the budget, including $2.2 billion for a major expansion of education choice that will extend eligibility to all K-12 students in the state, regardless of income, though low-income families will receive priority.
The new law also converts all traditional scholarship programs into education savings accounts, giving parents the flexibility to customize their child’s education. Authorized uses for funds include private school tuition and fees, personal tutors and digital learning materials. The law also raises the growth rate of scholarships for students with unique abilities from 1% to 3% annually to help avoid waitlists.
A top legislative priority of House Speaker Paul Renner, and sponsored by Rep. Kaylee Tuck, R-Lake Placid and Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, HB 1 also requires officials to seek reductions in regulations that public school leaders have criticized as obsolete and onerous so that school districts can better compete in the new world of education choice.
“This legislation is a transformational opportunity to make it clear that the money follows the child, and parents have a right to guide their child’s education as they see fit,” Simon said as the session ended.
“We recognize that parents are a child’s first and best teachers. A street address or level of income should never replace the vital and irreplaceable role of a parent to decide what academic experience best fits the needs of their child.”
Other education highlights include the following:
HB 443, which focuses on many policies related to charter schools, including eligibility. It also further defines a “private tutoring program,” which is an authorized use of funds for scholarship students, and allows the programs to provide tutoring for to up to 25 students in any commercial building with a valid certificate of occupancy, library, community center, museum, performing arts, theatre, cinema, or church facility.
Other allowances include any facility or land owned by a Florida College System institution or university; in any similar public institution facility; and in any facility recently used to house a school or licensed child care facility within the preexisting zoning and land use designations of the facility without obtaining a special exception, rezoning, or a land use change so long as the provision of such tutoring meets all applicable state and local health, safety, and welfare laws, codes, and rules, including fire safety and building safety.
HB 7039, which renames the New Worlds Reading Scholarship Accounts to the New Worlds Scholarship Accounts and expands the program to students in kindergarten through grade five who show symptoms of dyscalculia or dyslexia or who score below a Level 3 on the statewide standardized math assessment.
The bill also expands authorized expenses to include fees for summer education and after-school programs designed to improve math skills. The bill also adds pre-kindergarten students to the list of those eligible to receive free book delivery under the state’s New Worlds Reading book distribution program.
SB 190, which would allow charter school students to play on private school sports teams and participate in private school extra-curricular activities if a private school agrees. Current law already allows homeschooled students to do this, and this bill would extend the same provisions to those who attend charter schools and Florida Virtual School.
HB 1259, which would require school districts to share capital funds raised from local taxes with charter schools. Charter schools now get money for capital improvements from a fund derived from a tax collected on gross receipts from the sale of utility services.
The total amount that districts across the state would have to share would be phased in over five years, with the first year totaling $55.9 million. That would rise to $490 million by 2028, when the requirement is fully phased in. Currently, school districts don’t have to share money raised from a discretionary 1.5 millage rate for capital costs, though the law suggests they do so.
The 2024 legislative session is set to begin Jan. 9.
Charles Williams, founder of The Way Academy, surrounded by his daughters, Emma Williams and Elyn Williams, and students Christiaan Ruiz and Ezra Bartoli.
MINNEOLA, Fla. — The way Charles Williams sees it, if the human vessel comes to the conversation with humility, faith and willingness, the Almighty can communicate a message of divine purpose without resorting to special effects.
Sometimes — because God often whispers, Williams notes — all that is required is some contemplative quiet, especially if it can be managed during a season in which miracles are acknowledged and anticipated.
So it was, five winters ago, having listened carefully in the silent space between the hurly burly of Christmas events, an idea manifested itself. Too unpresuming to imagine he’d conjured it on his own, Williams is certain beyond debate divine intervention was afoot.
He brought the news to the extended family’s Christmas table and broke it gently, as you sometimes do when you’re about to ask your family to act boldly on God’s will. “What if we started a school?” he said. “How would it be?”
There are plenty of teachers in the Williams family, wife Betsy among them. As she recalls, “We all laughed. ‘We can’t start a school! How do you even do that?”
Now they know.
As the freshly minted principal of Real Life Christian Academy in nearby Clermont (after 17 years working up the public school ladder), he found himself in the right place to grasp the operations of a Christian school.
