Author

Lisa Buie

Lisa Buie

Lisa Buie is online reporter for redefinED. The daughter of a public school superintendent, she spent more than a dozen years as a reporter and bureau chief at the Tampa Bay Times before joining Shriners Hospitals for Children — Tampa, where she served for nearly five years as marketing and communications manager. She lives with her husband and their teenage son, who has benefited from education choice.

Coronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation ChoiceEducator VoicesFeaturedNewsParental ChoicePrivate SchoolsSchool Choice

Educator profile: Montessori school owner, teacher trainer and author Judy Dempsey

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

Summit-Questa Montessori School in Davie, Florida, typically enrolls 475 students from 18 months through eighth grade. During the pandemic, the school has capped enrollment at 378 students to allow for social distancing and is offering a virtual program.

For more than four decades, Judy Dempsey has sought to bring out the best in children while offering education options to Florida families. For the past 26 years, she has owned and operated Summit-Questa Montessori School in Davie, which serves children from 18 months through eighth grade. About 20 percent participate in Florida Tax Credit, Family Empowerment and McKay Scholarship programs.

Judy Dempsey

SQMS students thrive on a 10-acre campus featuring native habitats, numerous gardens, a wetland preserve, a mini-barnyard, outdoor fields, a gymnasium and two pools. The school also is the site of Summit Montessori Teacher Training Institute, an accredited educator training center affiliated with the American Montessori Society, for which Dempsey serves as co-director. Since 2003, she has been instrumental in training hundreds of teachers in the Montessori method, which is based on self-directed activity and hands-on learning.

Dempsey served for five years as 1st vice president and director of accreditation on the board of the Association of Independent Schools of Florida, a statewide organization that accredits private schools and recognizes prominent educators. She was named the 2016-17 Richard and Dorothy Lear Distinguished Educator of the Year, the association’s highest honor, in recognition of her efforts to provide a quality education to children in South Florida. In her book “Turning Education Inside Out: Confessions of a Montessori Principal,” she details her experience as a Montessori educator, administrator, school owner and teacher trainer.

redefinED reached out to Dempsey to learn more about what Montessori has in common with unschooling and micro-schools, her passion for education, and her interest in offering education choice opportunities to families. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Q. What during your early life inspired you to pursue a career in education?

A. I did not intend to go into education when I was younger. I had a very creative spirit running through me and wanted to become an artist. My parents, however, had a different goal in mind for me when I attended college. They wanted to make sure that I would have a profession to fall back upon, so insisted I chose an area where I could at least be employed and support myself. I chose to go into education at that point because I loved children, and the opportunity for employment was acceptable to my parents. So, we compromised; I majored in elementary education and minored in art.

Q. Tell us about your own education. Were you also raised attending Montessori schools? If so, is that why you chose to work in Montessori? If not, how did you become familiar with Montessori and what drew you to it?

A. There is a great deal of irony here because I was raised in a strict, all-girl, traditional Catholic school, which is the antithesis of a Montessori environment. I received a very good academic foundation; however, I had been trained to not question and follow the rules without exception. I believe my desire to explore and question is what led me to follow my desire to be creative in other areas.

When I graduated from college, my presumed assurance of a teaching job evaporated. It was one of the very few years in New York City when teaching jobs were at a shortage. I pounded the pavement until I found a job as a teaching assistant in a Montessori elementary classroom for 6- to 9-year-olds. I had just graduated from a very good college, Wagner College, on Staten Island, N.Y., with a degree in education, and I had never heard of Montessori. What I experienced there changed my life and set me on a course that has led me to amazing discoveries for 44 years.

Montessori has allowed my passion for children, education, nature and creativity to flourish. Maria Montessori was such a genius to have created a system where children’s natural passion for learning, and to create, is the driving force of how authentic Montessori schools operate. The amazing fact is that her discoveries were well ahead of her time, as most of her elements in our Montessori schools are today verified by much of the current brain research being done.

I am more passionate about Montessori today than when I started. I have seen the impact this method has had on the overall development and lives of our students. It most definitely leads to well-rounded, well-educated, caring, self-assured, respectful young people who are driven by their passions. They are excellent communicators, critical thinkers and creative problem-solvers.

