Gardiner Scholarship

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Study details change in Gardiner families’ spending patterns

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

The longer students remain on Florida’s Gardiner Scholarship program, the more likely their parents are to spend money on curriculum, tutoring and specialized services, a new working paper finds.

The study, “Distribution of Education Savings Accounts Usage Among Families,” by Michelle Lofton of the University of Georgia and Martin Lueken of EdChoice, examines the spending patterns of families on the scholarship program over multiple years. It is the largest of its kind to date.

The Gardiner Scholarship, created in 2014 and named after State Sen. Andy Gardiner’s family, provides parents of students with special needs with a scholarship worth an average of around $10,000. It is set up as an education savings account (ESA) where parents can use the funds on more than just school tuition and fees. They also can purchase textbooks, school supplies, curriculum, tutoring, therapies and more. 

The scholarship is currently limited to students with specific needs such as autism, Down syndrome and spina bifida. Last year, 17,508 students received a Gardiner Scholarship, with more than 9,000 enrolling in one of 1,870 private schools.

According to the researchers, family spending patterns change the longer they remain on the program. As families become more familiar with the program, they begin to spend more money on expenses other than tuition and fees, representing a desire to further customize their child’s education.

The study also finds rural families are more likely to spend the scholarship on curriculum and instruction than on private school tuition.

“These findings imply that families enrolled in ESAs are learning from prior usage and are able to customize education to areas beyond tuition over the course of their child’s educational life cycle,” the researchers wrote.

Since 2015, families have averaged 21 purchases, spending $8,373 a year. Usage increased from 60% of funds in 2015 to 88% by 2019.

Expenditures on tuition increased by 11%, or $550 over that time. But expenditures on instructional materials, specialized services, and college tuition savings plans increased considerably more — instructional materials by 400%, or $1,375, and specialized services by 200%, or $450.

The number of purchases increased over time as well. In 2015 families averaged just nine purchases, but by 2019 families were averaging 30 purchases a year.  

Spending varied by race and income as well.

Parents of Black and Hispanic students spent more of their scholarship, on average, than white students. They were also 7 to 9% more likely to spend the scholarship on school tuition than white students.

Parents in the top-quartile income areas spent more money on fewer items but spent less on tuition and more on tutoring and specialized services than families in bottom-quartile income areas.

The Gardiner Scholarship will become part of the Family Empowerment Scholarship for the 2021-22 school year, though the ESA component of the program will remain exclusive to children with special needs. Florida’s McKay Scholarship, a voucher program for students with special needs, will also merge with the Family Empowerment Scholarship in 2022.

Parents or guardians may apply for the scholarship here.

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New report shows majority of Gardiner funding was spent on tuition in 2019-20

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

Families with children on Florida’s Gardiner Scholarship for students with special needs spent $117 million on private school tuition, books, curriculum, technology tutoring and more during the 2019-20 school year, according to a new report compiled by Step Up For Students.

While more than half (close to 57%) of scholarship monies was spent on school tuition, more than $50 million was spent on educational items not covered by other state scholarships, such as the McKay Scholarship, the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and the Family Empowerment Scholarship.

Unlike those scholarships, Gardiner operates as an education savings account that allows parents to use scholarship funds to pay for a host of different educational options, such as curriculum, textbooks, school supplies, tutoring and afterschool or summer school programs. Unspent money rolls over from one year to the next, and parents can use the funds save for their child’s college expenses through college savings plans.

There were 14,319 students awarded Gardiner Scholarships during the 2019-20 school year, with 13,463 enrolled through Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, compared to 11,393 students in the 2018-19 school year. The program funded $139 million in scholarships worth an average of $10,392.

Students ranged from 3 years old to 12th grade and comprised several different races, grade levels, prior school types and disabilities. Of those students, 62% had a diagnosis of autism; 10% intellectual disability; 8% rare disease; and 5% “high risk.” A little more than 3% of scholarship recipients had multiple diagnoses.

Other key findings in the report include:

·       More Gardiner Scholarship students were enrolled in kindergarten through fifth grade (44%) than in middle or high school.