Also, he studied. It turns out there’s plenty of how-to information about school startups. The Florida Department of Education even has a webpage entitled Opening a Private School. Eventually, Williams found his way to the Drexel Fund, a Seattle-based nonprofit venture philanthropy that (from its website) “seeds new school models, scales networks of existing schools with a track record of academic and operational excellence, and strengthens the educational ecosystems needed to create the market conditions necessary for new private schools serving low-income students to thrive.”
When Drexel came on board, solving the puzzle of startup financing, things began to happen fast. Now, here we are, at an open house on an April Monday, and Williams is expounding on His vision — the capitalization intentional.
“The math, the science, the [English language arts], history … all will be coming from the Bible and being taught by Christian teachers and Christian leaders.”
Williams, pictured here with parents Rigaberto Valle and Linette Bolanos, forges close relationships with The Way families.
Come August in Minneola, a small town northwest of Disney World, the vision planted in Williams’ obedient head is scheduled to become manifest when The Way Academy reopens the doors of the former New Hope Christian Academy.
The location, near the highlands of the Lake Wales Ridge, is appropriate. Williams and his board members mean to reach for heights of biblical proportions.
One would expect nothing less from a school designed to live out John 14:6, in which Jesus tells the disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.”
“Everywhere we turned, John 14:6 kept coming back,” Williams says. “We go to church and the preacher’s preaching on it. And we say, ‘This is it. The Way Academy. Showing kids, showing parents, showing the community, showing teachers, The Way. … And we’re going to be warriors about it. That’s who we are, the Warriors.”
Appropriately, Williams shares his name with the British poet, novelist, theologian and Inkling, a member of the Oxford Christian literary society that included C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia) and J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings). Appropriate because, like the Williams of Lake County, England’s Charles Williams was an out-of-the-box risk-taker.
The founder and first TWA headmaster, Williams didn’t need a new job. The Orange County School District had recruited him out of Real Life Academy to become its dean of students for the Orange County School District, meaning his professional future and, not insignificantly, retirement pension, were utterly tidy.
Now, brandishing a rich and varied academic background — from band director to teacher to coach to principal — to the task at hand, he’s left the secure nest and climbed out on that proverbial limb.
Parents who came to know him during two years he served in the administration of nearby Real Life Christian Academy are eager to join him on the bough.
“We called him ‘The Ghost,’” says Rosa Albalate, whose son Christian Ruiz, 11, is a prospective TWA student. “You could never find him in his office. He was always out with the kids. On the playground, in the cafeteria, in the hallways, in the classrooms. And the students loved it.”
Williams means to infuse the new school with a similar peripatetic spirit. A typical TWA day will include the usual middle-school shuffling among classrooms for various subjects, but also morning stretching and afternoons devoted to interscholastic sports.
And they’ll travel around Minneola’s cozy confines to use athletic and other extracurricular facilities offered up by the city, the YMCA, and a charter school.
Not that anyone involved doubts the difficulty of climbing their personal Mt. Ararat.
“Nobody wants to be in middle school these days,” Betsy Williams says. “Nobody wants to teach there, nobody wants to head it up. It’s hard to be a middle school parent. We know that middle schoolers go through a lot, even in general, now adding what they're going through” — here she punctuates with air quotes — “these days.”
“So, we're excited to be a school that commits to those kids.”
The excitement isn’t just infectious. It’s kinetic. Parents at the open house positively vibrated with enthusiasm.
“We’re looking for something a little smaller,” says Linette Bolanos, whose 11-year-old son, Aleksei, is set to transfer from Real Life Christian and its nearly 500-student K-12 campus. “Something family oriented that’s focused on Jesus.”
Williams and his wife, Betsy, who serves as the school’s admissions officer.
TWA ticks every box. TWA plans to limit first-year enrollment to 65 students across three middle-school grades. Parents and siblings will be invited to participate in a variety of TWA activities. And the Bible-based curriculum, stressing critical thinking and practical learning, comes straight from Bob Jones University Press — the same BJU that counts evangelist Billy Graham and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson among its alumni.
“We’re interested in a school that has a background in faith, a school that provides spiritual guidance,” Albalate says. “Dr. Charles promised he will keep on it.”
Williams is big on standing by vows, including the one, shared with the Drexel Fund, about making the school affordable for low-income families. Excitement attends Florida’s massive expansion of school-choice opportunities through legislation signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis March 27. Moreover, through its close alignment with Step Up for Students, the school is acting to bridge the gap for families who may need a boost beyond the state’s per-student stipend.
