ST. PETERSBURG – Jaydis Kincade sat at a picnic table in the shade next to the vegetable garden maintained by his classmates at Academy Prep Center of St. Petersburg and set up a chess board.

Out came the rooks, the bishops, the knights. The pawns, the king, the queen.

He aligned them in their correct positions – Black on one side, White on the other – and began to play.

Jaydis vs Jaydis.

Jaydis won.

“Checkmate,” he said after a flurry of moves.

Jaydis, 12, is in the seventh grade at Academy Prep, a grades 5-8 private school located 10 minutes by foot from his St. Petersburg home. He attends the school on a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship (FTC), which is made possible by corporate donations to Step Up For Students.

This is his third year at Academy Prep, and like he does when playing against himself in chess, Jaydis is winning.

He receives high grades and has the respect of his peers, teachers, and school administration. He is the secretary of the Student Leadership Council. He recently learned to play chess, competing against an app on his iPhone at least five times a day. Often more.

“A lot more,” he said. “I’m getting good at it.”

After receiving the FTC scholarship, his mom, Latarriea Bradford, exercised her education choice rights and moved Jaydis from his assigned school to Academy Prep.

“I felt like this was an opportunity for Jaydis to push himself academically, to challenge himself,” she said.

Since enrolling, Academy Prep Assistant Head of School Brittany Dillard said Jaydis “represents a powerful example of the transformative impact that education, support, and personal determination can have on an individual’s life trajectory.”

“Jaydis gets it,” Latarriea said. “I really don’t have too much to worry about since he started school here. He is keeping a 3.0 grade point average and keeps focused on the right things.”

Jaydis said he loves to be challenged academically, otherwise school is “boring. It’s not fun.”

“I like the dopamine release when I get a question right on a test,” he said. “It makes me feel good about myself, and I can move on to the next challenge.”

Part of the Academy Prep experience is the school’s mentorship program. That’s where Jaydis met Ebrahim Busheri, who works in the financial industry. The two have been meeting at least once a week since October. They sometimes meet on the weekend to visit an art gallery or try a new restaurant since Jaydis loves to try new foods.

“I'm trying to just be there for him and to encourage him,” Busheri said. “From my perspective, I think he's an amazing kid. He's incredibly smart and has an incredibly warm personality.

“It’s tough to, in my opinion, teach either of those things. It’s a gift that he has, so I've tried to encourage him and make him realize that without hard work, those things will not help. I want him to recognize that he's got to work hard, and his grades have to be consistently good.”

Jaydis called Busheri “a great role model for me.”

Busheri entered his life at the right time. Jaydis has not had any contact with his father since he moved to New Mexico three years ago. This upsets Jaydis. It upsets his mom, too.

“The mentorship program is something that is beneficial to Jaydis,” Latarriea said.

Latarriea added that sometimes, kids have a hard time expressing themselves. Having someone like Busheri to provide another ear is a big help.

“It's hard as a mother to try to really understand boys. They don't listen like girls,” she said. “Their attention span is very short when it comes to that, so I have to make (my message) quick and to the point.”

Jaydis was recently honored at the Rising Stars Awards event, an annual event hosted by Step Up For Students. Dillard, who nominated Jaydis for the honor, described him as fearless, hopeful, and reflective.

“I've been in education a really long time, and Jaydis is one of those students who is a diamond in the rough,” Dillard said. “I want Jaydis to take those great gifts that he has and use them for the greater good and one day show other students who are in his shoes that life may not be easy. You will have challenges, but you endure, and you will reap that benefit and that reward of being successful.”

Jaydis has big plans for himself. He wants to attend Princeton University (“I want to be more diverse in my studies,” he said) and own a clothing business. His two favorite subjects – math and Spanish – play an early role toward his career goal. Math will help him on the business end, and the ability to converse in Spanish will help him increase his clientele.

Jaydis is thinking a few steps ahead, which is how you win at chess.