·       There has been a slight increase in the percentage of Gardiner Scholarship students who are homeschooled students; 33 % were homeschooled in 2019-20 compared to 29.5% in 2014-15.

·       More Gardiner Scholarship students live in Miami-Dade County (13%) than in any other county, followed by Orange County (8%).

·       Around 84% of all scholarship funds awarded in 2019-20 were used by June 30, 2020.

·       Only about 2.5% of families did not spend any of their scholarship funds in 2019-20 compared to 23.8% of families in 2014-15.

Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this month signed a bill that will merge Florida’s two scholarship programs for students with special needs beginning with the 2022-23 school year.

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New report sheds light on perspective of Florida families participating in Gardiner, McKay scholarship programs

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

Editor’s note: Materials related to the study are posted to a landing page accessible at https://ceresinstitute.org/choices-and-challenges/.

Nearly all Florida parents participating in two state scholarship programs for children with special needs are somewhat or very satisfied with their child’s educational experience according to a new study released today from researchers at Boston University.

The study from the Community-Engaged Research and Evaluation Sciences Institute for Children and Youth at the university’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development reveals that more than 90% of families whose children receive the Gardiner Scholarship and the McKay Scholarship for Students with Disabilities cite transformative changes and benefits they perceive for themselves and their children.

Additionally, findings reveal, participating parents overwhelmingly recommend that the scholarship programs continue with modifications that would reduce barriers to accessing or fully benefiting from the scholarships.

The institute worked in partnership with the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas to answer two questions:

How do families who receive Gardiner and McKay scholarships navigate school choice and supplemental supports for their children?

How satisfied are parents with the scholarship schools they have chosen and the supports their children have received?

The mixed-methods research study, which entailed interviews with nearly 100 parents and included more than 4,000 survey responses, was conducted between fall 2020 and spring 2021.

Nine specific areas of parent satisfaction were measured, including academic expectations of the school, order and discipline at the school, and the way school staff interact with parents. For all measures, and for both scholarship programs, parent satisfaction was between 87% and 94%.

Based on the findings, the report’s authors recommend five considerations for statewide action to ensure that the existing scholarship programs are more widely accessible and more definitively equitable:

·       Provide user-friendly, robust resources that equip parents to make informed choices, making the process for selecting and enrolling in a scholarship school simpler and more transparent

·       Focus on creating more equitable access to information and services, addressing inequities in access to information as well as gaps between the cost of services and the amount of scholarship support

·       Examine transitions between school levels, especially to and from middle school

·       Continue to focus on improving accountability

·       Give all parents of eligible students a real voice in the policies and practices that govern the scholarships

The authors note the Florida Legislature’s commitment this year of an additional $200 million to the state’s school choice program to expand eligibility and to merge the McKay and Gardiner programs into the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program effective July 1.

 As that date approaches, the authors state, their report demonstrates the urgent need to provide eligible families with easy-to-access, consistent, high-quality information as well as a “supporting ecosystem” of other parents, educators, school leaders and scholarship-granting organizations to help families make the best choices for their children. 

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Florida Legislature is normalizing, expanding access to education choice

Doug Tuthill
Doug Tuthill

Hundreds of families rallied at the state Capitol last year for the expansion of Gardiner scholarships. The merger of the Gardiner program into the Family Empowerment Scholarship and the state’s public education funding system means the program’s enrollment and scholarship amount will grow automatically.

The Florida House and Senate have sent Gov. Ron DeSantis legislation that will continue normalizing and expanding access to choice in public education.

Florida began expanding access to education choice in the late 1970s/early ’80s through the creation of district magnet schools. Next came charter schools and the Florida Virtual School in the 1990s, the McKay vouchers in 1999, tax credit scholarships in 2001, Gardiner education savings accounts (ESAs) in 2014, Hope scholarships in 2018, and the Family Empowerment Scholarship in 2019.

Today, about half of Florida’s PreK-12 students attend schools other than their assigned neighborhood school. This new legislation, House Bill 7045, will make even more students eligible for education choice.

HB 7045 also continues the movement to make all government-regulated education choice programs a normal and permanent part of Florida’s public education system. This normalization effort began in earnest with the 2019 passage of the Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES), which created a scholarship program for lower-income students within the state’s public education funding system.  