Q. You have an extensive background as a principal. Give us an overview of your current role at Summit-Questa Montessori School and how being an administrator prepared you for taking on ownership of a school.

A. I have been put into administrative roles throughout my entire professional career, even in the beginning of my career. They most definitely prepared me for my role as principal and owner of Summit-Questa Montessori School for the past 30 years.

I believe all leaders realize at some point that so much of what happens in a school, or any organization for that matter, is based on the kinds of relationships that are formed and managed. How do we handle conflict that will naturally arise whenever groups of people gather and work together? It has been a very bumpy journey because in my early years in administration, like most people, I avoided conflict at all costs. It was only as I matured and realized that avoiding conflict did not make it go away, and in some cases, made it worse.

I began to focus on building relationships, community and teamwork. The Montessori Method has a very clear structure that allows children of mixed ages and abilities to work together and peacefully overcome challenges throughout their day. The epiphany occurred when I realized that we could apply that same Montessori structure to the adults in our Montessori community. That is, building community, building relationships and supporting each other, respectful communication and setting the goal of finding peaceful solutions to our challenges. These are the things we strive for at SQMS, and I believe we all share that common goal.

Q. With classes that include multiple age levels and a student-directed approach to learning, Montessori seems a bit like unschooling and micro-schools. What distinguishes a Montessori education from these models and from more traditional models?

A. The Montessori method is so multi-layered. In general, the Montessori approach is based on a few very foundational elements that are necessary in the classroom: a three-year multi-age mixture of students, a full array of Montessori materials in all subject areas, children working independently and in small groups with the materials, a trained teacher by a MACTE accredited teacher training institute and the ability for children to choose their own work, along with being guided by a Montessori teacher.

Some people not familiar with Montessori have described the method as chaotic or without structure. This is not true at all; to the unfamiliar eye, students walking around, making choices, working independently and communicating with their classmates may look unstructured because it is so different from a traditional approach. There is a clear structure to the classroom, and it is designed to meet their needs at that age. Children understand this and react in a very positive way to learning in this manner. It is not uncommon to have most students loving school and not wanting to leave.

Trained Montessori teachers observe the students closely, encourage independence in thought and actions, and help guide them in all areas to help the child reach their full potential. This is not by influencing the child’s decisions, but by encouraging and supporting their learning. The Montessori materials support deeper learning through hands-on, exploratory learning that make abstract academic concepts much clearer and appropriate. This multi-sensory approach to learning has proven to create students with higher creative and critical thinking skills.

A common question about the three-year age mixture is a concern that the oldest student in the classroom will somehow be adversely influenced by the younger students. There has been quite a bit of research in the Montessori world which has shown just the opposite occurs. The oldest student is in a position of leadership, teaching the younger students, being a role model and earning certain privileges as the oldest in the classroom community. This leads to strong self-confidence, self-esteem and leadership skills; they learn how to overcome conflict and create peace within their community by using peace-making conflict-resolution skills.

Q. One could argue that education is in the midst of its most difficult and challenging time. Do you agree, and if so, what do you think the lasting effects will be after the pandemic? Will some of those changes be good and if so, in what way?

A. I most definitely agree that this pandemic has created one of the most challenging situations in our lifetime on so many levels. We at SQMS depended upon our Montessori philosophy when we saw the challenges that were inevitable for everyone in the state in terms of educational delivery to students. The teachers rose to the occasion and worked with students and parents to find ways to meet everyone’s needs.

Many teachers expanded their office hours to after school, before school, and evenings to help support student and family transition to online learning. They became even more creative, finding ways to bring excitement and concrete learning to students learning from home. It also led to discovery and creation of many online Montessori materials that the students could manipulate digitally.

I think if we look at the big picture of what some positive changes might be from the pandemic, it could include that people were forced to simplify their lives and appreciate the things that they still had, such as their health, their families and finding creative ways to spend time together. We witnessed parents working with their children on science experiments, in creative skits and helping their children stay organized and on task. These are all good things for families and hopefully will live beyond the pandemic.