 

CLEARWATER – On the desk inside Emma Coto’s bedroom is a sign that says, “This Girl Can.” That’s as good of a place as any to begin this story because sitting at the piano next to the desk is Emma, and she’s playing the theme to “Jurassic Park,” her favorite movie.

Emma is 11, and she can also play the cello. She can speak French and Spanish. She can dig for fossils along the banks of the Peace River somewhere near Arcadia, where she once unearthed a Megalodon tooth.

That’s a lot of can for someone whose chances of living when she was an infant were, according to one doctor, “slim and none.”

“He said we had better odds of winning the lottery,” said Lynda Coto, Emma’s mom.

Emma was days old when she suffered a stroke. Tumors were found on her pancreas, and she quickly had 85% of her pancreas removed. The stroke caused life-threatening epileptic seizures, which she endured for her first seven years.

A medical procedure in 2019, in which a pacemaker-like device was implanted at the base of Emma’s skull to monitor and control her seizures, greatly improved her quality of life. She hasn’t had a seizure in more than three years.

Florida’s Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities helped uncover Emma’s musical talent when her parents purchased a keyboard with funds from the program’s Education Savings Account (ESA).

“We took all of these extracurricular activities (available with the ESA) and just started throwing them at the wall, see which ones stuck,” Lynda said. “And many of them didn't stick.”

 

But the keyboard did, and now Emma has a clear vision for her future.

“I want to play in an orchestra,” she said.

And …

“I want to be a paleontologist,” she quickly added.

Emma’s fight for survival began in November 2012 with a stroke shortly after she was born.

Lynda, a registered nurse, sensed problems with her baby that doctors didn’t see, and tests didn’t always reveal. There were plenty of questions but not many answers. So, Lynda and her husband, Danny, fought.

And fought.

“There's a lot of specialists out there that will meet a parent and say, ‘Look, there's really nothing we can do to fix it. You just have to accept it,’ and I'm like, ‘I'm not doing that. Sorry, that's not that's not me. I'm not accepting this,’” Lynda said.

 

 

Emma was treated by epilepsy neuropsychologists, epilepsy surgeons, and more than a dozen epileptologists. She spent time at hospitals in Tampa, Pennsylvania, and Boston.

After one electroencephalogram, Lynda and Danny were told their daughter’s brain was so damaged that her mental capacity would never develop beyond that of a kindergartener.

“They said Emma was not going to progress mentally, socially, emotionally, or academically, past a five-year-old level,” Lynda said.

When Emma was 7, Lynda’s and Danny’s persistence paid off.

At Boston Children’s Hospital, Emma had a responsive neurostimulation (RNS) system installed at the base of her skull. The RNS is small and records brain activity, sending electrical stimulation to stop seizures.

Now Emma could run and play with other children. She could dig for fossils.

Mentally, socially, emotionally, and academically, Emma progressed to where she should be as an 11-year-old and maybe a bit beyond.

Emma loves history and science. She loved all things Harry Potter and “Jurassic Park.”

She loves Taylor Swift and John Williams. Swift you know. Williams, you might, since he composed the music for a number of blockbuster movies, including "Jurassic Park," "Star Wars," and the first three Harry Potter movies.
The scholarship really set the foundation for what I have here,” Lynda said as she nodded at Emma.

Emma has used the ESA to pay for her occupational, physical, and speech therapies that she no longer needs. She now uses it to pay for her music lessons. It did pay part of her tuition to a private school, but Emma is now homeschooled, so the ESA pays for the curriculum.

 

While she is doing well academically (it took her four months to complete the second-grade curriculum, and she is now learning fourth-grade math), Lynda feels her daughter will benefit from a return to the classroom.

“One of the things that is missing in homeschooling is that social connection,” Lynda said. “This little girl is very social.”

Lynda, Danny, and Emma are currently touring private schools in the Tampa Bay area. Lynda said the choice will be Emma’s, and she knows that choice will come down to the school with the best music program.

“Music grounds her,” Lynda said.