HB 7045’s integration of the Gardiner Scholarship for students with unique abilities/special needs into the FES furthers this normalization. The Gardiner scholarship was created as a standalone program that the Legislature funded by an annual line-item appropriation. Every year the program had a waiting list, and every year parents had to ask the Legislature to appropriate more money to serve more students.

Now that the Legislature is merging the Gardiner program into the FES and the state’s public education funding system, the program’s enrollment and scholarship amount will grow automatically.

The McKay program, which is a second scholarship for children with unique abilities/special needs, will be merged with the Gardiner Scholarship and also integrated into the FES in the 2022-23 school year. This merger will make it easier for families with unique abilities/special needs children to access the funding and services that best meet each child’s needs, while knowing that their scholarship amounts will automatically go up as the state’s overall funding for public education increases.

Like Gardiner, the McKay program will become an education savings account in the 2022-23 school year. This will give the McKay families the same flexibility the Gardiner families have to better customize education services and products to the unique needs of their children.

The Senate wanted to turn all the lower-income scholarships into ESAs, but the House thought it was too soon. Nonetheless, over the next several years, ESAs, which are an essential tool in our effort to provide every student with an equal opportunity to succeed, will also become a normal and permanent part of public education. 

All aspects of how public education is organized and delivered are controlled by its funding procedures. Education choice will not be sustainable if it does not become an integrated part of the state’s public education funding mechanism, which is why HB 7045 is so important.

This bill accelerates the effort begun with the 2019 creation of the FES to fully integrate all government-regulated choice programs into the state’s education funding system, thereby ensuring their long-term viability and normalization.

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Education savings account helped make this child’s room a ‘destination’

Roger Mooney
Roger Mooney

Urrikka Woods-Scott was able to create a sensory environment for her son, Roman, in his bedroom thanks to her Gardiner Scholarship’s education savings account.

Roman Scott’s bedroom has two walls painted orange and two painted blue. On the floor is a rug with the design of a two-lane road wending its way through a small town.

A train set sits on the rug, because Roman, 4, loves trains. And there is a stack of trays that hold his toys and musical instruments, because Roman loves to, as his mom says, “rock out” on his tambourine, cymbals and triangle.

Urrikka Woods-Scott refers to this as a “sensory room” for her son, who is on the autism spectrum.

“The goal was to get him to engage in his room, love his room by having all the support in that room,” she said.

Urrikka Woods-Scott and her son, Roman

Roman receives the Gardiner Scholarship for children with special needs. (The scholarship is managed by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.) Many of the items in Roman’s room, including the educational toys from Melissa & Doug and the stack of books from the Frog and Toad series, were purchased with funds from the Gardiner’s education savings account. These flexible spending accounts allow parents to use their children’s education dollars for a variety of educational purposes.

The scholarship also pays for Roman’s therapy at Bloom Behavioral Solutions, which is near their home in Jacksonville, Florida.

Woods-Scott got the idea to turn Roman’s bedroom into a sensory room from Bloom. She learned what Roman gravitates to in Bloom’s sensory room and did her best to replicate those items at home.

“We’re trying to transition (him) from sleeping in my bed to sleeping in his own bedroom,” Woods-Scott said. “I want him to have what he needs to be comfortable in his own room. My thought was to make his room a destination.”

Woods-Scott’s husband, Romain, suggested the colors for the walls. Orange and blue are two of Roman’s favorites. Blue is considered soothing and is a popular choice for sensory rooms. Woods-Scott added brown curtains to give the room more life.

The results, she said, are beyond encouraging.

Woods-Scott said Roman has made great strides since joining the Gardiner program in 2020. Much of that comes from his time at Bloom, which he attends for 30 hours a week. The rest comes from the tools available at home that Woods-Scott purchased through MyScholarShop, Step Up For Student’s online catalog of pre-approved educational products.

Families also can purchase items or services that are not on the pre-approved list. They must submit a pre-authorization request that includes supporting documentation and an explanation of how the purchase will meet the individual educational needs of the student. 