Q. Is there anything else you think is important to share?

A. The only area I feel I need to include is the relationship that the Montessori method nurtures with nature. Dr. Montessori was one of the first ecologists and created a curriculum to teach children the interconnectedness of all life and the need to protect all forms of life. Children are actively engaged in hands-on experiences with botany, zoology, chemistry, earth and physical sciences.

All Montessori classrooms include some form of life to allow students to care for, learn about, protect and nurture them. Summit-Questa has multiple gardens that the students care for and multiple animals on campus, even a mini-barn with pigs, goats, and chickens. The middle school students hatch eggs and have built an enclosed butterfly garden that eventually will be home to multiple local species for the entire community to enjoy.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
CustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedNewsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Teach Florida partnership positions Miami Beach as state’s first city to subsidize pre-kindergarten

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

Happy Kids Childcare & School is one of dozens of options for Miami Beach families in search of preschool programs for their children. A new program aims to make such programs possible for more kids.

Known as paradise for the uber rich, Miami Beach has become the first city in Florida to provide enhanced pre-kindergarten services to its youngest residents.

City commissioners during the summer quietly approved a $250,000 yearlong pilot program that would provide scholarships to supplement the state-funded voluntary pre-kindergarten program for Miami Beach residents. The program is set to begin in August 2021.

“I’m really proud when I think about how we were the first city in Florida to offer this kind of program,” said Miami Beach City Commissioner Steven Meiner, who championed the proposal along with commissioners Rickey Arriola and Mark Samuelian. “We pride ourselves on taking the lead.”

The new program represents a partnership between the city and Teach Florida, a statewide education choice advocacy group for Jewish schools. Participation, however, is open to any student who lives in the city limits of Miami Beach regardless of religion or family income. Education providers outside the city limits also can participate by accepting scholarship funds that follow eligible families.

Scholarships are valued at up to $2,700 per child, and the extension is not allowed to overlap the three hours of VPK funded by the state.  All providers must by certified by the Florida Department of Children and Families.

Teach Florida executive director Daniel Aqua said the program was a response to repeated studies showing the benefits of early childhood education and the role it plays in long-term educational success. The state program pays for only three hours of learning per day, creating hardships for families who can’t afford wrap-around care. The scholarship will pay for a 2.5-hour daily extension for each participating child.

“One operator with whom we spoke said that some families must pick their children up at noon when VPK ends,” Aqua said. “That simply doesn’t work for parents.”

Aqua said Teach Florida chose Miami Beach as the pilot site because of its extremely high cost of living, which has pushed out many young families, and because it has a history of support for education. The city already funds arts and sciences programming and recently paid to add mental health counselors in public schools.

According to the cost calculator Expatistan.com, it costs $5,111 per month for a family of four to live in Miami, where the cost of living is 74% higher than other U.S. cities.

“Friends are moving out of Miami Beach,” said Meiner, who with his wife is raising a 13-year-old son and an 8-year-old daughter. “This is a good way to incentivize living in Miami Beach.”

The one-year pilot is being funded through the city’s $327.6 million general fund budget. If city leaders choose to extend it, long-term funding could come from the Miami Beach Convention Center Hotel, expected to open by 2023 and which will earmark a portion of tax revenues for education.

Providers have been opting into the program and parents will be able to apply starting this month, with scholarships awarded to eligible students by lottery.  With a program cap of $250,000, there is funding for about 92 scholarships, since the program funds a maximum of 2.5 hours per day for 180 school days at $6 per hour, Aqua said.

The scholarship program drew praise from area Catholic education leaders.

“The early years are the influential years and provide the building blocks for learning in elementary and secondary school,” said Kim Pryzbylski, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Miami in a joint statement with Doreen Roberts, principal at Holy Family Catholic School in North Miami. The statement emphasized the importance of the amount of quality time pre-k students receive and said the program’s additional funding would enable teachers to focus more on language, social and readiness skills vital to success in kindergarten and beyond.

The program puts Miami Beach in elite company across the nation. Cities like Denver and New York City have offered universal pre-kindergarten for several years. The Denver program has proven so popular that voters voted to extend it. Both of those cities began with 4-year-olds and have since been expanded to include 3-year-olds.

