Florida lawmakers are gearing up to provide additional funding to a part of the state’s school-voucher program that serves students with special needs, as some proponents of the scholarships say demand has outpaced supply.
The state Legislature is gathering for a special session starting Nov. 6 to address a range of issues. A joint proclamation from Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, and House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, said the session will include an effort to provide “a mechanism to increase the number of students served under the Family Empowerment Scholarship for students with disabilities.”
Passidomo sent a memo to senators on Oct. 20 saying the special session will deal in part with “additional funding for students with unique abilities.” Lawmakers will “address demand” for the program, Passidomo’s brief description of the plan said.
“With the start of the new school year, we are seeing an increase in the number of students with unique abilities applying for the scholarship. Students with unique abilities receive additional funding for their scholarships, depending on their needs,” the memo said.
The session will kick off roughly seven months after the Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis approved a massive expansion of the state’s voucher programs. And while school-choice advocates have heralded the development as ushering in “universal school choice” in Florida, some are calling for an elimination of a cap on participation in the scholarship for students with special needs.
Steve Hicks, president of the Florida Coalition of Scholarship Schools, is among those who maintain the program should be expanded.
“It’s a cap that limits the number of kids in the program. It’s not that the providers don’t have any space. It’s a very different conversation. The providers are saying we’ve got space. But the state has said, we put a limit on how much money we’re willing to spend,” said Hicks, who also is chief operating officer of Center Academy Schools.
In a recent interview with The News Service of Florida, Hicks recounted working in the school-choice space in Florida for 25 years. The current scholarship program for students with special needs — called the “Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities” — is the product of lawmakers combining what formerly were the McKay and Gardiner scholarship programs.
“When the McKay scholarship was operational, for over 20 years, there was no limitation on the number of students who could get in the program. This is a salient point here, this is at the heart of this whole issue,” Hicks said.
The 2021 law that established the Unique Abilities scholarship also set a cap on participation in the program, which is 40,000 students this school year. The law allows the cap to grow each year by 3 percent “of the state’s total exceptional student education full-time equivalent student enrollment,” according to a fact sheet on the state Department of Education’s website.
To be eligible for the Unique Abilities scholarship, the law requires that students be eligible to enroll in a Florida public school and have what’s known as an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP, or have a diagnosis of a disability from a licensed physician or psychologist.
Students who receive those vouchers face a participation cap that the broader population of students do not, Hicks told the News Service.
“It doesn’t make sense to me that the kids with the greatest need, who could be helped the most, are standing on the sideline waiting for an opportunity while all the other students have been given the opportunity with no limitations,” Hicks said.
Maria Preston, who is the founder of a school that participates in the state’s voucher program, pointed to a rocky start to the expanded voucher system. Hitches include a lag in payments from the state to school operators and families having to wait to receive vouchers because of a cap on participation.
“The two major issues are the cap, and the funding dates. That’s very important,” Preston, owner and director of Diverse Abilities Center for Learning and Therapy, said in a recent interview.
Preston said payments that were due Sept. 1 weren’t received until Sept. 26 by her South Florida school and other operators. Preston said that as of Saturday, the school still had not received the full amount for the vouchers, only getting what she described as partial payment.
Several families are waiting to get approval for a voucher that could be used at Preston’s school, she said. While her school has available spots, the lack of scholarships is preventing the potential students from enrolling, Preston added.
“I have six people waiting right now, for FES-UA (the Unique Abilities scholarship). They want to get into my school and they can’t afford it. And their kids are not getting full services in public school. And the parents are really upset because they have to wait,” Preston said.
Preston argued that the cap on participation should be eliminated.
“Completely gone. It should have never been there in the first place. It’s discrimination against kids with unique abilities,” she said.
It’s not uncommon for states that have vastly expanded voucher programs to see an influx of demand — which one expert told the News Service is “notoriously difficult to estimate.”
Shaka Mitchell, an expert on school-choice programs who works with the American Federation for Children, said interest in the vouchers is unlikely to wane. The option to “customize” education for a student with special needs often is attractive to families, he said.
“For those students especially, the local-zone school is less able to adapt to a student’s unique needs than it is a typical learner. You’re seeing high demand with typical learners, so you would expect to see even more where there are unique needs,” Mitchell said.
Florida, which Mitchell said has been at the “forefront of school choice for years,” would not be alone in making efforts to further expand its voucher programs to make space for demand. Legislators throughout the country in states with school-choice programs have had to come back to the table to draw up plans to expand them, according to Mitchell.
“The way that I would characterize it, these laws pass and then lawmakers realize that there’s so much demand that frankly the lawmakers have to be responsive to the parents who are still raising their hands and saying ‘Hey, we want to participate too,’” Mitchell said.
–Ryan Dailey, News Service of Florida
Deborah Coffey says
No more public money for private schools, period. If America wants private education, then it should be 100% private and privately FUNDED! Republicans continue to destroy our country, our morals, our lives and our democracy…piece by piece.
Deirdre says
Why call them private schools anymore? Do they still get to charge tuition since they’re getting money from the state? A lot of parents think their child is going to get a better education in a private school which is often not the case, AT ALL. Public schools in Florida are great, even though they’re not always recognized as such because of the way testing is scored. Major points are lost because of low performing students, such as ESE students, that need to have a certain amount of growth on each standardized test, regardless of their personal abilities.
If every child in the school except that subgroup does exceptionally well on standardized tests, the school will not get an A. People don’t know that when they’re choosing a school for their child, if it’s not an A school they assume the education is not as good as it would be in a private school. Not the case.
ESE funding is desperately needed by public schools! Special needs kids, especially those that need a teacher aid, is very expensive. We have a shortage of teachers in that area, so can private schools just get anybody to teach, regardless of their background training?
Will they be prepared to accommodate their very complex and diverse needs? I just don’t understand how this is legal, how about public schools charge tuition now too? Will only those with a lot of money get a decent education? Will people be happy about having their taxes raised to accommodate the funding to private schools?
Will parents who have chosen private school for their child all along be happy when special-needs kids come in droves to their child’s classroom?
The focus will be on giving this group what they need to learn, this is something they should expect, their child will not get the attention they used to have, regardless of how much money you throw at it.
I wonder how rich and very religious parents will feel when their child is in the same class with special-needs kids that have behavioral issues, especially if they have to meet the same standards. Sometimes parents with special-needs students blame the schools for not doing their job, feel that private school would be the solution, and then they find out it’s their kid that has the problem and not the school.
Maybe they should have to do the testing and other endless things that are expected of public schools but not private schools.
How long will their teachers last when they have to live up to the same standards, including accommodations for special-needs students in regular classrooms? It’s not easy to give everyone the attention they need given limited time and only one teacher. The paperwork for special needs students is incredible, will they have to do it or is that something special just for public schools?
What about taking home massive amounts of paperwork to finish the days work without pay, and working on the weekends? Private schools will have a definite problem finding and keeping teachers, as public schools do now.
The expectations should be that teachers are fully certified in their area, if they’re going to take the state’s money they need to have the same standards. Also, the teachers should get raises instead of just making the school rich. I’ve worked in both public and private schools so I know what I’m talking about.
Pogo says
@Ryan Dailey, News Service of Florida
What the hell?!?!?!
Here is a clue to the root of this matter: Lawmakers’ Special Session Seeks to Expand Public Funding for Private Schools’ Special Education Students is used instead of an objective statement of realty, i.e., Fanatical Religious Bigots, Chauvinists and Gangsters, Continue Unimpeded With Unconstitutional Vandalism And Major Crimes.
@FWIW
Congratulations to those who have spent the last forty years furnishing their inner life, focusing on microaggressions, pronouns, and aesthetics — while our constitution and democracy died — having been trampled, raped, and murdered by soulless money grubbing anarchy-for-the-fortunate orcs. Well done.
Laurel says
What a load of bull. The Republicans are in full hostile takeover mode of our state. For starters, those who can afford private school, should NOT get vouchers. Why am I subsidizing those wealthier than me?
The Floridian public should be able to decide, by checking off on a box on their property taxes, whether they want their school taxes be put in public schools, private schools or religious private schools. Let’s see what the taxpayers of this state want. I’m going to take a wild guess that Republicans would not want that CHOICE. It is about choice, isn’t it?
I’m for public schools. Private schools should be opted out.
Laurel says
Oh, and add a checkbox for home schooling, too. Let’s see just how popular that is with the general public.
Atwp says
Public funds for private schools. Who will benefit? Very sure people of color will not be allowed in some of the schools, their tax dollars will help the white kids and white parents. Years ago march of dimes envelopes were sent to our segregated schools, we would put dimes in the envelopes to help children with health needs. After becoming an adult I asked the question, how many Black Children got help. My answer was none. O the white kids got a lot of help at the expense of our dimes, pretty sure we were ignored. The demonic Jim Crowe era.
What Else Is New says
Amen, Deirdre! Public schools accommodate those special needs student. The Florida GQP Legislature continues their quest to disband public schools, proved by this new special session.