A review is then conducted by an internal committee, which includes a special needs educator, to determine if the item or service is allowable under the program’s expenditure categories and spending caps, and a notification is sent to the parent. The item or service may then be submitted on a reimbursement request that must match the corresponding pre-authorization.

Step Up For Students employs numerous measures to protect against fraud and theft, such as ensuring a service provider’s reimbursement request and a parental approval came from different IP addresses.

Woods-Scott purchased an iPad on MyScholarShop, which Roman uses for speech, math and preschool prep. She buys arts and craft supplies because they help Roman improve his fine motor skills.

Roman was diagnosed in October 2019. The family was living in Charlotte, North Carolina at the time. That November, Woods-Scott changed jobs and the family moved to Jacksonville, where, unbeknownst to her, Roman was eligible for the Gardiner Scholarship, the largest education savings account program in the nation.

At the time, Roman was a “scripter,” which meant his speech was limited to repeating what he heard on a television show or a movie.

Roman’s customized bedroom includes a trampoline to help him with balance and coordination.

“It wasn’t a functional type of speech and he wasn’t expressing what he needed,” Woods-Scott said. “He wasn’t saying, ‘Mom, I want a banana,’ or something like that. He was only saying what he heard on a show. Now he says ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy.’ He tells you what he wants.”

Roman can count to 100 and recite the alphabet. He can read his Frog and Toad books out loud.

Next year, Woods-Scott would like to use her Gardiner funds to send Roman to the Jericho School of Autism in Jacksonville.

After having what she called “my little moment of crying” when Roman was diagnosed with autism, Woods-Scott went to work seeking therapy for her son and advocating for those on the spectrum. She started Mocha Mama on FIRE, a YouTube vlog that promotes autism awareness in the Black community.

And, she has started the nonprofit Shades of Autism Parent Network to focus on multicultural parents of children on the spectrum and create recreational experiences through travel.

Woods-Scott knows how fortuitous it was to land the job in Florida, and what that meant for Roman.

“It was definitely all for a purpose,” she said.

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Education savings accounts offer creative solutions for students with learning differences

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

Chrissy Weisenberger of Palm Bay made creative use of her education savings account, converting a swimming pool into a ball pit for her two sensory-challenged daughters. Sometimes, the whole family joins in.

Chrissy Weisenberger is one busy mom.

With five children, including 3-year-old twin boys and two daughters who are both on the autism spectrum, homeschooling the whole brood made the most sense for the family. It allows her to design each child’s learning plan to best fit his or her educational needs.

“It’s very Frankensteined,” joked Weisenberger, who lives in Palm Bay, Florida, a city southeast of Orlando known for its sports and nature parks.

By that, she means like many homeschool parents, she has strategically used a little of this and a little of that, a grassroots method of creating the perfect learning environment for her family.

Her two daughters, Keira, 8, and Tessa, 6, are on the autism spectrum and participate in the Gardiner Scholarship Program for students with unique abilities. The scholarships allow parents to customize their child’s education by using flexible spending accounts called education savings accounts.

While traditional vouchers pay for private school tuition, the savings accounts are more flexible. The Florida Department of Education transfers a portion of a child’s funds from the state education formula to a state-approved nonprofit organization, such as Step Up For Students, which puts these funds into an account for each child. Parents then apply to this nonprofit for permission to use their child’s ESA funds to buy state-authorized educational services and products.

The girls need help to stay focused on learning, so in addition to purchasing educational materials such as books and workbooks, Weisenberger has used her daughters’ education savings accounts to buy specialized equipment such as swings, which calm kids with autism, and a mini trampoline that helps with balance and gross motor skills.

She bought two chewable necklaces for Keira, who otherwise would chew on her hair during class. She bought the girls laptops to access virtual lessons in math and reading, which she says were a godsend during the pandemic when co-op meetings with other homeschool families were canceled. And she bought them a kit that taught them how to build a volcano.

Most Gardiner families typically make purchases through MyScholarShop, Step Up For Students’ online catalog of pre-approved educational products. The platform includes curriculum materials, digital devices, and education software. Families may be able to purchase items or services not on the pre-approved list by submitting a pre-authorization request that includes supporting documentation and an explanation of how the purchase will meet the individual educational needs of the student. 