“Ideally, this program will continue and expand, especially as the Convention Center funding comes online,” Aqua said.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Coronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedNewsParental ChoiceSchool ChoiceVirtual Education

Florida education commissioner assures school leaders, families that parental choice will remain top priority

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

The state’s top education official today stopped short of announcing a decision regarding online learning programs for the second half of the 2020-21 academic year but stressed a commitment to education choice.

“The governor will take nothing less than full parental choice,” Richard Corcoran said during the Florida Board of Education meeting. “From the top down in this state, that will absolutely happen. There is no flexibility for anything but that.”

Corcoran said the department is continuing to work with all stakeholders and expects to make an announcement at the end of the month.

His remarks followed rumors that he would use the board meeting to announce a final decision on whether to end a July emergency order that allowed districts to offer online remote learning programs that tied students to their schools. The order promised full funding to districts based on student enrollment if they also provided in-person instruction five days per week to families who wanted it.

The order also temporarily waived a provision in the law that required K-12 students attending private schools on scholarships to receive instruction at brick-and-mortar schools as a condition of receiving state financial aid. The waiver drew sighs of relief from private school leaders who feared some families’ choice to pursue online learning would result in the loss of scholarships for their students.

The order is set to expire Dec. 31, leaving school officials and families uncertain as to how a decision would affect their fate when instruction resumes in January. A decision not to extend the order would force students at public and private schools back to campus, though they could leave their district schools and enroll in asynchronous e-schools or Florida Virtual School if they want to continue online instruction.

Board member Michael Olenick said any decision should be consistent with school choice, adding that his fifth-grade grandson who attends an online program tied to his district school is thriving.

“He has daily interactions with his teachers and his classmates,” Olenick said. “If you take that away from that fifth-grader and force him to Florida Virtual School, he will lose that sense of community; he will lose that daily interaction.”

The Florida Association of District School Superintendents also encouraged Corcoran to extend the order through the rest of the school year.

“We agree with Commissioner Corcoran and the governor that face-to-face instruction is the best way to deliver instruction,” the group said in a statement. “However, there are some parents and students who do not want to return to school while we continue to deal with the challenges of COVID-19. Continuing the innovative learning model for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year with full funding will allow districts to provide direct instruction for all students, including our most vulnerable, in these trying times.”

Wakulla County Schools Superintendent Robert Pearce, acting as spokesman for the superintendents’ group, said the online programs developed during the pandemic will benefit students long after it ends.

“There were good things that came of that,” he said. “We have every intention of continuing our district learning platform.”

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Coronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedNewsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Orlando officials transform city rec centers into pandemic pods for low-income students

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

The John H. Jackson Community Center is one of six Orlando recreation centers where city officials have created free or low-cost learning pods to serve lower-income families who need education options for their children during the pandemic.

Lower-income children living in the shadow of Cinderella’s castle are reaping the benefits of personalized learning along with their more well-off classmates, thanks to some fairy godparents at city hall.

During late summer, as the first day of a new school year drew near, city of Orlando employees waved their magic wands and created learning pods at six neighborhood recreation centers to serve those without access to traditional pandemic pods and the trappings that come with them, such as private tutors.

“The city of Orlando is very dedicated and committed to closing the gap in learning between families who are well off and families who are not,” said Lisa Early, director of the city’s families, parks and recreation department.

Learning pods, which have sprung up across the country in response to the coronavirus pandemic, allow small groups of students to study under adult supervision. Families typically rotate pod duty or pay teachers to provide in-person instruction in homes or in rented spaces. One criticism of pods is that they favor families of privilege and shut out those without the means to engage, an issue Orlando officials sought to dismantle.  

Their search for education solutions began when families who had been using city recreation centers over the summer began pleading for help. They heard from parents who said they were worried their children would become infected with COVID-19 if they returned to brick-and-mortar settings and possibly carry the virus to family members.

And while the Orange County School District offered an online program that allowed children to learn from home, it wasn’t a good solution for working parents who were reluctant to leave their children home alone.

“We have a very strong relationship with the families in our community,” Early said, explaining that the decision to create learning pods was parent-driven.