That worry largely settled, TWA organizers can concentrate on what they’ve taken on.
Asked to enumerate TWA’s biggest challenges, Betsy Williams pulls a face. Several seconds pass. More air quotes. “These days,” she repeats. She’d rather talk about TWA’s opportunities, which come rapid-fire.
“To spread the Gospel is the biggest opportunity we have, and that’s what we’re called to do,” she says. “The next is to inspire kids in a way of healthy choices and getting moving in a world where all they want to do is look at a screen.
“The third opportunity is … to be a light in the community. We’re excited about all that.”
This is The Way, then. The Warrior way.
Editor’s note: This commentary from Danny Aqua, executive director of Teach Florida, appeared Monday on sun-sentinel.com.
Last month, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the largest expansion of school choice in U.S. history. The legislation, a top priority of House Speaker Paul Renner, expands the state’s scholarship program to all K-12 students in Florida. It’s nothing short of transformational.
But what does that mean for you and your family? The simple answer is: More options and more opportunities.
Beginning as early as this summer, every student in Florida will have the freedom to access a scholarship enabling them to attend a school that works best for them. If your child is one of the thousands of students with unique abilities or disabilities who were on a scholarship waitlist, there is now funding available to clear that waitlist.
Before discussing the technical details of applying, let’s talk about why this year’s legislative budget proposals benefit not just scholarship students, but everyone.
The House and Senate each proposed a record $2.1 billion in spending increases for K-12 education — the largest funding increase in Florida history. It’s so groundbreaking that both Republicans and Democrats spoke in support of the proposal. So did several school districts.
Students are the real winners, because these proposals simultaneously solidify Florida’s commitment to provide students with every possible option through school choice while also strengthening funding for public schools.
But how is this possible?
In Florida, we have a booming economy, healthy state reserves and revenue projections that continue to shatter expectations. It’s the result of years of smart decisions by elected officials to put us in a strong fiscal position. There is no need to make difficult trade-offs.
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At Master’s Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, the volleyball program seeks to provide a competitive and successful opportunity that points players to Christ and builds the character of Christ within each student athlete.
One of several bills that would let charter school students play sports and participate in extra-curricular activities at willing private schools has cleared the Florida Legislature and awaits Gov. Ron DeSantis’s signature.
In a display of bipartisanship, all 116 of the House members who were present voted to approve SB 190, which was substituted for its companion, HB 225.
Both bills would allow charter school students to play on private school sports teams and participate in private school extra-curricular activities fi a private school agrees. Current law already allows homeschooled students to do this, and these bills would extend the same provisions to those who attend charter schools and Florida Virtual School.
The vote came nearly a month after the Florida Senate gave final approval in a 38-0 vote.
“We are just absolutely thrilled,” said Wayne Smith, head of school at Master’s Academy, a small private Christian school in Vero Beach that served as the inspiration for the bill. He said the outcome could be a good civics lesson for his students, who were demoralized when the Sunshine State Athletic Association disciplined the school for letting students at a nearby charter school to play on its varsity football team.
Under current law, if a specific program isn’t available at a charter school, the only option for those students is to sign up for it at their zoned district schools. The proposed legislation would let charter students choose between the district school and or a nearby private school through a special agreement.
However, the arrangement at Master’s Academy had been going on for years without controversy, based on an interpretation of the law that allowed the homeschoolers to play at private schools.
Last year, someone complained, and the Sunshine State Athletic Association forced the charter school students off the team in the middle of the season and stripped Master’s Academies of its victories up to that point.
Smith said the decision left the students heartbroken but motivated.
Members of school tennis and baseball teams stepped up to fill the vacancies on the football team. Despite the disciplinary action, the school ended up winning the championship.
News about the controversy got the attention of the community’s state senator. Sen. Erin Grall, a Republican whose district includes Vero Beach, responded by sponsoring SB 190.
“The parent makes the decision not to send their child to the public school they’re zoned for and instead chooses to send their child to a charter school,” she said during a committee meeting on the bill. “This lines up the homeschooling statute with the charter school statute … to fix it and make it more clear.”
