If education freedom were a hockey game, Florida just scored a Texas hat trick.

For the fourth consecutive year, Florida was ranked the No. 1 state for education freedom for K-12 students and families in The Heritage Foundation’s annual Education Freedom Report Card. The 2025 Heritage rankings come after a landmark year of state legislative sessions that delivered wins for students and families.

Florida leaders credited the state’s ranking to policies that give parents control over their children’s education dollars, offering a plethora of choices, including a la carte courses provided by school districts and charter schools.

“In Florida, we are committed to ensuring parents have the power to make the education decisions that are best for their child,” said Gov. Ron DeSantis, who in 2023 signed legislation that offered universal eligibility for K-12 state education choice scholarship programs that allow families to direct their dollars toward the best options for their children.  “Florida offers a robust array of educational choices, which has solidified our state as a national leader in education freedom, parental power, and overall K-12 education.”

Commissioner of Education Anastasios Kamoutsas said earning the top ranking for four years affirms the state’s long-term commitment to families.

“Under Governor DeSantis’ leadership, Florida will continue honoring parents’ right to choose the best educational option for their child’s individualized needs. I am proud that Florida offers so many educational options that parents can have confidence in.”

Since the Education Freedom Report Card began in 2022, Florida has earned the top ranking every year. The report card uses five categories: school choice, transparency, regulatory freedom, civic education, and spending to rank states.

In addition to Florida receiving the overall top spot for Education Freedom, it also earned high rankings in the following categories:

• No. 1 for Education Choice due to empowering parents across Florida to choose the best learning environment for their children.
• No.1 for Civics Education due to Florida’s requirement for students to take a course in civics and the use of the Classical Learning Test for admissions at state universities.
• No. 1 for Academic Transparency due to Florida’s expansive legislation allowing parents to access classroom materials and Florida’s Parental Bill of Rights.
• No. 1 for Teacher Freedom due to Florida’s alternative pathways to entering the teaching profession.

Earlier this year, the Sunshine State also earned national recognition for putting dollars behind its policies. In January, the national advocacy group EdChoice put Florida first on its list of each state’s spending on education choice programs proportional to total education spending.

According to the EdChoice report, Florida became the first state to spend more than 10% of its combined private choice and public-school expenditures on its choice programs, rising from an 8% spending share in 2024.

Florida also reached a historic milestone when, for the first time, more than half of all K-12 students were enrolled in an educational choice option. During the 2023–24 school year, 1,794,697 students, out of the state’s approximately 3.5 million K-12 population, used a learning option other than their assigned district school.

By John Kirtley

The Rev. H.K. Matthews passed away Monday at the age of 97. As I urge you to read in this obituary, he was one of the towering figures in the Florida civil rights movement.

He was arrested over 30 times fighting for equal rights in Northwest Florida. He was beaten, along with John Lewis and other brave activists, on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in their first attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery. There is now a park named in his honor in Pensacola. You can also read his autobiography, “Victory After The Fall.”.

On a 2010 visit to Pensacola to recruit schools for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program, former Step Up For Students grassroots organizer Michael Benjamin and I met the operator of a faith-based school in town. He urged us to meet with Rev. Matthews, who he thought might respond well to the social justice message of the scholarship program. At the time, the average household income of our students was less than $30,000, and 75% were minorities. Michael and I said we would love to meet him.

Rev. Matthews didn’t say much during our initial visit; Michael and I explained how the scholarship program empowered low-income families to choose a different school if the one they were assigned to wasn’t working for them. He seemed to just take it all in but offered neither affirmation nor disagreement.

Almost as an afterthought, I invited him to a march and rally we were having the next month in Tallahassee. We needed the legislature to pass a bill to expand the scholarship program to relieve our waitlist, and we asked scholarship families to come to the Capitol to show their support. To my surprise, he agreed to attend.

On that day, over 6,000 people marched from the convention center to the Capitol. I invited Rev. Matthews to walk in front of the crowd with other faith leaders. Normally I would never walk in the front row, but I wanted to make sure everything went smoothly for him. He was very quiet as the huge crowd marched.

When we had gathered for the rally in the Capitol, I placed him in a prominent seat on the stage. A few minutes into the event, he motioned me over and asked if he could speak to the crowd. I had no idea what he was going to say, but I wasn’t going to say no. I went to the minister running our show and asked him to introduce Rev. Matthews.

What would he say? Was he with us?

I soon had my answer.

“This reminds me of the old movement,” he said. “Seeing thousands walking in the streets, fighting for the right to determine their own future, to fight for what is best for their children. When I worked with Dr. King back in the day …”

When he said those words, there was a murmur in the crowd, both students and adults. These kids had read about Dr. King in their history books. Some of them knew that there were not one but two marches across the Pettus Bridge, and here was someone who was there at the first attempt, someone who took the blows.

He was indeed with us.

Immediately after the rally, Rev. Matthews was swarmed by students young and old, some asking questions about his time with Dr. King, some young ones who just wanted to touch him — I suppose just to make sure this hero was real. They did not let him go for at least 20 minutes.

I could tell at the time this moved him. He told me so later. After that day he would call me to ask if there was anything he could do to help the movement. We had him appear at events with donors, governors, and legislators.

He would lead another march for us in 2016, when over 10,000 people came to protest the lawsuit filed by the Florida teachers union demanding that the courts shut down the Tax Credit Scholarship, which would evict 80,000 poor kids from their schools. That day Rev. Matthews was joined at the front of the procession by Martin Luther King III, the son of the man Matthews marched with 50 years prior. You can watch a 60-second video of that march here.

I had the pleasure of joining him at his church in Brewton, Alabama, where he moved in later years. He was being honored for his years of service to that church. I was honored, though very surprised, when he called me up to speak that day. Luckily, the words to praise him came easily.

They come again easily today, but not without a few tears.

How fortunate I was to have my life intersect with his, however unlikely that would have been to me before this movement changed the course of my life.

How fortunate the education freedom movement was to have his blessing and his involvement.

How fortunate the state of Florida was to have his tireless efforts fighting for civil rights.

How fortunate, all.

Rest in peace, Rev. Matthews.

John Kirtley is founder and chairman of Step Up For Students.

DeLAND, Fla.– A black sweater, white shirt, and a red tie lay on Aaliyah Tape’s bed when she returned home from a summer vacation spent with family. She knew what they were: a private school uniform.

“Oh, Lord,” she thought.

It was a message from Aaliyah’s grandmother, Cat Gracia, that would drastically change Aaliyah’s life.

The 2023-24 school year began in two weeks, and Aaliyah would no longer attend her district-assigned high school. For her junior year, she was headed to DeLand Preparatory Academy, a grades 6-12 school, where Cat hoped Aaliyah would get her grades back on track.

The ensuing conversation between grandmother and granddaughter can be politely described as tense. Both sides dug in.

Aaliyah said she wasn’t going.

Cat said she was, that it was too late to turn back. Cat had applied for and received a Florida education choice scholarship for Aaliyah, and she was already enrolled.

Reluctantly, Aaliyah made the switch.

“I thought, ‘OK, let me give it a chance,’” she said.

And?

“I never thought I’d wear a red tie to school,” she said, “but here I am.”

Now a senior, Aaliyah never thought she’d be a straight-A student or headed to college, either, yet here she is, weeks from graduating with a future that is, well, a future.

Her goal is to attend Florida State University. She’s thinking of a career as a neonatal nurse or as a psychologist who works with children.

“She turned her life around,” Cat said. “We are so proud of her.”

It was a somewhat rocky journey to DeLand Prep, which Aaliyah attends on a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, funded by corporate donations to Step Up For Students.

“The scholarship changed her,” Cat said. “It literally changed her academic journey. She’s refocused. It’s been night and day. It’s just incredible.”

Aaliyah had been an above-average student until middle school, Cat said. A lot of students encounter turbulent waters during those years, but Aaliyah was dealing with something more. Her mom, Shantrese Gracia, passed away when Aaliyah was 10.

The anger from losing her mom, mixed with the angst of a young girl moving from adolescence to a teenager, had Cat concerned.

“We’ve been through so much with her,” Cat said. “She has all this potential. She’s super smart, but she was making poor decisions, and there was absolutely no way we were going down that path with her. We had to do everything we could to get her refocused and understand what her purpose is in this life. But where do you start? And how do you get there?”

The answer was DeLand Prep.

“We had identified her strengths, areas for growth, and opportunities, and so we had a proactive approach to finding the best resources we possibly could to ensure she has an opportunity to succeed and have a bright future,” Cat said.

Dr. Donita Gordon, the school’s superintendent, said Aaliyah was the type of student who needed to be “repotted.” Her new “soil” had smaller class sizes with favorable teacher-to-student ratios and a college-like class structure – four courses a semester with classes running 90 minutes.

Located on the outskirts of DeLand’s quaint, award-winning downtown, the school has a motto: “Small School … Big Opportunities.”

That’s what Cat wanted. She knows her granddaughter can achieve so much. She just needed a setting that would allow Aaliyah to realize that, as well.

“I always tell her the sky’s the limit,” Cat said.

Aaliyah said her previous academic problems were the result of cutting classes, not doing her schoolwork, not pushing herself. She was hanging out with unmotivated students, and they were pulling her down.

At that time, Aaliyah wanted to be an ultrasound technician. She felt a college education was not in her future. Neither was attending a private school.

“Private school just didn’t sound pleasing to my ears, but it's actually not bad,” she said. “I actually like it better. It's just a small group of people. There’s not much going on, and there's a lot of time to just focus on the work. There’s less distractions. Everything is straight to the point. Our classes are longer, so we have more time to understand what we’re learning.

“It works in my favor.”

Cat met with Melissa Castillo, the school’s director, the summer before Aaliyah enrolled and said her granddaughter was a straight-A student who wasn’t getting straight-A’s. Castillo met Aaliyah on the first day of school and agreed with Cat.

“Aaliyah is a very unique student,” Castillo said. “She thrives in getting all her schoolwork done. When I first met her, she didn't have enough credits to graduate. Every meeting that I have with Aaliyah, she's always striving to complete her work and go to college. She is very aware of what she wants to do. I feel like out of all the students that I met in this school, she's one of the ones that stuck with me because of how driven she is.”

Aaliyah said she is motivated by the supportive teachers and administrators. She said she likes to study and do her homework and has surrounded herself with like-minded classmates.

“I got a lot of help that I needed, and not just on my assignments and tests, but college and school and advice, too,” she said. “I've got to experience a lot of things. I met a lot of people that I became friends with. I'm setting myself up for college.”

In February, Aaliyah was honored by the city of DeLand for being a Superstar Student and by Step Up For Students at its annual Rising Stars Awards event for being a Super Senior.

“All these awards she received, we’ve been in awe. It inspires her to strive for excellence,” Cat said. “We’re so proud of her growth. Here she is, ready to graduate.

“It’s been a journey beyond measure.”

LAUDERDALE LAKES, Fla.— Khyla Beaujin’s first fashion show as a designer was over, and she described the backstage chaos to her mother.

Where are the models?

Where are their shoes?

Who has the jewelry?

Khyla was frustrated at times and overwhelmed at others because the designers shared models and the models shared shoes, and confusion reigned. But she maintained her composure and pulled everything together, and the models strutted the catwalk with quiet poise, wearing Khyla’s spring collection.

It was a proud night for Khyla, then 12 years old, because she worked hard creating her collection during the months leading up to the event.

Khyla recounted all this to her mom post-show in a breathless monologue.

“The look on her face, the smile, I'm like, ‘Oh, I love this for you.’” Sheyla Bens Beaujin said.

Year One as a student at the South Florida Fashion Academy (SF/FA) ended that night for Khyla, and Sheyla knew her daughter was where she needed to be, attending a school that would nurture her love for fashion design.

Khyla is now a seventh grader at SF/FA, a private Pre-K-12 school in Lauderdale Lakes that incorporates fashion design, cosmetology, nail technology, barbering, skin care, business, and entrepreneurship with core classes. Khyla attends the school with the help of a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship managed by Step Up For Students and funded by corporate donations to the nonprofit.

“This is her passion,” Sheyla said, “so finding that school was really a life-saving experience. She’s found so much joy and purpose there.”

While Khyla was involved in a number of extracurricular activities and sports at her previous school, Calvary Christian Academy, her interest always returned to fashion design.

It’s something Khyla picked up from her mom at an early age, when Sheyla started her own children’s clothing line – KHYKOUTURE – and used Khyla as a model. Khyla enjoys walking the runway but not as much as she enjoys finding a top and a blanket at a thrift store and using her imagination, a sewing machine, and all the tools in her sewing kit to turn them into a dress or gown.

“I guess seeing my mom make all those outfits for me when I was little inspired me to do the same,” Khyla said.

Sheyla learned of SF/FA on social media when Khyla was in the fifth grade. She and Khyla toured the school, which is a 30-minute drive from their Hollywood home. All Khyla had to see was Room 117, which is filled with mannequins and sewing machines, and she was sold.

“Best room in the school,” Khyla said.

She enrolled in the sixth grade for the 2023-24 school year, eager to see what the world of fashion was all about.

Now Khyla talks about attending a fashion school in New York City and having her work featured during Fashion Week in Paris, London, and New York.

“That's why I'm glad I'm going to this school so I can work on my skills,” she said. “I think I'm really going to do this. I'm really going to pursue this dream and stick to it till the end.”

***

In 2018, Taj McGill started a fashion program for students in South Florida that met in a one-room building on Saturdays. By 2021, she realized there was enough interest to start a dedicated school. SF/FA now has 75 students, many of them with dreams as big as Khyla’s.

McGill, who grew up in South Florida, has a degree in fashion design and merchandising. She has worked in various careers within the fashion industry for more than 20 years. She’s attending Fashion Week in those far-off cities. Her students are introduced to a cross-section of people from the fashion industry.

“South Florida isn't really known as a fashion capital although it is beginning to develop. I am intentional about exposing our students to the various careers within the industry and introducing creatives to professionals that inspire them to dream,” McGill said. “They can actually have a job in these specific career fields that we cater to here at SF/FA. They can flourish in those industries.

“If there were a school like this when I was a child, oh, my God, I would have been in heaven. If I was able to complete my core academic classes and then have classes in fashion or beauty or business, it would have been so great for me. So, I essentially created what I wanted as a child.”

In addition to the sewing lab, there is a room with barber chairs for hairstyling and another for nail technology and cosmetology. Students can dually enroll in the fashion program at Saint Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Miami Fashion Institute, or the University of South Florida.

“You don’t get this kind of experience anywhere else,” Khyla said.

Every student is involved in the end-of-the-year fashion show, from the designers to the models, to the cosmetologist to the hair stylist. The photography, video, social media, red carpet, and marketing are all done by students.

***

In nearly two years at SF/FA, Khyla has emerged as one of the school’s top students, with a 4.0 GPA. Her designs allow her to stand out, as well.

“She's determined,” McGill said. “She works really, really hard, and it's important to her to be a leader to her peers.”

 

Last year, Khyla designed three outfits for the fashion show. This year, it could be as many as seven. It will feature a rainbow of princess gowns inspired by the movie “Inside Out 2,” where the emotions of the main character, a teenage girl, are represented by characters of different colors. Anger is red. Envy is green.

“It was a little confusing at first because I knew I wanted to do the theme, but I didn't know what I wanted to make it,” she said. “So, I was like, ‘OK, let me just do princess dresses,’ and I can just do them with the ‘Inside Out’ colors and incorporate them into the designs.”

Sheyla has never seen the movie, so she’s not sure what Khyla is trying to accomplish. But that’s the case with all of Khyla’s concepts.

“When she tells me about them and I don’t get what she’s trying to do, she tells me, ‘Wait till you see where it’s going,’ and then I see the final product and I’m amazed,” she said.

Sheyla took a sewing class in Miami before starting her children’s line. She was the only adult in the class. The rest were students who were homeschooled.

“That stuck with me because I wanted my children to have the same opportunities,” she said.

Now a detention sergeant with the Broward Sheriff’s Office, Sheyla can give Khyla the educational opportunity she wished she had, thanks to Step Up For Students.

“Without Step Up, Khyla would have never gotten the opportunity to be in this school,” Sheyla said. “So, it's a wonderful thing that kids like Khyla can have an opportunity to let their talent flourish while focusing also on her academics.”

At SF/FA, McGill serves as a role model, as do the guest lecturers. The students feed off each other’s creativity and dreams. Khyla talks about attending the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and having her designs featured at all the big shows in Paris and London.

“That makes me proud,” Sheyla said, “and it allows me to encourage her because I know those dreams are attainable.”

 

CLEARWATER, Fla. — The Newton brothers’ reign at Clearwater Central Catholic High School ended on a Thursday night in December when Jershaun, the youngest, played his final football game.

It was quite a run for the family who lives down the road in St. Petersburg. It was quite a run for the high school’s football program, as well.

Five Newtons played for the Marauders every year but one since the 2015 season. Each brother earned a college scholarship to play football. One plays in the NFL, and another likely will join him there next season.

“I didn’t expect this,” said their mom, Jovita Rich. “I just wanted them to have a better education, honestly. That’s why I sent them to private school.”

The brothers attended private schools with the help of education choice scholarships managed by Step Up For Students and funded by corporate donations to the nonprofit.

“I love the Step Up scholarship,” Jovita said. “It's been a godsend to my family to be able to put my kids through private school.”

It began with the twins, Jervon Jr. and Jerquan, who enrolled at Clearwater Central Catholic (CCC) as freshmen in 2013-14 and joined the football team as sophomores. Both played collegiately at the University of West Florida in Pensacola before finishing at Mars Hill University in North Carolina. Jervon, a running back, and Jerquan, a linebacker, majored in education and are both elementary school teachers.

Jerjuan followed, graduating CCC in 2019, and recently completed his senior season at the University of Toledo. He’ll graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering technology. A wide receiver who holds the school record for career touchdowns (32), Jerjuan was named to the All-Mid-American Conference first team for the second consecutive season. He was invited to the Hula Bowl, an all-star game for top NFL prospects.

Jer’Zhan (Johnny) was next. He graduated from CCC in 2020 and starred at the University of Illinois. He was a two-time All-American and the 2023 Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year as a defensive tackle, and graduated with a degree in general studies. He was selected in the second round of 2024 NFL Draft by the Washington Commanders and helped the team reach the NFC Championship Game.

And then there is Jershaun, or “Shauny,” the youngest who led CCC to three consecutive state title games. A knee injury he suffered in the state semifinal this year prevented him from playing in his third state championship game.

A quarterback, Shauny set Pinellas County career records for total yards (9,962) and total touchdowns (105) during his four years. He will follow Johnny to Illinois and plans to major in sports management.

“They are workaholics,” said their dad, Jervon Sr. “These kids, they work day in and day out. I knew they had the athletic ability, but they had the heart and desire to be better than everybody.”

***

The Newtons’ path to an education choice scholarship and football stardom began just over a decade ago inside a St. Petersburg laundromat when Jovita, to kill time during the wash and dry cycles, started a conversation with another mom doing laundry.

The topic of their children’s education came up, and Jovita mentioned her displeasure with the district school Shauny attended. The other mom said her kids attended private school.

“I was like, ‘Oh, I've looked into it, but it's just so expensive, I can't afford it.’ And then she said, ‘You should try Step Up For Students,’” Jovita recalled.

Jovita wasn’t familiar with Step Up or the scholarships it manages, but she was when she left the laundromat that night.

“She said, ‘It helped me out. I put all my kids through school through Step Up,’” Jovita said. “So, I checked it out, applied for it, and they were all approved.”

The twins headed to CCC while the others enrolled in private K-8 schools near their St. Petersburg home.

Eventually, all their paths led to CCC.

“I’m so glad that she washed those clothes in that laundromat, I promise you that much,” CCC football coach Chris Harvey said.

***

The 2020 season was the only one in the last 10 years that did not include a Newton on the roster. The Marauders were 5-5 that year. They are 98-19 with at least one Newton.

“That’s pretty impressive,” Harvey said.

In 2016, CCC reached the regional semifinals with Jervon Jr., Jerquan, Jerjuan, and Johnny on the team. The twins were seniors, Jerjuan was a sophomore and Johnny was a freshman.

“Johnny has a big personality,” Harvey said. “He’s the funny one. The twins were always laughing. Jerjuan was the serious one. He had to control the other three.”

Absorbing everything was Shauny, who was a presence around the CCC football team since he was 8. Not only was he starring for the Pop Warner football team coached by his dad, but he also attended CCC practices and trained with his brothers at the high school and at a local facility used by many of the area’s college and professional players.

“They pushed each other,” Jervon Sr. said. “They’re their biggest fans but also their biggest critiques. And as Shauny got older you started seeing flashes of all of them in him.”

Not only the on-field ability but the off-field dedication that led to his success – worth ethic, desire to succeed, discipline.

“He’s the perfect combination of all four of them,” Harvey said. “He can play just about any position that you want him to play and play at a high level. When they say that the baby of the family is the best one, they're not lying. His future is about as bright as it could possibly be.”

***

When asked what it’s like to have a brother play in the NFL, Shauny shrugged and said, “It’s normal.”

That’s because it was the end game for all the workouts, all the time in the weightroom and all the work in the classroom.

“It helped a lot, seeing how they did things,” Shauny said. “I've been doing the same thing as they did, working out, keeping my body together, getting good grades.”

The theme running through it all, Shauny said, was “accountability.”

His one takeaway from all the time spent around his brothers and the CCC football program:

“Don't react when you don't have to react,” Shauny said. “Don't entertain foolishness.”

Jovita said the main reason for the brothers attending CCC was the education.

“The twins went on a tour, and we loved the school, we loved what it had to offer,” she said. “The rest is history.”

Jovita said her sons often talked about their college courses, and while demanding, they weren’t overwhelmed.

“The education at CCC is phenomenal. They've done an excellent job in college,” Jovita said. “They didn't call home saying, ‘I'm having trouble. This is hard.’ They went to college, and it was like, ‘Oh, we've been over this in high school. This is easy work right here.’ So, it’s the schedule that (CCC) puts the kids through and the classes that they take that just prepared them exceptionally for when they went to college.

“Their goal was to go to college, play football and try to make it to the NFL, and if not, they all have their college degrees to fall back on, which I'm very proud of that as well. They all graduated with a bachelor's degree.”

 

 

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: 

• The Florida Tax Credit Scholarships or Family Empowerment Scholarships for Educational Options have enabled nearly 344,000 students to cover the cost of private school tuition. These families can use any remaining funds for other eligible educational expenses.  

• Family Empowerment Scholarships for Students with Unique Abilities have enabled over 123,000 students with special needs to customize their education.  

• The Personalized Education Program has reached its statutory capacity of 60,000 students for the school year, tripling in size since its 2023-24 debut. These scholarships allow students who do not attend public or private school full-time to fully customize their education. 

 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.  

 

 

 

SANFORD, Florida – Charisma Lowery loves fractions, which is not something you hear every day from a third grader, but she does.

Mixed fractions, improper fractions – bring ’em on.

Charisma, 7, loves fractions so much that one morning while in the second grade, she jumped out of her mom’s car during drop-off and ran to the front door of her school because she knew fractions were on the menu during math class.

That’s how Charisma began the book she wrote during the 2023-24 school year as part of a schoolwide project at Prodigy Academy Advance Learning Center, the K-8 private school in Sanford that she attends with the help of a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship.

 

The scholarship is funded by corporate donations to Step Up For Students, which manages education choice scholarships for K-12 schoolchildren in Florida.

Megan Allen, Prodigy’s CEO and founder, had each student write a book about a topic of their choice. The books were printed and are available on Amazon.

“Charisma Goes to School” is about a day when Charisma’s class is learning about and being quizzed on fractions.

Spoiler alert: She aced the quiz.

“It's me going to school and how it feels and telling people how cool school feels like to me,” Charisma said.

What’s so cool about it?

“I get to learn stuff,” she said.

Math, science and social studies are her favorite classes. History, not so much.

Allen called Charisma the “ideal student” for her work ethic and her ability to learn the material. Charisma arrived in kindergarten with reading and math skills above her grade level. So, she skipped the first grade.

“Charisma is super, super, super smart, almost too smart,” joked her mom, Kim. “She uses words like ‘inappropriate’ instead of ‘bad’.”

Charisma said she’d like to be a teacher or a gymnast. Maybe an author.

“Charisma has told me since she was 2 that when she turned 34 she will be on the moon, and she has stuck to it,” Kim said. “That is a statement she makes frequently. ‘When I'm 34, I'll be on the moon.’ So, I see her in a science career, maybe teaching science, but I definitely see her in science.”

Kim wanted Charisma to attend a private school to learn in a small environment with more one-on-one attention from teachers and staff. Kim worried Charisma would get lost in a large educational setting.

Kim toured Prodigy Academy and said she felt comfortable with the setting and with Allen and her staff. And if she felt comfortable, she knew Charisma would, too.

“The fact that she gets to be here in a small environment with people that actually care about her and her future has definitely made her blossom into the child that she is right now,” Kim said.

Their future was one of the reasons Allen had the students write books.

“I love giving the kids skills where they can take into their adulthood,” Allen said. “It was a way to start developing different skills and allow each kid to see this is something possible. A lot of times we don't do things because we don't know it's possible. So, the earlier we can expose them to things, to know these things are possible, the more they are more likely to continue doing it.”

The fledgling authors produced works that included superheroes, magic pets, a meteor that gives a boy wolf-like powers, and a menacing sea monster. They spent a month writing. The books were published last spring.

Charisma and her classmates not only wrote the stories, they also picked the art and saw the books through nearly all phases of production. They even kept the profit from the Amazon sales.

“When the book came out with my daughter's name on it, I was super, super proud. Proud is an understatement,” Kim said.

Kim owns a full-service salon. On the front desk just above a candy dish is a picture of Charisma and the cover of “Charisma Goes to School.”

“My clients come in and say, ‘Oh my gosh! That’s so cool!’ I say, ‘Yeah that’s cool. It’s even cooler when you buy it,’” Kim said.

This year, Allen is teaching the students how to market their books with T-shirts and mugs. The students are also designing Christmas wrapping paper they can sell. So, marketing and finance are on tap this school year.

And more writing and publishing.

At the end of each school year, Allen asks her students for feedback on what they liked and didn’t like. Overwhelmingly, the students said they loved writing books and wanted to do it again this year.

“Some even started over the summer,” Allen said. “Some of the older ones want to write chapter books. I said sure, give it a try.”

Charisma is going to continue with her story, though it takes place a few years in the future.

“Teenage Charisma,” she said.

Teenage Charisma is going to protect her classmates from bullies.

“That’s Charisma,” Kim said. “She’s a defender.”

And a published author.

LEESBURG, Fla. – The first tangible evidence of a new private school opening in town were the 1,500 fliers printed at Staples and handed to parents as they left a Publix supermarket.

That’s how Darryl Reaves and his wife, Anette During, hoped to attract students to the K-8 school in Leesburg they planned to open for the 2022-23 school year. They canvassed strip mall parking lots.

“We lived outside the stores the whole summer,” Reaves said.

The couple watched a mother exit a store, a child or two in tow, and ask if she was interested in sending her kids to a school with small class sizes that was committed to helping children who didn’t have the means to a quality education receive one and reap its benefits.

Enough of them said yes to put Reaves’ plan in motion.

“We had 12 students and no building,” he said.

That problem was solved when Mt. Calvary Baptist Church offered rooms that could be used for classrooms, and in August 2022, First Trinity Academy opened its doors. There were 22 students, most in the lower grades.

Enrollment doubled in 2023-24 and is up to 76 this year, marking a remarkable growth that has Reaves already searching for a larger building.

Each student receives either the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship or the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options. Both are managed by Step Up For Students.

“The students who come here are from families that could never afford a private school without those scholarships,” said Reaves.

Tuition is $8,000 for grades K-3 and $7,500 for grades 4-8. There is also a $150 registration fee per family.

Students are required to take the Stanford 10, a Nationally Standardized Achievement Test. New students take the Let's Go Learn Diagnostic Test to evaluate their skill set so teachers have a baseline to measure the student’s progress.

Beacons of hope

There are eight teachers on staff at First Trinity Academy. During is the chief administrative officer. Reaves is headmaster, though he joked to a recent visitor that he’s also the janitor and dishwasher.

He wasn’t kidding. Before each lunch period, Reaves swept the dining room floor, cleaned the tables, and placed the students’ lunchboxes on the tables. He heated whatever lunches they brought that needed heating and cleaned whatever bowls needed cleaning.

“You have to be everything here,” he said. “We’re a small school, so we can’t offer the thrills.”

Reaves was raised in Miami by parents who were teachers. His dad served in the Florida Legislature. Reaves, who has a journalism degree from Florida A&M and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Florida, served in the Florida House of Representatives.

A Democrat, Reaves served in the Florida House alongside Tom Feeney. Feeney was Speaker of the House from 2000 to 2001 and shepherded the creation of Florida’s first tax credit scholarship bill. Though Reaves had left the legislature before the law’s passage, students at First Trinity Academy now benefit from it.

He said he thought of running a private school as far back as when he was in middle school. And, after spending several years as a teacher in the public school system, he decided to do just that.

“I learned from my parents that all children want to learn,” he said. “It's just a matter of giving them the opportunity. I have this philosophy that once you make children believe they can do the work, they will do the work.”

Reaves sees education as the means for families to break the cycle of poverty. He called it “the Civil Rights movement of our times.”

“It’s repetitive,” he said. “The parent doesn't graduate. The child is a parent. The daddy goes to jail. The son goes to jail. The grandsons go to jail. Drugs. Jail. Drugs. The community goes down, down, down.

“And somewhere along the line, there have to be beacons of hope that say, ‘Oh, you can be smart.’ We’re treading upstream, but that's our purpose.”

‘Be better than us’

Le’Shaun Gray considers himself one of those beacons.

A product of Florida State University, where he majored in interdisciplinary studies, Gray teaches science, social studies, and reading at First Trinity Academy.

“I wake up in the morning with a fire within me, because what an opportunity not only we have as educators, but our students have,” he said.

Gray was raised in Brooksville and attended district schools. He knows how easily a student can become overwhelmed at a big school. Some won’t ask questions because they are intimidated, and what was unclear to them remains unclear. First Trinity Academy’s classes are capped at 12 students; most are smaller. Gray can interact with every student every day.

“I can literally stop at each one of their desks and say, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ We can slow down. We can speed up however we need to,” Gray said.

His goal is to teach his students how to think and understand a topic, not just memorize material to pass a test. That’s how teachers can make a difference in a student’s life, Gray said.

“I feel it's our responsibility to pass on a knowledge of legacy to the generation behind us,” he said. “The goal is for them to be better than us.”

Going in the right direction

Alejandra Ortiz had been scouting private schools in Orlando for her daughter London during the summer of 2022. That would make for a long roundtrip commute from Leesburg every day, but Ortiz was committed to finding a better education setting for her only daughter.

Then one evening, while shopping for dinner at Publix, she was approached by Reaves in the parking lot. Ortiz was interested in what Reaves had to offer, and London became one of the original 22 students.

“We were thinking the same way,” Ortiz said.

London arrived as a first-grader, two grades behind her class. In nine weeks, she was promoted to the second grade, and by the start of the 2023-24 school year, she had advanced to her grade level.

“I saw a 180-degree turnaround halfway through that first year,” Ortiz said. “Things that she was struggling with before, she was no longer struggling with. The discipline, the communication, and the academics are definitely there in the school. She's definitely going in the right direction.”

London said she loves going to First Trinity Academy. She likes her classmates and the teachers. She likes how math teacher Jodi Porter compared fractions to slices of a cake.

Even with all the fliers and the canvassing of parking lots, word-of-mouth is still the best recruiter for Reaves. Parents talk to parents, and the students talk to their friends. When asked what she would say to a friend whose mother was thinking of sending her to First Trinity Academy, London said, “I would say you should definitely come because it's a good school and the teachers will understand you and you will have a lot of fun understanding and learning about new things.”

The vision

Three years in and Reaves is already scouting for a bigger location for his school. There is an empty former CVS nearby. In another part of town sits a building that used to house a furniture store. Both offer enough space for First Trinity Academy to continue its growth.

“We've proven that we can expand at a rapid pace, and I'm looking forward to expanding, perhaps even to 400 [or] 500 students,” During said.

That’s ambitious, yet Ortiz thinks it’s realistic.

“I feel like they're progressing nicely, honestly, especially in such a short amount of time,” she said. “My experience has been really good as a parent because I have that safety net where I know I could drop my daughter off and I'm going to pick her back up. I've been very happy with the results because they take that time out to get to know the child.”

Ortiz’s feelings sync with the vision Reaves and During had when they began distributing fliers outside Leesburg-area supermarkets.

• Every child can excel academically.
• Develop the whole child through education.

“That’s our vision.” During said. “Helping students that wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to or would not be given the opportunity to succeed academically.”

 

Drywall is piled three feet high in the attic of Emily and Alan Lemmon’s home in Tallahassee. It was placed there a few years ago, intended for walls as the couple finished the top floor.

But these days the stack serves a different purpose. Surrounded by white sheets used as backdrops and placed directly under nine flood lights attached to the rafters, it’s the stage used by the Tallahassee Homeschool Shakespeare Club, founded by the Lemmons’ oldest child, Genevieve.

“I have a house full of kids, about 25 of them, practicing their Shakespeare lines,” Emily said.

Four of those kids live there – Genevieve, 14, and her siblings Chiara, 12, Dominic, 10, and Declan, 5. The middle two have roles in the yearly Shakespeare plays directed by Genevieve. Declan works as a stagehand, though he might soon earn a part on stage, possibly as the mischievous imp Puck from “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” which according to his oldest sister is a role he was born to play.

Genevieve began the club when she was 11 after watching Tallahassee’s Southern Shakespeare Company perform “Twelfth Night.”

“That kind of lit a fuse,” Genevieve said.

She recruited 10 of her homeschooled friends to act out three scenes from “Twelfth Night,” and soon her home was Tallahassee-upon-Avon. Alan was building sets, Genevieve was sewing costumes with her grandmother, and everyone was reciting William Shakespeare.

How do you get an 11-year-old hooked on the works of The Bard?

“We don’t own a TV,” Emily said.

And every room in the house is lined with bookcases stuffed with books.

The back yard leads to wetlands explored by the children as they satisfy their curiosity about anything that grows, crawls, swims, and flies.

Emily and Alan are both professors at nearby Florida State University, and this is what they envisioned when they decided to homeschool their children. Emily was homeschooled and thrived in that education setting. She wanted the same for her children because she liked the freedom of customizing the curriculum to each child’s needs and interests.

“I like the way that homeschooling gives you more family time,” Emily said. “It helps build a really close-knit family, and parents can have more influence on the formation of their kids. I also thought my husband and I could do a better job educating them than a lot of schools because we can give them one-on-one attention.”

Last school year, the Lemmons qualified for the Personal Education Program (PEP) that comes with the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship (FTC), managed by Step Up For Students.

That was the first school year homeschooled families were eligible for PEP. The scholarship is an Education Savings Account (ESA) for students who are not enrolled full-time in a public or private school. This allows parents to tailor their children’s education by allowing them to spend their scholarship funds on various approved, education-related expenses.

For the Lemmon kids, that’s a heavy dose of music lessons. They are all taking lessons in piano and a string instrument. All are members of the Tallahassee Homeschool String Orchestra, while Genevieve and Chiara are also members of the Tallahassee Youth Orchestra.

All PEP students are required to take a yearly, state-approved, norm-referenced test. (The list of tests can be found here.) The Lemmons take the Classic Learning Test.

PEP helps pay for curriculum, school supplies, books, summer camps, and music lessons.

“We’re trying to expose them to lots of different fields because they're trying to figure out what they're most interested in,” Emily said.

Chiara’s interests lean toward the sciences. She’s also developing an interest in farming and is now raising 17 young chickens in hopes of beginning her neighborhood egg business. She’ll call it Chiara’s Cheeky Chicks or Chiara’s Cluckers.

Chiara is also scheduled to take a farming internship this year.

Genevieve is mechanically inclined. She can take apart and reassemble a bicycle. She once disassembled a door in the family’s van and fixed what was rattling.

“She might have the makings of an architect or an engineer,” Emily said.

Or a Shakespearean scholar.

Genevieve took an online course this summer on “The Merchant of Venice,” taught by a Shakespearean author.

Her favorite plays are “Twelfth Night” and “King Lear.” When asked for her favorite Shakespearean line, she answered with the back-and-forth between Beatrice and Benedick in “Much Ado About Nothing.”

The Lemmons don’t own a TV and the kids don’t have iPhones, because Emily and Alan don’t want their children spending time staring at screens. They’d rather their children read books and explore the outdoors to stimulate their minds.

“So, you asked why an 11-year-old got interested in Shakespeare, it’s because her brain wasn't supersaturated with flashing lights and exciting noises and materialistic commercials. And she was quiet enough to be able to focus on what Shakespeare meant,” Emily said.

Directing has been a learning process for Genevieve. Mostly, she’s learned how to lead a cast. Along the way, she learned she could help shy or introverted cast members develop confidence by giving them bigger parts.

“I give them harder parts and they rise to the occasion each time,” she said.

Genevive said it was hard at first getting other homeschool students interested in Shakespeare. She fixed that with post-rehearsal pizza and ice cream parties. The afterparties are now called Sugar Shakes.

For Christmas last year, Genevieve received a director's chair and a megaphone.

“It was pretty cheesy in the beginning,” she said, “but now they know if they sit on my chair they're going to get in big trouble.”

In four years, the Tallahassee Homeschool Shakespeare Club grew from the original 10 members to its current 25. All are homeschooled and all received PEP scholarships.

Genevieve said being homeschooled is the catalyst behind  her love of Shakespeare.

“I just like how it gives me more flexibility and it gives me more time to pursue my interests,” she said. “I think if I'd been in a (district) school system up to this point, I wouldn't have probably been exposed to Shakespeare and I wouldn't be directing plays now.”

The faces looking back at Da’Shaun Holmes appeared familiar. They looked like Da’Shaun. Well, a younger version of Da’Shaun.

They were students at Academy Prep Center of St. Petersburg, Da’Shaun’s alma mater, and they were eager to hear what he had to say. Da’Shaun was ready for the challenge.

“I was there to inspire,” he said.

On an early spring day, Da’Shaun, 23, visited his old school and told the students about his burgeoning career as an advanced manufacturing engineer for Honeywell Aerospace in Clearwater, where he works on electrical components for space and military craft.

He explained that he once sat where they sat and how a few weeks at a science camp at Eckerd College during the summer after fifth grade altered his life. That’s where he was introduced to STEM, coding, environmental science, and chemistry. That’s when Da’Shaun first had the idea of becoming an engineer.

“My roots and foundations came from Academy Prep, and I told them how it translated to me now as an adult, as an engineer,” Da’Shaun said. “And I wanted to express to the kids, ‘Hey, this is where I came from. This is where you are. You can take the same routes and steps as me. This is where you could be.’ ”

Like most of the students at Academy Prep, Da’Shaun attended the private, grades 5-8 school on a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship (FTC) that is supported by corporate donations to Step Up For Students.

The FTC also enabled Da’Shaun to attend high school at Canterbury School of Florida in St. Petersburg.

From there, he attended Florida Atlantic University. He graduated in December 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.

“I think (the FTC scholarship) is a beautiful thing, because without it, I wouldn't be here,” he said. “I wouldn't have had the foundation to become the man that I am today.”

***

Truth be told, young Da’Shaun didn’t want to attend Academy Prep. The long school days – 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. – and summer classes didn’t appeal to him. Neither did the idea of leaving his friend from his district school behind.

But his mom, Tansheka Riggens, didn’t feel Da’Shaun was being academically challenged at his district school. A friend told her about Academy Prep, which is a 20-minute ride from their St. Petersburg home. She and Da’Shaun toured the school.

“It aligned with what I wanted for him,” Tansheka said.

In addition to the core subjects, Da’Shaun learned how to cook. He learned to critique movies after joining the movie club. He learned how to play chess. He bought the book, “The Chess Player’s Bible.” He still reads it today.

“My mom wanted me to have the best chance in the world as I could,” he said. “I guess Mom knows best.”

During the eighth grade, he was inducted into the International Rotary Interact Club.

At Canterbury, Da’Shaun was a member of Mu Alpha Theta, Science National Honors Society (SNHS) and the National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS).

He received the P. Michael Davis Award (“For outstanding honor, integrity, respect, trustworthiness, character scholarship and leadership by a member of the Junior Class”) and the John F. Kenyon Male Award (“For unfailing perseverance, encouragement of others and quiet leadership”) as a senior.

Da’Shaun also received the DAV Jesse Brown Youth Volunteer Scholarship for his volunteer work with disabled American veterans.

At FAU, Da’Shaun and his team earned both the People's Choice Award and the Judge's Choice Award for a design project during his senior year.

He received the job offer from Honeywell after interning with the company the summer before his final semester.

“I will say, and it might sound crazy, but I'm honestly not surprised with what Da’Shaun has accomplished,” Tansheka said. “Because there's one thing for your parents to instill things in you. There's another thing for you, the child, to be receptive, retain it, and then act on it. And Da’Shaun has always been very studious. And he's very disciplined. I am in awe of how disciplined he is.”

Education is important to Tansheka. She began working on her associate degree after graduating high school in 2002.

“It took forever and a day,” she said.

Life came at her fast. First, she was a single mother raising Da’Shaun. Along the way, she adopted a niece and a nephew. Then she began caring for her father, whose poor health had resulted in numerous hospital stays.

Motivated by Da’Shaun’s academic success, Tansheka persevered. With the help of the Complete Tampa Bay Program, she earned her associate degree in liberal arts in December 2023, graduating from St. Petersburg College the same month her son graduated from FAU. Her next goal is to become certified as a licensed practical nurse and then return to St. Petersburg College for her bachelor's degree in health services administration. She currently works for an agency that helps people with disabilities.

“Da’Shaun has been a great source of encouragement,” she said. “He reminds me that your progress might not be as quick as you wanted it to be, but slow progress means there is some progress and not regression.”

***

The graduate support department at Academy Prep keeps track of the school’s alumni. It wasn’t unusual to see someone from Academy Prep at one of Da’Shaun’s football or baseball games at Canterbury. Or at an award ceremony where Da’Shaun was being honored.

They stayed in touch with Da’Shaun when he was at FAU, often inviting him to have breakfast with the students whenever he was in town. Given all that Da’Shaun accomplished, it’s easy to see why he’s asked to tell his story in front of the current student body.

“That door is open to all our graduates, and Da’Shaun is one who has run through it,” said Lacey Nash Miller, Academy Prep’s executive director of advancement. “This is a place where he can make a real difference. He can really motivate these kids. So, I think it's a perfect fit.”

It's important, Nash Miller said, for the Academy Prep students to see someone who looks like them, has the same background as them, and has taken advantage of the same opportunity they have to be successful.

“When I was in school, to see someone go through the process that I've been through, and then come back and talk to me, tell me these things, that would make such a huge difference,” Da’Shaun said. “So, I want to be that change now in the community.”