Around that time, pandemic pods became a national topic as large school districts outside Florida refused to open their campuses to in-person instruction amid teacher union protests about employee safety. As battles raged in those states, many families took matters into their own hands by hiring teachers to deliver in-person instruction to small groups of students.

Teachers benefited as well as families. Some reported making more money teaching in a pod than at their schools. Others who took a year off or retired to avoid exposure to COVID-19 found a new source of income and greater academic freedom in pod arrangements.

But the workaround only added to the ongoing debate about educational equity for families of modest means.

Early and her staff watched the conversation closely and decided to seek an alternative that would allow Orlando’s lower-income families to reap the benefit of learning pods. She and her staff drew up a plan and brought it to Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who approved the $97,000 proposal. Orlando became one more city on the list of those coming to the rescue of economically disadvantaged, mostly minority families.

Unsure of what the demand would be, city staff publicized the program through the city’s summer camps, which Early said were among the few municipal programs around the state to be open during the pandemic. Staff decided to offer the pods at six recreation centers, with 18 students at each center. If sign-ups exceeded the number of available spaces, other centers could be added.

As it turned out, six locations were enough.

“We thought we would be overwhelmed with demand, and we weren’t,” Early said.

Three months later, the program is going strong. Students are dropped off and picked up outside the rec centers each weekday. They sit in assigned seats 6 feet apart, divided into two cohorts per rec center that meet in separate rooms. Groups are not allowed to intermingle, and masks are required.

Staff members assigned to each room assist with technology and help clarify a teacher’s instructions. Students bring their district-issued devices and use the center’s wi-fi to access their classes. A limited number of city computers are available on site for students who lack their own devices, and the city provides headphones for each student. High-touch areas get extra cleaning.

Best of all, the learning pods are free for those who qualify based on need while others pay a $5 fee per day for each child.

While a handful of COVID cases have been reported at the centers, infection has been well contained through federal safety protocol and robust contact tracing, Early said.

The city has yet to determine whether it will continue to offer the program during second semester. Early said the decision will hinge on whether Gov. Ron DeSantis shuts down district online programs and orders a full return to campus when the clock strikes midnight on Jan. 1.  But at least for now, the learning pods appear to be for many families a glass slipper with a perfect fit.

0 comment
1 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Charter SchoolsEducation ChoiceFeaturedNewsParental ChoicePublic School ChoiceSchool Choice

IDEA principal offers glimpse of things to come when charter school network debuts in Florida

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

IDEA Tampa Bay is hosting three lottery events to randomly select students to fill seats for the 2021-22 school year. The first is scheduled for Nov. 14.

IDEA Public Schools, a Texas-based nonprofit that serves more than 63,000 students in 120 schools across Texas and Louisiana, is set to bring its award-winning college preparatory program to the Sunshine State in 2021 with the opening of two campuses in Hillsborough County.

In their first year, the Tampa “schools of hope” will be open to students in kindergarten through second grade as well as sixth grade, with additional grades added each year until the schools are fully scaled with K-12 campuses. Building on its reputation as the nation’s fastest-growing network of tuition-free, Pre-K-12 public charter schools, IDEA, which stands for Individuals Dedicated to Excellence and Achievement, plans to have four schools in the Tampa Bay area by 2023 and aims to grow that number to 20 by 2026.

IDEA Tampa Bay already has begun recruiting students and principals, including Emily Carlisle, who has been tapped as principal in residence at IDEA Hope College Preparatory School. redefinED reached out to Carlisle to learn more about how her school will offer additional education options to families. Our interview follows, edited for brevity and clarity.

Q. What inspired you to pursue a career in education?

Emily Carlisle

A. Being raised in a faith tradition that encourages love and the pursuit of justice and restoration, as a teenager I recognized the disparate educational opportunities afforded to the magnet and neighborhood student populations at my high school in Tampa. Desiring to be a teacher from a young age, I committed in college to pursuing a career seeking to change the educational trajectory of students from underserved communities. It is my ever-evolving faith that guides my attempts to love those around me well, both inside and outside the schoolhouse. Having labored relentlessly for seven years at my alma mater in Tampa to provide quality educational opportunity, I am thrilled to embark upon this new journey with the IDEA team and family to prepare all students to go to and through college so that they can live choice-filled lives that positively impact our world.