The number of Florida students participating in income-based scholarship programs served by Step Up For Students over the past 12 years has grown dramatically, from 34,561 in 2010-11, to 162,518 in 2021-22, according to a new report by Step Up For Students, the nonprofit scholarship funding organization that helps administer the scholarships and which hosts this blog.
The largest increase in Step Up students occurred between 2020-21 and 2021-22, however this was due to Step Up taking over stewardship of enrollment numbers of the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Education Options (FES-EO), a program that had previously been administered by the Florida Department of Education. Statewide enrollment for income-based scholarships increased from 142,716 to 162,518 when all sources of enrollment are included.
In the most recent year, a total of $1,715,159,524 was awarded to families from Step Up.
The annual end-of-year report looked at characteristics of private schools and enrolled students who received a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship or a Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options through Step Up For Students, examining the distribution of private schools by various attributes and calculating graduation rates for 12th grade scholarship students enrolled in these schools.
Additionally, the report analyzed student demographics both in overall program enrollment and graduation rates.
Among the findings:
The graduation portion of the report was modeled after the National Center for Education Statistics’ biennial report, “Characteristics of Private Schools in the United States: Results from the 2019-2020 Private School Universe Survey.”
Data from the Florida Department of Education were utilized to examine these private schools along with data collected by Step Up For Students through school surveys. Data on religious affiliation were collected at the school level. Information about students’ gender, race/ethnicity, grade, single parent household status, poverty level, and graduation status were collected at the student level.
The survey received a 92.4% response rate.
*Edited to clarify that part of the growth in scholarships awarded by Step Up For Students was due to administrative changes in the FES-EO scholarship.
Jaylen Arnold, 22, has spoken to more than 300,000 students in 38 states and the United Kingdom and has educated many more online about Tourette Syndrome.
LAKELAND, FLA – Jaylen Arnold was 8 when he walked into his old elementary school to speak with two dozen or so former classmates, many of whom had recently taunted and physically bullied him.
Jaylen was scared. His mother, Robin, walking beside him, was proud.
The meeting was Jaylen’s idea. He wanted to explain what others saw as his unusual life.
Jaylen has Tourette Syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes sudden unwanted and uncontrolled rapid and repeated movements or vocal sounds called tics. He was an easy target, and the abuse from his peers sent his tics into overdrive.
He was classified as hospital homebound by his doctor and Robin removed him from the school.
Jaylen, now a senior at Southeastern University in Lakeland, has been an advocate for those with Tourette Syndrome and those who have been bullied for the last 14 years.
An education choice scholarship was about to change Jaylen’s life for the better.
It allowed him to attend a private school near his Lakeland home. There, Jaylen found schoolmates who looked past his Tourette’s, autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder and saw a likeable, intelligent and talented friend.
“He was accepted and loved,” Robin said.
It was acceptance and, if not love, at least tolerance that Jaylen wanted for others when he returned that day 14 years ago to his old school and met with his old classmates. He wanted to teach them about Tourette’s, hoping education would lead to understanding and that would reduce the bullying if not remove it completely.
“I wanted to go back and educate those who were tormenting me because who knows what kind of chain reaction that could have,” Jaylen, now 22, said.
There was a chain reaction, and it was nothing Jaylen or his mom envisioned.
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Aimee Uriarte and her two sons, 15-year-old Alejandro, left, and 17-year-old Sebastian, right.
On this episode, reimaginED senior writer Lisa Buie talks with Aimée Uriarte, a single parent whose two sons attend Christopher Columbus High School, an all-male Catholic school in Miami.
Older son Sebastian, 17, receives a Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options, while his brother, Alejandro, 15, attends on a Family Empowerment Scholarship for students with Unique Abilities.
A Costa Rica native, Uriarte moved to the United States but left in 2008 due to the Great Recession. One of the reasons she returned to Florida was to ensure her children received opportunities for an education that best fit their needs. Columbus High fills that bill and more, she said.
Uriarte, who was among the scholarship beneficiaries who spoke during the recent signing ceremony for HB1, a major education choice expansion bill, said she looks forward to the additional flexibility the legislation will bring to her family and others.
“The Columbus staff has come through, truly as a family, I never expected this compassion regarding our family's reality. Every family has different struggles … they are very hands on, all of them, and they’re very concerned about the wellbeing of each family.”
EPISODE DETAILS:
RELEVANT LINKS:
https://www.fldoe.org/schools/school-choice/k-12-scholarship-programs/fes/