An internal committee, which includes a special needs educator, conducts a review to determine if the item or service is allowable under the program’s expenditure categories and spending caps, and a notification is sent to the parent. The item or service may then be submitted on a reimbursement request that must match the corresponding pre-authorization.  

Step Up For Students employs numerous measures to protect against fraud and theft. For example, if a service provider’s reimbursement request is submitted from an IP address and the platform sees that the parental approval came from the same IP address, the anti-fraud staff is alerted to investigate.

Weisenberger followed this process to purchase one item not on the pre-approved list: a $25 inflatable kiddie pool.

While a swimming pool would not qualify as a reimbursable expense under the program’s rules, Weisenberger’s proposed use made it eligible. Inspired by a Pinterest post, she converted the rectangular pool, which she ordered from Amazon, into a ball pit that she filled with almost 3,000 plastic balls. Her girls use the reconfigured pool to help them with balance.

But Weisenberger’s creativity extends further. She’s devised a way to use the pool to help her kids with math.

Using three buckets, she teaches place value by having them put the appropriate number of balls in each. For example, the number 436 would be represented by putting four balls in the hundreds place bucket, three balls in the tens place and six balls in the one place buckets.

The inventive mom has found yet another way to utilize the purchase. She pours the balls over Keira as a way to soothe her sensory-challenged daughter.

Weisenberger, who learned about Gardiner from a speech therapist two years ago, said she is very pleased with the program. While she suspects two of her other children may qualify for a scholarship, the funding she presently receives satisfies the family’s learning needs.

“I don’t want to take it away from somebody else who needs it,” she said.

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Commentary: All scholarship families deserve spending flexibility

Special to redefinED
Special to redefinED

West Park Prep, in West Park, Florida, where four of Sara Pierre’s six children attend on state scholarships, strives to reach all students including those who are gifted as well as those with severe learning and emotional challenges.

Editor’s note: This opinion piece from Sara Pierre of Sunrise appeared online Thursday at the South Florida Times.

Twenty years ago, I came to this country from Haiti seeking a better life. Today, I’m a single mother to six special-needs children, all of whom also have sickle cell disease. There is plenty of love in my family – but I do have my hands full.

I am fortunate I have Florida education choice scholarships to help me meet these challenges.

Three of my children – Jennifer, 11, Carlos, 12, and Jefferson, 15 – receive the Gardiner Scholarship, an education savings account program for students with special needs. They are on the autism spectrum. My daughter Brettany, 13, receives the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for lower-income students; she has ADHD. It would be wonderful to have the same kind of flexible spending with her scholarship that Gardiner provides for my other children.

(I have another child on the autism spectrum who attends a public school because it best meets her needs, and my youngest is not yet eligible for a scholarship.)

So, I’m happy to see a bill in the Florida Senate that would combine Gardiner with the McKay scholarships for special needs students into one program and would do the same for the tax credit scholarship and the income-based Family Empowerment Scholarship. The new income-based scholarship program would become an education savings account like how Gardiner works.

That means giving more families more ways to spend their children’s education dollars. They can choose to spend it on school tuition, technology, learning materials, therapies, and other educational uses – matching them with their children’s needs.

To continue reading, click here.

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How education savings accounts support education choice

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

Madelyn Carlisle, 10, of Orlando, benefits from curriculum materials her mother purchases using the family’s education savings account.

Editor’s note: Six states – Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Nevada and North Carolina – have crafted education savings account programs as a means for families to exercise choice in finding the best educational environment for their children. Here is how the program works in Florida.

THE BASICS

Q: What are education savings accounts?

A: Education savings accounts (ESAs) empower parents to customize education for their children. Traditional vouchers pay for private school tuition, but education savings accounts are more flexible. The state transfers a portion of a child’s funds from the state education formula to a state-approved nonprofit organization which puts these funds into an account for each child. Parents then apply to this nonprofit for permission to use their child’s ESA funds to buy state-authorized educational services and products. Florida currently has two ESAs: the Gardiner Scholarship for students with special needs, and the Reading Scholarship for public school students in grades 3-5 who struggle with reading.

Q: How can families use educations savings accounts?