Q. What is a principal in residence and what does that role involve?

A. The Principal in Residence (PIR) program is a rigorous training program aimed at honing educators’ instructional leadership skills so that they are ready to take on the challenges and joys of successfully founding and growing an IDEA school. The program affords tremendous growth opportunity for educators. Principals in residence work to support teachers, leaders, students, and families while sharing responsibility for critical school achievement goals at an IDEA campus. The personalized coaching and feedback principals in residence receive as a part of the residency is invaluable as they prepare to launch schools.

Q. Tell us a little about your background, education and previous experience and explain how that prepared for you for your new role at IDEA Public Schools in Tampa.

A. I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of Florida prior to joining Teach For America as a 2007 Mississippi Delta corps member. After meeting my commitment, I completed a master’s degree in social work with a concentration in social and economic development from Washington University in St. Louis. After graduating, I moved back to my hometown of Tampa and taught high school social studies for eight years. During that time, my students achieved some of the highest Advanced Placement pass rates in the district. I also served as a social studies department chair for four and a half years, operationally and instructionally supporting a 17-member team. I believe my education and 10 years of experience in the classroom have fully prepared me to take on the role of founding principal at IDEA Hope College Preparatory School.

Q. Tell us about the mission of IDEA Public Schools as it relates to Florida.

A. IDEA believes that no student’s potential should be limited by the color of their skin, where they live, or household income. IDEA Public Schools is committed to a vision of college for all children. Through our curriculum and college support model, we are closing the opportunity gap and increasing levels of achievement by preparing students from underserved communities for success in college and citizenship. In 2017, the Florida Legislature passed Schools of Hope legislation to help high-performing charter school districts, including IDEA, expand in neighborhoods with a concentration of persistently low-performing schools. Our staff members are out in the broader East Tampa community five days a week, introducing themselves to families, and spreading the word about the two new high-quality schooling options, IDEA Hope and IDEA Victory.

Q. What distinguishes IDEA from other charter schools and from traditional district schools?

A. IDEA Public Schools has a long track record of success. For the last 14 years, 100% of our high school graduates were accepted to college. Additionally, in the latest rankings of the most challenging high schools in the nation by the Jay Mathews Challenge Index published in the Washington Post, all 15 eligible IDEA college preparatory schools were ranked among the top 1%. Looking past the sheer numbers, every adult I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside at IDEA has an unwavering belief in the potential of all children and works relentlessly day in and day out to prepare our scholars for college. Lastly, as an organization, IDEA values feedback and considers it a gift. This pervasive mindset is interwoven into the fabric of our operating mechanisms and helps cultivate improvement in every area of the school district.

Q. What should IDEA families expect on the first day of school?

A. Imagine a hot, muggy morning in early August 2021. As students arrive, they recognize the principal, Ms. Carlisle, from when she made a home visit in the spring to welcome their family to IDEA. She greets them by name, and a tiny bit of nervousness dissipates as they feel seen in that moment. Stepping across the threshold, they enter the building and are welcomed by other smiling Hope staff members who usher sixth graders to their homerooms. As the school day begins, homeroom teachers facilitate opportunities for community and culture building. Students are served breakfast in homeroom while they listen to morning announcements. The closing lines of this daily ritual will quickly become a comforting and inspiring refrain: “At IDEA Hope we are BOLD members of our community. We are BRILLIANT lifelong scholars. We are BECOMING more of our truest, fullest selves. With all the knowledge you are sure to acquire today, dear ones, may this remain top of mind: You. Are. Beloved. Rays of Hope, may you shine bright, today and every day!” Once homeroom ends, students transition through their schedule, where each teacher embeds culture building opportunities into their lessons, ensuring all scholars have a strong start to the year.

Q. Where do you see IDEA’s Florida schools in the next several years?

A. IDEA Jacksonville will be the next IDEA Florida region with its first two schools launching in 2022. Meanwhile, IDEA Tampa Bay plans to open 20 schools by 2026. I am confident that as IDEA expands its reach throughout the Tampa Bay area and Jacksonville, thousands of scholars will be put on the path to and through college while partaking in a joyful and rigorous elementary and secondary school environment.