“It helps me relax,” Emma said.

Spread along the shelf of her piano are 10 awards Emma earned for playing.

“She’s a joy to teach,” said Carla O’Connor, Emma’s piano teacher. “She works toward perfection.”

That was clear when Emma, playing “Minuet in G” on her piano, missed a note.

“That’s OK,” Lynda said.

“No, it’s not,” Emma said while she continued to play.

O’Connor has been working with Emma for more than two years. She said her ability to learn a new piece is amazing.

“She processes the music so quickly,” O’Connor said. “I teach a lot of theory, and she understands all the different concepts. She picks it up immediately and runs with it. Her memorization skills are off the wall. If I give her a song, she can come back the next week, and it's practically memorized.”

The ability to play the piano is often the gateway to another instrument. For Emma, that’s the cello.

“My fun instrument,” she called it.

Emma began playing six months ago, and according to Fred Gratta, her cello teacher, she has made great strides.

“Emma is so eager to learn. She really has a hunger for knowledge, always ready to move forward,” Gratta said. “I can see the wheels turning in her head when I ask her to try something new. She’s really excited about music and the instrument.”

Emma tells Gratta, “I want to learn everything.”

 

Emma will perform for the Florida Music Teachers Association in the spring. She will be evaluated on three pieces that she must memorize. She is eligible to be considered to attend a summer camp at the Berklee College of Music in Boston when she turns 12. Gratta said Emma can one day be a member of the Pinellas Youth Symphony.

O’Connor said Emma can one day achieve her goal of playing in an orchestra as an adult.

“Absolutely,” O’Connor said. “I can see that.”

Lynda said there is a force that all parents possess that kicks into overdrive when they are fighting for their child’s life. The road wasn’t easy, Lynda said, but they never stopped pressing forward. From one specialist to another. From one hospital in one state to another hospital in another state.

“There is this magnificent energy that just pushes you, and you have no choice,” she said. “Thank God for that energy, that forward motion. Because without it, I don’t think we would be capable of serving our children.”

There is another sign in Emma’s room. It says, “Be Amazing.”

Emma is all of that.

“I think one thing that’s really neat about this scholarship is it enabled Emma to be a very well-rounded individual,” Lynda said. She can wear a real pretty dress and play some beautiful piano, and then she can go in the dirt and dig for fossils, and, literally, she is as happy as can be.”

This girl can.

 

Jo’Keal Sweed has a quick mind, polite nature and gentle voice.

You can’t immediately tell she’s been through hell.

A senior at Brooks DeBartolo Collegiate High School in Tampa, Jo’Keal can’t remember ever seeing her father, although he occasionally emails her from a Michigan prison.

Nor does she have any memories of her mother. She doesn’t even know if she’s alive.

She was adopted as a baby, and the family soon moved from her native Flint, Michigan, to Tampa. While the weather was much warmer, life was turbulent.

In Tampa, her adopted mother, along with five adopted siblings, moved often. Jo’Keal attended seven elementary and middle schools, never staying at one for more than two consecutive years. She struggled academically, especially with reading, and socially, often fighting with other students – and not just girls.

Although family discord would continue, her academic life flourished at Brooks DeBartolo, an independent charter school where she started ninth grade. She maintains a 3.27 GPA and is on track to graduate on time.

Jo’Keal now has confidence for a future that once seemed to hold little promise. She wants to attend Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), a historically black college in Tallahassee, next year. She wants to join its ROTC program and eventually enlist in the U.S. Army.

“I like the military benefits and just want to get outside Tampa,” Jo’Keal said. “When I was growing up, the Army recruiters were always coming to my schools to talk about it.”

She credits Brooks DeBartolo’s inclusive, nurturing environment and its teachers, who offer individual attention to students who need it – for helping her navigate circumstances that might have overwhelmed other people.

Jo’Keal was 5 when her adopted mother died, which forced her to live with a much older adopted sister.

That arrangement lasted until June.

“My adopted sister kicked me out, gave me a list of bills to pay,” Jo’Keal said. “Over the summer, she gave me until June 1 to get a job or she’d evict me. I applied all over the place, but I couldn’t find a job. So, on June 1, she came to my room and said, ‘Pack your stuff.’”

If not for the benevolence of a friend’s mother, she could now be living on the streets – or worse. The family ensures that Jo’Keal gets to and from school every day from central Pasco County, a roughly 45-minute one-way trip. Her friend does not attend Brooks DeBartolo.

Asked where she would be if not for the family’s help, Jo’Keal offered a sad smile and a shrug.

“I really don’t know,” she said. “Other friends offered to take me in at their house, but I’m not sure any of that really could have worked out.”

Bonnie Peirano, who teaches personal, career and school development at Brooks DeBartolo, said the latest challenge in Jo’Keal’s life happened just as she seemed to find her academic stride.

“What I noticed about Jo’Keal in 10^th grade is that she wasn’t very engaged,” she said. “She did not seem terribly interested in where she would go next or what she would do. But last year, I started to see a change. She kind of suddenly went out of her way in terms of her commitment to my class. She’d even just come by to say hi. She was way more personal.

“This year, she has been extremely focused and very engaged in class, always listening and watching me. That light switch went off and she started taking control of her life. She’s not about merely graduating from high school. She’s putting in the effort and that’s what makes people stand behind you and push you as far as you can go.”

Brooks DeBartolo, an A-rated school for nine consecutive years, has offered that push.

The school was started in 2007 by former Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker and NFL Hall of Famer Derrick Brooks and the family of Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., who was a former owner of the San Francisco 49ers.

There are 600 students enrolled at the school, with 600 more on a lottery-style waiting list. Students come from not only Tampa and surrounding towns, but also from neighboring Pasco and Pinellas counties.

“It’s a college- and career-prep focus,” Principal Kristine Bennett said. “We see where each student is at academically and figure out what track they want to go for. We have a wide variety of courses and opportunities to see what they need and want, and we work with them individually to help get them there. Our teachers are our No. 1 resource and make the magic happen. It’s a safe, caring environment.”

When Jo’Keal started at the school, Bennett said she was “academically very guarded and not very open.”

“She had a little bit of an attitude, but she eventually developed trusting relationships with the teachers and started gaining confidence,” Bennett said.

Besides playing on the girls basketball and flag football teams, Jo’Keal has joined the Brooks Bunch Business Boot Camp, a financial literacy after-school program, where students learn to create a budget, manage credit cards and stay out of debt. In recent years the group has traveled to Philadelphia and Detroit to help with community service projects. This year, the group is going to Chicago.

Jo’Keal doesn’t like to think about what her future might look like had she not enrolled at Brooks DeBartolo, which she learned about from a friend.

“The teachers actually care about you,” she said. “If I’m having a bad day, they can tell by my face and they help. Everybody’s great here. They treat me really well.”

Peirano said Jo’Keal’s story has inspired her classmates, as well as her educators.

“She’s a perfect example of someone who, despite all odds, is going to really do something with her life,” Peirano said.

MIAMI – It’s hard to miss Nicole Meneses at Pneuma Christian Academy. If she’s not front and center in every photo on every social media post, she’s stealing the show with her exuberance.

Her smile, so wide it almost looks painful, is full of braces. But she doesn’t have the slightest hint of self-consciousness.

“I’ve come a long way,” she said. “I’m thankful every day to be here.”

The happiest student at the school says you wouldn’t recognize her before Pneuma. She was bullied, depressed, and hated going to her neighborhood school.

Then her mother found out about a scholarship that would change their lives, and that led them to Pneuma. (more…)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – In the damp, rising heat of a late-morning graduation ceremony in May, with historic Farragut Hall as a backdrop, a hush crept through the crowd of students, relatives, friends, and faculty as they anticipated the next name.