A: Florida law authorizes Gardiner Scholarship families to use ESA funds to pay for private school tuition, tutoring services, books and other curricular materials. Additional uses include:

·       Educational therapies from a licensed or accredited practitioner or provider

·       A licensed or accredited paraprofessional or educational aide

·       Tuition for vocational and life skills education

·       Associated services that include educational and psychological evaluations, assistive technology rentals and braille translation services

·       Tutoring or teaching services provided by an individual or facility accredited by a state, regional or national accrediting organization

·       Tuition or fees for a nonpublic online learning program

·       Fees for a nationally standardized norm-referenced achievement test, an Advanced Placement examination or any exams related to college or university admission

·       Services provided by a public school, including individual classes and extracurricular programs

Reading Scholarship families can use their ESA funds to pay for tuition and fees related to part-time tutoring, summer and after-school literacy programs, instructional materials and curriculum related to reading or literacy.

Legislation pending in the Florida Legislature (Senate Bill 48) would combine the state’s two income-based scholarships – the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and the Family Empowerment Scholarship – into one program and convert it to an ESA, with narrower uses than Gardiner.

Q: What is the difference between an education savings account and a school choice scholarship?

A: School choice scholarships only allow parents to use public funds to pay private school tuition. A state-approved organization issues a check, which is endorsed by a parent and turned over to a private school, or the check can be issued directly to a school under the parents’ names. With education savings accounts, families working with a state-approved organization can use student funds for many different expenses, including, but not limited to, private school tuition.

 

A DEEPER DIVE

Q: How are education savings accounts administered in Florida?

A: An eligible family’s ESA funds go directly from the Florida Department of Education to a state-approved scholarship funding organization. The vast majority of ESAs in Florida are administered by the nonprofit organization Step Up For Students (SUFS), with offices in Jacksonville and St. Petersburg. Families tell SUFS what services or products they want to purchase. SUFS determines if a requested service or product fits an eligible category and if it’s appropriate for the child. SUFS either purchases the service or product for the family or reimburses the family if the family makes the purchase with out-of-pocket funds.

Q: How does a family know what services and products have been approved for purchase with ESA funds?

A: SUFS has an online catalog with an inventory of more than 60,000 education products that meet the statutory categorical definitions for ESA families, including curriculum materials, iPads and education software from which families can select.

Q: What is the vetting process for approving a family’s request for purchase and/or reimbursement of purchases?

A: Each request is reviewed independently by two knowledgeable and skilled SUFS staff members. Additionally, a parent advisory committee reviews selected requests and provides SUFS staff with feedback on whether these requests should be approved.

Q: What additional guardrails are in place to ensure the integrity of ESAs?

A: There are several provisions in place:

·       SUFS’s online ESA purchasing and reimbursement platform is designed to prevent theft and fraud. The platform is not portable, which means it does not have the same vulnerabilities as a credit or debit card. A family can access and spend ESA funds only through a SUFS-controlled portal, which is located behind protected firewalls; is monitored by intrusion detection software; and requires user ID and password for access.

·       If a service provider, such as an eligible school, approved tutor or approved therapist, submits a request for payment for a service through SUFS’s direct-pay process, a secure platform routes this request to the parent for approval after staff determines the provider and the service meets state eligibility guidelines.

·       SUFS uses technology to track activity on its platform via IP addresses, looking for evidence of attempted fraud or theft. If a service provider’s reimbursement request is submitted from an IP address and the platform sees the parent approval came from the same IP address, anti-fraud staff is notified to investigate.

·       To minimize the possibility of families selling items purchased with ESA funds, SUFS limits the number of items families may purchase within defined timeframes. For example, a family purchasing an approved laptop must wait two years before purchasing a second approved laptop.

Q: Are future improvements in the works to further guard the integrity of the program and further serve ESA families?

A: Yes. SUFS is working with an Artificial Intelligence firm in Jacksonville, NLP Logix, to develop algorithms that look for unusual purchasing patterns that would require further investigation, similar to what credit card companies do. Additionally, SUFS will be enabling families to evaluate the effectiveness of the services and products they have purchased and to share this feedback with other ESA families through its secure online platform.

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