Q. How do interested families find out more?

A. We are currently accepting applications for scholars entering kindergarten, first, second, and sixth grades in fall 2021. Our IDEA Hope and IDEA Victory student lotteries are occurring on Nov. 14, Jan. 16, and Feb. 20 for the 2021-2022 school year.

For more information, visit https://ideapublicschools.org/apply/.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Coronavirus / COVID-19Education ChoiceFeaturedNewsParental ChoicePrivate SchoolsSchool Choice

Academic ‘redshirting’ gives families relief but threatens heartburn for school districts

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

Brody Cholnik, 5, struggled with virtual prekindergarten but is showing promise as a kindergartner at the Wesley Chapel Montessori School at Lexington Oaks. His mother, Nicole Cholnik, chose to send him to a private school so she and her husband, rather than the public school district, will be able to make the decision to have Brody repeat kindergarten if necessary.

Even after eight months of pre-kindergarten, Brody Cholnik struggled to learn his ABCs.  Regular sessions with a private tutor and supplemental lessons at home helped, but Brody’s mother suspected something beyond her control was in play.

Her 4-year-old’s birthday wouldn’t come until several months after many of his classmates already had turned 5. She worried that it put him at a disadvantage. On top of that, Brody’s pre-kindergarten was held in the day care he attended as a toddler and he was accustomed to it being a setting for play.

“It was hard for him to transition from a play atmosphere to a school atmosphere,” Nicole Cholnik said.

Then last spring, just when Brody began showing progress, COVID-19 hit. The tutoring center closed. His pre-kindergarten class made a hasty retreat to Zoom. And Brody, who was still two months away from blowing out the candles on his 5-year-old birthday cake, fell further behind, prompting Cholnik to wonder: What if my son needs to repeat kindergarten?

When school officials told her that decision rested with the principal, not with her and her husband, Cholnik took matters into her own hands. She transferred Brody to a private Montessori school, a move that allows her to maintain control over her son’s fate when he turns 6 and is required by state law to be enrolled in school.

“If we decide as parents that he’s not ready for kindergarten, then next year when he goes to (his zoned school) he can do kindergarten again,” said Cholnik, who lives in a suburb just north of Tampa. “Or, if we feel he’s prepared enough and ready for first grade, we can give them the certificate of completion and put him into first grade.”

A controversial but growing trend

A parent’s choice to delay kindergarten, commonly called “academic redshirting,” became a hot topic in academic journals in the early 2000s. Author, journalist and public speaker Malcolm Gladwell put redshirting on the public radar in 2008 with his bestselling book “Outliers,” championing the practice and arguing that the practice made a difference in a student’s long-term success.

Over the years, redshirting has been argued about in countless parenting blogs, journals and news stories, with critics saying it can harm children later in school.

There are many pieces in play. Research indicates the phenomenon tends to happen more frequently in white families, and more often with boys than girls. Because redshirting can require families to pay for an extra year of day care or kindergarten fees, it’s more common among those whose incomes fall in the middle or upper brackets, prompting equity concerns.

One argument supporters make in favor of redshirting is that when families hold children back a year, the child then likely will be the oldest and possibly most mature in his or her class, and therefore possibly more able to successfully compete in academics and sports.

Redshirting has taken on a new prominence in the COVID-19 environment as schools nationwide began reporting falling enrollments, especially in the kindergarten ranks, with the start of the 2020-21 academic year. According to an NPR survey of 100 school districts, the average kindergarten enrollment drop was 16%.

The survey attributed the decline partially to the emergency pivot to online learning in the spring. The negative experiences left some families dissatisfied and in search of other options, especially in districts that started the new school year 100% online. One parent of a 5-year-old boy in Texas told NPR she had concerns regardless of whether the school opened online or in-person because an in-person experience was going to be “weirdly socially distanced and masked.”

Though the parent chose not to delay kindergarten for her son, she did send him to a private school where masks were optional and class sizes were smaller.