Marquis Lambert

The roar was pent-up and prolonged, louder than one family could possibly deliver. This was the sound of the entire Admiral Farragut Academy family cheering and tearing up for the senior who 10 months prior had been a celebrated football player one day and was fighting for his life in intensive care the next.

As Marquis walked slowly across the stage to receive his diploma with a shy, child-like smile, parents LaTaura Blount and Mark Lambert swelled with joy, gratitude, pride, and even some disbelief.

“This almost didn’t happen for us,” LaTaura said.

Memories washed over them in waves.

Four years ago, a school choice scholarship made it possible to join the Farragut family. It was the perfect fit. Marquis dreamed of a future in football. His parents dreamed of an academic turnaround after their oldest son was just getting by in his neighborhood school with a C average.

“The standards, the rules, and the curriculum … I knew it would be a fresh start,” said LaTaura, who had heard about the Step Up For Students scholarship from a friend.

She was 16 when she had Marquis. She and Mark were kids trying to grow up. She worked jobs as a nursing home caregiver, a teacher and a pharmacy technician. Mark delivered phone books and traveled frequently.

Their home was as warm as their smiles, with three boys, plenty of noise and laughter. But money was always tight.

That’s why Mark and LaTaura always instilled the importance of academics. They didn’t go to college, but their children would.

“Sports can be taken away, but nobody can take away what you’ve learned and what you’ve earned,” LaTaura preached. (more…)

Maria and Marcos Verciano will never forget the anguish over their daughter’s struggles in third and fourth grade. That’s why they’re so grateful for the scholarship that changed their lives.

At first it was the D’s and F’s on Hadassa’s report cards that raised their concern. Then the poor progress reports, all of the meetings at their neighborhood school in Destin, Fla., being told Hadassa wasn’t on track to make the next grade level – it all added up to a serious strain on the family.

Hadassa’s ADHD diagnosis didn’t do much to change her path, either.

“They just set her apart and gave her more time to do the tests, but nothing more than that,” Maria said. “It was so sad for me, for her dad and for her, because she felt different from the other students. She felt like she was not accepted.”

“It was kind of overwhelming to think that she wouldn’t make it to fourth and fifth grade, that this was going to be her life forever. It was a very bad feeling that she was always behind.”

When Hadassa’s normally bright spirit and enthusiasm for school turned to dejection, her parents knew they had to make a change.

A Step Up For Students scholarship empowered them to do it.

The couple had always dreamed of sending Hadassa to a private school, but with Marcos’ work installing pavers and Maria’s job managing a beach house, they could never afford it. At their small Brazilian church, they found out about Rocky Bayou Christian School, a place that caters to all manner of students with different educational needs.

At Rocky Bayou’s Destin campus, principal Joe Quilit told Maria about the Florida tax credit scholarship, which helps low-income families afford tuition. She applied, but it was too late in the school year. All of the scholarships had been awarded. (more…)

Note: This student spotlight originally appeared on Step Up For Students' "Stepping Beyond the Scholarship" blog.  Step Up For Students is also host of redefinED.

Liam Thomas has Down syndrome and benefits from weekly occupational and speech therapies. But the 9-year-old whirl of energy wants to do what other kids do at school like walk down the hall with friends, eat lunch in the cafeteria and sit at his own desk.

He gets all of that and more at Morning Star School, a small, private Catholic school in Pinellas Park that serves students with special needs.

“He loves it!’’ said Liam’s mom, Stacey Thomas, a licensed speech therapist who discovered the school while interning as a graduate student.

Because of his disability, Liam qualified for the Personal Learning Scholarship Accounts (PLSA) through Step Up For Students. The state-funded program works like an educational savings account, letting Liam’s parents choose how to spend the additional dollars – on average, about $10,000 a year per child – from approved options.

Liam’s scholarship covers Morning Star’s annual $9,850 tuition and another $855 in dues and fees for books, technology, speech evaluations and more. Money left over can go toward future expenses, including college. Families are eligible based on their children’s need, not household income. (more…)