TAMPA, Fla. — A half-century ago, John and Cindy Ingram built a strong reputation emphasizing family.
Besides their children, their children’s spouses, and their grandchildren, that definition also includes the thousands of students who have bowed at the door of Ingram’s Karate dojos since 1977.
Each evening, these spaces, which some treat like holy ground, spring to life. Crisp white uniforms snap as students kick, punch, and shout, “kiai!”
Soon, a different type of energy will be seen before dark, when homeschoolers come to sharpen their core academic skills and participate in some “old-fashioned P.E.”
Ingram’s Balanced Path Learning will open in September as a homeschool co-op two days per week at two of its three dojos in the Tampa Bay area.
“We have these beautiful facilities that are only used in the evening. It's like everything just lined up,” said Sheri Ingram-Angwin, a former homeschool mom and seventh-degree black belt. A daughter of John and Cindy Ingram, she owns the Carrollwood and New Port Richey dojos. Both accept direct payment for karate fees from education savings accounts administered by Step Up For Students.
“I don’t know how we didn’t think of it for so long.”
According to Step Up For Students, almost 50 martial arts providers across Florida accept direct payment for participation in their programs, either as P.E. or enrichment. That does not include providers for which parents receive reimbursements after up-front, out-of-pocket payments. These providers are part of the state's rapidly growing number of à la carte learning options. In 2024-25, Florida had 4,318 non-school education providers offering à la carte courses, tutoring, extracurriculars, and more, which was more than double the number from the year before.
By opening an academic co-op alongside its karate program, the founders of Balanced Path will take things a step further. Angwin’s daughter-in-law, Leanna Angwin, and sister, Ashley Bache, will teach classes in math, reading, history, and science. Both hold state teaching certificates. Bache and Leanna have teaching experience at a classical charter school and a district middle school.
Most recently an eighth-grade math teacher, Leanna originally studied to become an accountant. But she realized after a couple of internships that “I really didn’t like it.”
During her search for her true calling, she recalled how she had enjoyed helping people with homework. Now training for her second-degree black belt, Leanna also found fulfillment at the dojo in helping kids learn fundamentals. She joined Ashley, whom she affectionately calls her "aunt-in-law," at the charter school before the two headed to the public school for better pay and state benefits.
After a while, Leanna found herself wanting something that felt more rewarding, like the private tutoring she was doing on the side. She also found herself wanting to homeschool her future children.
“My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and I got to spend a lot of time with her, and my dad worked from home,” she said. “So, I see the importance of kids being at home with their parents.”
For Ashley, a former horse anesthetist, tragedy led her to a career in teaching. A car accident left her husband paralyzed from the neck down. A mother of three young children, Ashley needed a job that offered financial support for her family and the flexibility to care for her husband.
She started as a P.E. aide at the classical charter school before being promoted to run the program. She later became a classroom teacher.
She fell in love, not only with helping the kids, but also with a hands-on teaching style.
“I know I learn better with hands-on,” said Ashley, who will teach math and science at Balanced Path Learning. “It’s so easy to bring in all the manipulatives and the tools for teaching because we already have a lot of them.”
One day after school, Leanna saw a homeschool co-op flyer. They were hiring. During her interview, she found out the positions she was interested in had been filled. Afterward, she headed straight for the dojo to talk with her mother-in-law about possibly starting their own program.
She was like, ‘We should do that,’” Leanna recalled.
They shared their vision with Ashley. She was all in. Balanced Path Learning was born.
The three say it offers students the best of both worlds: the chance to be with family and work with a professional educator who can help keep them on track and accountable.
“I’ve watched how the status quo isn’t necessarily good enough anymore,” said Sheri, who homeschooled her two sons before education savings accounts existed. “All these years, everybody just always thought this is how you have to do it.
“And then COVID really changed that because everyone realized we don’t have to do it the way we’re told; we can do it on our own terms. I feel like there are a lot of parents who want to homeschool their kids. But they’re nervous about it, or maybe they don’t have the time.”
Sheri was one of those parents. In the beginning, she felt overwhelmed by the number of curriculum choices, which at the time seemed like “8 million.”
“I cried the day all the books showed up at my door,” she recalled.
But after becoming acclimated, she began to see and love the benefits.
“When it came time for history, when my kids were little, we went to Savannah, and we learned while we were there, and they learned things and experienced things that you can't really do unless you’re homeschooling,” she said.
At Balanced Path Learning, a typical day for those in kindergarten through fifth grade will start at 9 a.m. with lessons in science or history, depending on the location. Students in middle and high school can attend and work independently during lesson times.
Lesson blocks are 50 minutes long and followed by breaks for movement, which might be a game of freeze tag or learning new dance moves. Students transition to reading and math groups at 10 a.m.
Students take a 10-minute snack break at 10:50 a.m.
Afterward, the groups switch subjects, with those in reading starting math and those who were in math going to reading.
After a second active brain break, they can do optional electives from noon until 1 p.m. when the day ends. Electives include physical education, with fitness drills, relays, and games. Optional karate is also offered one day a week at each location. Students do not have to participate in any karate programs to attend Balanced Path Learning.
Co-op locations are closed on Fridays, with optional field trips offered one Friday a month for an extra fee.
Parents are already signing up. Rachael Martinez said her three kids, who are entering fourth, third, and first grades, will transfer from a charter school to Balanced Path with the help of state education savings accounts.
“I kept begging her to do it,” said Martinez, who said Leanna tutored her oldest child and taught the second one at the charter school.
Small class sizes and the opportunity for self-paced learning drew Martinez to the co-op.
“They’re not rushed to meet somebody else’s standards versus their own needs,” she said.
One is on an individualized education plan for speech issues and thrives with one-on-one instruction. Another gets everything on the first try. The youngest is “a little spitfire,” finishing kindergarten.
“They’re all 100% different,” said Martinez, a preschool teacher.
Leanna, who will teach reading, said she and her partners made a list of the most important things they felt were missing from traditional schools. At the top: Opportunities to be active.
“Collectively, we feel like sometimes they expect too much of kids, to sit still and be quiet for too long.”
That’s the reason for the “active brain breaks.”
Sheri continues to view the project with a sense of awe. She said she has seen things come together and barriers easily fall away, just like the plywood boards that snap in two if students use the proper technique. She calls it “a God thing.”
But she also sees it as very much a family thing, an extension of the dojo her parents opened in 1977.
“We have been working with kids for 50 years, and our family knows how to work with kids and how to make them thrive, and then I have two teachers who are the most beloved teachers in the whole school, and I'm like, why did this take so long to come to us, but it's just perfect.”
Maxwell “Max” Johnson knows something about you. Maybe you know it, too. Maybe not. Either way, Max wants you to know this:
You are smart.
He’s so sure you are that he wrote a book about it.
Published last December, “Let Me Help You … BE SMART: A Kid’s Guide to Confidence, Focus, and Smart Choices” is a self-esteem book aimed at children ages 8-13 and is available on Amazon.
“My goal is that every reader finishes this book feeling more confident, more smart, and more prepared for life,” Max said.
Max, 14, lives with his family in Lake Mary. He and his younger brother, Gavin, 11, receive Florida education choice scholarships managed by Step Up For Students, which their father, Stephen, said has put them in environments that allow them to succeed.
“Their ideas and their ability to learn at a high level are because of Step Up,” Stephen said.
Max, who once attended a private school, is home-educated, learning both at home and through a hybrid program at a private school, which he attends two days a week. His Education Savings Account covers both his home-education curriculum and a portion of his tuition for the private school.
“The Step Up scholarship is important to us, because Max was an honor roll student in private school and takes honors courses now, but because of his desire for entrepreneurship, the scholarship works better for him, because he can still do things like get into business, work on his books, and also find school a priority,” Stephen said.
“I love the fact that he still participates in school, still has school relationships, still goes and gets a dose of school, but also gets to come home and focus on the things that he really cares about.”
Gavin attends a private school.
“We like that environment for Gavin,” Stephen said. “He loves a full day, and it's cool for him to go to school. He comes home, and then when he has time, he works on his stuff, maybe on the weekends. So, the week is all about school. The weekend is his time to do other things. I just want him to focus on school, do everything else on the weekend.”
Like Max, Gavin is also a published author.
“Gavin The Kid Explorer: My Big Trip to Washington, D.C.” is a travel guide for children ages 4-9 and is available on Amazon.
“These kids, they're fearless. I love it,” Stephen said. “They really believe that they can do anything. They believed they could write a book, and then they actually did it.”
Belief is a big part of the brother’s makeup.
Stephen works in video production for a motivational speaker, and their mom, Erin, is an entrepreneur who started her own cleaning service as a college sophomore.
As long as they can remember, the boys have joined their parents at motivational seminars. Those forums are for adults, but Max was able to take what he learned and translate it into messages children can understand.
When he was 8, Max made motivational wristbands for his peers that contained messages like “You can do it,” “You’re smart,” and “I’m a winner.”
Max keeps a journal where he wrote about how he sometimes felt in school. There were times when he didn’t understand the lesson. Other times, he felt confused.
Sometimes he didn’t feel smart.
The success of his wristbands taught him that his confusion and lack of self-esteem are normal parts of growing up. He began to address those in his journal, which in turn started to read more like a self-help book than a diary.
And just like the motivational messages he heard when his dad was working, Max felt he needed to share his message.
“The reason why I wrote this book is because I wanted to help kids learn lessons that they don't really learn in school, things like making smart decisions, working hard, treating people with respect, managing money, and building good habits,” Max said. “I wanted a book that was under 100 pages for young people to understand, but powerful enough that they can use the lessons for the rest of their lives.
“I wanted to show them that, really, they are smart. Anyone can be smart. It depends on how you think about yourself.”
Meanwhile, Gavin took notes during a family trip to Washington, D.C., with the idea of turning it into a book. This way, he could bring young readers along on his adventure. He detailed each place they visited, sites like the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian, the Jefferson Memorial, and added three notes of interest for each.
Erin and Stephen turned the journals into books and presented them to the boys on Christmas morning.
“Surprised and amazed” is how Gavin described the feeling of seeing his journal become a book.
He was even more surprised and more amazed when his book was mass-produced and made available on Amazon. Within a week, it was Amazon’s top-selling travel guide.
“I love motivating kids and teaching them things that they haven't thought of before,” Gavin said. “It's so fun and surprising that they love the topics that I choose, like traveling to D.C., and they love the character that I picked and how I illustrated the book.”
Max’s book reached No. 3 on Amazon’s list of social skills books.
“That was just surreal,” Max said.
He’s currently finishing his second book, which addresses confidence. It is set to be released Nov. 27 -- Black Friday.
Gavin is hard at work on his second, as well – a travel guide of New York City.
The brothers spent part of their summer promoting their books and speaking at camps around Central Florida. It’s a prelude to what they hope to be doing as adults – motivational speaking.
“I feel so empowered,” Max said. “I feel I can empower kids to become better versions of themselves, and then they can pass it on for generations.”
Editor’s note: Harvard University Program on Education Policy and Governance devoted its annual spring research conference to helping policymakers assess education choice: What is and is not working, the trade-offs involved in different programs, and the long-term effects. John F. Kirtley, the founder and chairman of Step Up For Students, the nation’s largest nonprofit scholarship funding organization, told attendees in a keynote address about his home state of Florida, where 30 years of robust education choice across the district, charter, and private sectors are not only working but have set a national standard for the other states taking their first steps on the journey. His remarks are summarized below. You can read the entire speech here. To learn more about Harvard’s Emerging School Models conference, scheduled for Sept. 17 and 18, go here.
Redefinition of public education
Growth of choice programs
Supply-side developments
Impact on rural and district schools
Educational outcomes and research
Nine days after the state teachers union sued to strip Florida families of the right to choose their children’s education, the pushback began when supporters of state K-12 scholarships and charter schools gathered in Tallahassee on the steps of Old State Capitol to protest.
Two weeks later, choice supporters stood outside Sacred Heart Catholic School in the Tampa Bay area holding signs with the slogans, “My Child, My Choice” and “Just Drop It.”
This week, the protests got louder. Students, parents, charter, and private school leaders stood outside Lubavitch Educational Center, the state’s largest Jewish day school, on Thursday and pledged to defend the decades-old policies and programs that have empowered families to choose the best educational fit for their children from a rapidly growing number of options.
“It’s not easy to pay private school tuition,” said Ailyn Weisleder, whose three sons are thriving at a Jewish day school. “But universal school choice has made that possible for our family. It gave us, and thousands of other families across Florida, the ability to choose the education that fits our children, not just the school assigned to us by a ZIP code.”
Audrey Maman Bensoussan said her family can’t afford to give her four children a Jewish education without the scholarships. She said the school feels like “a second home” to her children.
“If this lawsuit succeeds, it will not hurt politicians or special interests. It will hurt families like mine. It will hurt children like mine. It will take opportunities away from parents who simply want the freedom to choose the school that best meets their children's needs.”
Yonah Schwartz, 11, said at the news conference that if the lawsuit succeeds, then he won’t be able to afford to transfer to a school that better suits his learning needs.
“Not every kid learns the same way,” he said. “For me, changing schools means getting the chance to learn in a place that’s a better fit for me.”
The lawsuit, filed May 5, asks a judge to eliminate the state’s education choice scholarship programs based on the Florida Constitution, which says the state “shall make adequate provision for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high-quality system of free public schools.” The lawsuit also seeks to end state funding of charter schools.
Faith leaders, charter school and private school leaders, as well as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future, have supported the news conferences. Step Up For Students, the nation’s largest education choice scholarship funding organization, led the Tampa Bay area event. Teach Florida, a nonprofit school choice advocacy organization for Jewish education, organized and led the Miami event.
“The lawsuit brought by the Florida Education Association threatens everything these programs have made possible,” said Melissa Glaser, Teach Florida’s executive director. “This is about protecting families, protecting opportunity, and protecting a parent’s fundamental right to choose the best educational path for their child.”
She said more than $130 million annually in state scholarship funding helps ensure that Jewish children throughout Florida receive “the education they deserve — in schools that reflect their values and strengthen our communities.”
Their comments echo those made at the previous news conferences, where families described how scholarships had changed their lives. A charter school leader also spoke about how tuition-free charter schools ( which, like district schools, are public) have benefited students, including many from low-income households. Faith leaders also described how their schools uplift communities and welcome students with special needs.
Jim Rigg, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Miami, said the lawsuit could damage “a thriving educational ecosystem in South Florida that attracts people from all over the world.” That includes the 37,000 students who attend Catholic schools in the diocese’s three counties. He said each school is accredited, gives standardized tests, complies with applicable state requirements, and employs highly qualified and certified teachers.
“But at its heart, the issue is not about institutions. It’s about children and families. Everyone wins with meaningful school choice, ultimately making our state the ideal place to raise and educate a child.”
Step Up For Students, the nation’s largest education choice scholarship funding organization, is pleased to announce it has been renewed as an SFO for the 2026-27 school year following a unanimous vote by the Florida Board of Education.
Step Up has served Florida for more than two decades, starting with the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program. The nonprofit currently administers five programs and one stipend with over 520,000 students, and processes 10 million financial transactions.
On Feb. 1, Step Up once again set the new national record in education choice: It received a record 200,000 applications in the first three days of Season Open, and by the 10th day it had received a record 300,000 applications. It is currently nearing 400,000 applications.
“Step Up For Students is grateful for the confidence the Board of Education has shown in our ability to manage the state’s education choice programs,” said Step Up CEO Gretchen Schoenhaar. “There is no initiative of this size, scope and complexity in the country, and we are honored to serve the parents, students, schools, providers and vendors as well as to partner with the DOE and legislature in Florida.”
When Florida in 2023 made all K-12 students in the state eligible for a scholarship program and transformed the programs into education savings accounts (ESAs) that gave parents more flexibility in how they spend their children’s scholarship funds, it unleashed unprecedented demand from families. Step Up has responded with technological innovations and process improvements that have defined the customer experience.
Central to that is Step Up’s Education Market Assistant (EMA), an online platform to manage an ESA program from start to finish, including the onboarding of parents through the online application, the processing of those applications and the reporting features required by the state. EMA also serves as the platform for education service providers, vendors, and private schools to engage with parents.
EMA brings together parents and providers in an efficient marketplace and ensures all ESA funds are spent effectively and efficiently consistent with state law, including preventing fraud. The platform has influenced similar technologies across the nation.
For the second year in a row, Step Up has realized significant improvements in performance even as participation in the state’s scholarship programs continues to grow:
Step Up welcomes continued collaboration with the Florida Department of Education and the Legislature to find solutions to systemic challenges in the education choice scholarship programs.
This school year, Florida is empowering half a million students to direct funding to education options of their family’s choice.
In the 2023-24 school year, after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1, Florida saw the largest single-year expansion of education choice scholarships in U.S. history. That growth continued in 2024-25.
Florida’s education choice scholarship programs have grown steadily over the past decade. *Numbers for the 2024-25 school years are preliminary. In 2022, the McKay Scholarship and Unique abilities programs merged.
The numbers look like this:
With more than 500,000 K-12 students participating in some type of full-time education savings account, Florida is home to nearly 7 of every 10 students using such programs nationwide.
If the students using these programs in Florida counted as a school district, it would be the largest in the state and third-largest in the country, trailing only New York and Los Angeles.
Add it all up, and half a million Florida students will direct funding from a state-supported program to access a learning option of their family’s choice. This is a milestone 25 years in the making.