High stakes for empty seats

Some Florida school districts experienced enrollment declines as well, especially in the early grades. An October student count in Palm Beach County showed enrollment for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in district schools at 187,776, the lowest level since 2016.

Kindergarten saw the biggest hit, with a decrease of 1,416 students, or 12%, compared with the previous fall. The figures prompted district chief financial officer Mike Burke to speculate that parents were delaying their children’s entry into school. It also caused district leaders to begin worrying how the enrollment decline would affect education funding for the district.

Though local property taxes contribute to education funding, districts depend on per-student funding based on the number of students occupying seats. At the start of the 2020-21 school year, districts were able to shield their funding by striking a deal with the state that allowed them to maintain pre-pandemic funding levels in exchange for reopening brick-and-mortar campuses. That deal expires at the end of first semester, leaving administrators bracing for draconian funding cuts in the spring.

‘A tough conversation’

For the Cholniks and other families who are sitting it out this year, learning is still happening, although it may be unique ways, such as reading books together at home and playing with Nerf guns, or enrolling in a private kindergarten that gives the parents the option of having their child take a second shot at kindergarten next year.

Brody has made progress at his private school, but Cholnik predicts he will end up having to repeat kindergarten. In the meantime, she has scheduled testing to see if he has a learning disability. If tests uncover an issue that has “a simple fix,” there’s a chance Brody could move on to first grade next year.

But Cholnik would rather have Brody repeat kindergarten than enter first grade behind his peers, and eventually have to repeat fourth grade if he fails the standardized test the state requires for public school promotion.

“That would be a tough conversation to have at that age,” she said. “That’s why we’re taking this route now.”

 

 

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
AnalysisEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFamily Empowerment ScholarshipFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipGardiner ScholarshipMcKay ScholarshipNewsParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool ChoiceTax Credit Scholarships

Florida K-12 scholarship programs earn top rankings in national guidebook

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

Five Florida K-12 scholarship programs have landed in the top tier of education choice programs ranked by a national school choice advocacy group.

The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and the McKay Scholarship programs each took top honors in their respective categories in rankings released today by the American Federation for Children.

The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship  program, which serves lower-income families, finished first out of 20 in rankings of tax credit scholarship programs across the United States, followed by Florida’s Hope Scholarship program, which allows students who have been bullied in public schools to transfer to participating private schools.

The McKay Scholarship program for students with disabilities, which is open to all students who are on individualized education plans or other plans approved by law, took the No. 1 spot out of 17 programs in the special education category. The Gardiner Scholarship, an educational savings account that serves students with unique abilities and certain special needs, ranked fifth.

The Family  Empowerment Scholarship  program, which was approved by the Florida Legislature in 2018 and began serving families during the 2019-20 school year, ranked fourth on the list of the nation’s scholarship programs. In its first year, scholarships were awarded to 17,802 students.

Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, helps manage all but the McKay Scholarship, which is administered by the Florida Department of Education. John F. Kirtley, the founder of Step Up For Students, is vice president of the organization’s 12-member board of directors.

“We were amazed to see that the Florida Family Empowerment program came so close to meeting its 18,000-student enrollment cap in 2019-20, the program’s first year of operation,” American Federation for Children officials said in a news release. “In response to the popularity of this program, Florida legislators raised the enrollment cap to 46,000 students; Florida is now reporting that over 32,000 students are enrolled in the program for the 2020-21 school year, all of whom meet the lower-income requirements for participating families.”

Each year, AFC compiles a guidebook of comprehensive information on private school choice programs in America. Today, those programs serve more than 575,000 children in 26 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The organization’s leaders say the goal is for the guidebook is to serve as a resource for those looking to better understand educational choice and to advocate for new and improved private school choice policies in 2021.

AFC rankings were based on information primarily from the 2019-20 school year. The group singled out Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio for their impressive growth in education choice programs.

“One commonality across these three states … is a strong nonprofit organization on the ground that does both legislative advocacy and parent empowerment work,” the news release said. “Creating strong educational ecosystems takes coordinated work at all levels, starting with parents and going all the way to governors.

“In the midst of so much uncertainty about the future of our education system, we’re happy to see that some of these ecosystems seem to be working for the best interest of kids.”

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail