Hope Scholarship

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Florida Board of Education adjusts rules for Hope Scholarship for bullied students

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

Beginning this school year, Florida public school districts will be required to report to the Florida Department of Education how many families they have informed of the availability of a scholarship for victims of bullying.

The Florida Board of Education approved the changes earlier today as part of its consent agenda, typically reserved for non-controversial items. The measure is included in rule changes that govern the Hope Scholarship.

Prior to the rule change, school districts were required to inform parents about the Hope Scholarship within 15 days after a bullying incident was reported and provide the parent with a completed Hope notification form verifying that the incident was reported. The form was needed to start the scholarship application process.

But 71 percent of Hope parents surveyed by the Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University said they learned of the scholarship through other means, such as private schools, internet searches and social media. Two-thirds disagreed or strongly disagreed that the incidents were investigated in a timely manner, and many expressed frustration with district officials who they said didn’t know the legal requirements or didn’t appear to want to follow them.

Former Florida House Speaker and now Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran spearheaded creation of the Hope Scholarship in 2018. Students are eligible if they report being victims of bullying or similar incidents, including assault, battery, hazing, harassment and sexual misconduct. They can use the scholarship to attend private schools or to transfer to another public school.

At present, 429 students are using a Hope Scholarship, the first of its kind in the United States, at private schools, even though tens of thousands fall into the eligibility categories. State officials projected in 2018 that as many as 7,000 students would use the scholarship, worth about $7,000, annually.

Hope Scholarships are funded by individuals who contribute up to $105 in return for sales tax credits on motor vehicle purchases. So far this year, $60.8 million has been contributed. By law, unused Hope funds can be used for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for lower-income students.

Both scholarships are administered by Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that hosts this blog.

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Group urges stronger rules for scholarships to assist bullied students

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

A conservative education group wants state education officials to penalize public school districts that fail to inform parents about the availability of a state scholarship for bullying victims.

Two members of Florida Citizens Alliance told Florida Board of Education members earlier today that rules governing the Hope Scholarship need to be tightened to ensure that districts inform parents they can apply for the scholarship when they report bullying.

“I think there needs to be some teeth in it,” said Keith Flaugh, a managing director of the Naples-based group during a workshop held via conference call to discuss the proposed changes. “The schools are … in many cases, hiding it because they lose funding if a parent takes advantage of it.”

Flaugh added that the state should audit school districts to ensure compliance and levy some type of punishment to those who disregard the rules.

At present, 429 Florida students are using a Hope Scholarship, the first of its kind in America, even though tens of thousands fall into the eligibility categories. State officials projected in 2018 that as many as 7,000 a year would the scholarship, which is worth about $7,000 a year.

To date, the best available evidence suggests a leading reason for the gap is that districts are not telling parents they have this option.

Seventy-one percent of Hope parents surveyed by the Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University said they learned of the scholarship through other avenues, such as private schools, internet searches and social media. Two-thirds disagreed or strongly disagreed that the bullying incidents they reported were investigated in a timely manner, and many expressed frustration with district officials who they said didn’t know the legal requirements.

The survey results prompted the Florida Department of Education to consider rule changes that would require that districts routinely tell the state how many Hope notification forms they have made available to parents.

Currently, there is no such requirement, even though districts are required by law to notify parents about the Hope Scholarship within 15 days of a reported bullying incident and to provide them the Hope form they need to start the application process.

(The scholarship is administered by Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that hosts this blog.)

Rick Stevens, also a managing director of the Florida Citizens Alliance, stressed the need at today’s workshop for follow up to make sure that parents who receive the forms from the districts know how to take advantage of the scholarship opportunity.

“We need to have a way to support the parent, and I’m not sure assuming the districts will provide that is the right approach,” Stevens said, adding that he’s heard reports of parents who had trouble making the connection between receiving the paperwork and applying for the scholarship.

“There needs to be a way to coach them through the process,” he said.

Lawmakers created the Hope Scholarship in 2018, in an effort led by then House Speaker and now Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran. Students are eligible if they report being victims of bullying or similar incidents, including assault, battery, hazing, harassment, and sexual misconduct. They can use the scholarship to attend private schools or to transfer to another public school.

Hope Scholarships are funded by individuals who contribute up to $105 in return for sales tax credits on motor vehicle purchases. So far this year, citizens have contributed $60.8 million. By law, unused Hope funds can be used for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for lower-income students.

Laura Mazyck, deputy executive director of independent education and parental choice for the Florida Department of Education, told Flaugh and Stevens that their comments would be taken into consideration.

The rule changes are expected to be discussed at the next state Board of Education meeting July 15.

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School choice scholarship for bullying victims may get boost with reporting changes

Ron Matus
Ron Matus

Florida education officials are considering changes that could lead to wider use of a school choice scholarship for bullying victims that has so far seen few takers despite tens of thousands of qualifying incidents each year.

The proposed rule changes to the Hope Scholarship, the first of its kind in America, would require that school districts routinely tell the state how many Hope notification forms they’ve given to parents.

Currently, there is no such requirement, even though districts are required by law to notify parents about the Hope Scholarship within 15 days of a reported incident, and to provide them the Hope form they need to start the application process. (The scholarship is administered by Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that hosts this blog.)

The Florida Department of Education will consider the changes at a June 19 workshop.

Lawmakers created the Hope Scholarship in 2018, led by then House Speaker and now Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran. Students are eligible if they report being victims of bullying or similar incidents, including assault, battery, hazing, harassment, and sexual misconduct. They can use the scholarship to attend private schools, or to transfer to another public school.

At present, 429 students are using Hope at private schools, even though tens of thousands fall into the eligibility categories and state officials projected in 2018 that as many as 7,000 a year would use them. The scholarships are worth about $7,000 a year.

To date, the best available evidence suggests a leading reason for the gap is that districts are not telling parents they have this option.

Seventy-one percent of Hope parents surveyed by the Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University said they learned of the scholarship through other means, such as private schools, internet searches and social media. Two-thirds disagreed or strongly disagreed that the incidents were investigated in a timely manner, and many expressed frustration with district officials who they said didn’t know the legal requirements or didn’t want to follow them.

Hope Scholarships are funded by individuals who contribute up to $105 in return for sales tax credits on motor vehicle purchases. So far this year, they’ve contributed $60.8 million. By law, unused Hope funds can be used for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for lower-income students.

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Education and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipGardiner ScholarshipHope ScholarshipNewsReading ScholarshipSchool Choice

Auditor General releases annual review of Florida scholarship programs

Jon East
Jon East

In its fifth annual audit of Step Up For Students, the state’s largest nonprofit scholarship funding organization, the Florida Auditor General today issued what amounted to a clean bill of health.

The report included findings on data procedures and scholarship purchase returns, both of which have been fixed by the organization, while more broadly concluding: “Our audit procedures and tests of selected Step Up records and accounts found that Step Up generally complied with the applicable provisions of State law.”

The audit covered Step Up’s administration of four state-authorized scholarships in 2018-19: the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for K-12 students from low-income and working-class households; Gardiner Scholarships for students with special needs; Hope Scholarships for students who have been bullied in public schools; and Reading Scholarship Accounts that provide help for elementary public school students who are struggling in reading. Collectively, the programs served about 116,000 students that year.

The first finding related to Social Security numbers. The auditor said Step Up was not fully notifying Tax Credit Scholarship applicants of the purpose and authorization for collecting student Social Security numbers. It also questioned whether Step Up was sufficiently restricting internal computer access to such numbers. The organization responded by adding a new notice to all families when the 2020-21 scholarship application season opened in January. It also embarked on a review of database permissions for every staffer, limiting access to Social Security numbers to only those whose job required it, and creating a new process for constant review.

The second finding was with the Gardiner Scholarship, which allows students to spend money on a variety of educational needs beyond just tuition and fees. The report said Step Up was sometimes failing its own policy of posting a timely credit to each student’s account when a household returned a purchase made through authorized online vendors. The audit found 22 returned purchases worth a total of $16,327 that were not credited back within Step Up’s 14-day guideline. By way of comparison, that same year, 2018-19, Gardiner students spent a total of $21.9 million on instructional materials. Step Up reported the problem was remedied with automation.

In his formal response, Step Up president Doug Tuthill thanked auditors for their professionalism and wrote that: “We value the insights and recommendations that contribute to process improvements that strengthen our organization.”

Step Up For Students hosts this blog. 

 

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Parents of bullying victims: Florida school districts failing to inform about school choice scholarships

Ron Matus
Ron Matus

Florida school districts are routinely failing to notify parents of bullying victims that their children are eligible for new school choice scholarships aimed at giving them safer options, say parents who responded to a survey about the new program.

Districts are required by law to notify parents about Hope Scholarships after bullying incidents are reported. But 71 percent of Hope parents surveyed by the Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University said they learned of the scholarship through other means, such as private schools, internet searches and social media.

The survey size is small – 49 of 122 parents who secured the Hope Scholarship in its inaugural year. But their responses may help explain why two years after its creation, the scholarship is only serving a few hundred students, even though tens of thousands of students every year meet the eligibility criteria.

There are 368 Hope students this year, up from 127 in year one.

“Nobody at the public school told us anything about it even after repeated instances of bullying and us complaining about it,” one parent wrote.

“The school seemed very hesitant to give me the (Hope Scholarship notification) form,” wrote another. “I had to go to the office and basically demand it and make them sign it.”

Former Florida House Speaker and now Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran spearheaded creation of the Hope Scholarship in 2018. The first-of-its-kind scholarship gives victims of bullying, harassment and similar incidents the option to attend private school or transfer to another public school.

The new report is rife with heart-wrenching quotes. One victim was slapped in the head 20 times in class. One had his head slammed against a concrete wall so hard it made him dizzy. Another had his lunch stolen nearly every day by kids who would eat it, step on it and throw it in the garbage. “I was crying in the car,” said the parent of another, “and (my child) is like, please mama, I don’t want to go back to that school.” The school climate, said yet another, was “like a slaughterhouse.”

Two thirds of the parents disagreed or strongly disagreed that the incidents were investigated in a timely manner or taken seriously by the district. Many expressed frustration with district officials who didn’t know the legal requirements for Hope – or, in their view, didn’t want to follow them.

By law, school districts must inform parents about the Hope Scholarship within 15 days after incidents are reported. They must provide the parent with a completed Hope notification form that verifies the incident was reported and the parent was informed. The form is needed to start the application process.

“Staff seemed to view the completion of the form as admitting their own guilt in some way,” one parent wrote. “There was resistance to signing at first until I produced the statute and accompanying memo from the (Florida Department of Education).”

In light of an ongoing debate about policies regarding LGBTQ students at some private schools, it’s worth noting that several Hope parents said their children were bullied in district schools because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation.

“He was ostracized from his peers and when kids would hang out with him, they would get bullied as well or told to watch out, if he touches you he’ll make you gay too,” said one. “My son was repeatedly called names such as f—–, gay boy, loser, etc. along with adult language,” said another.

Hope Scholarships are worth about $7,000 a year. They are funded by contributions in return for sales tax credits on motor vehicle purchases. So far this year, taxpayers have contributed $42 million.

The parent survey is part of a program evaluation required by statute. The Florida Department of Education hired the Learning Systems Institute.

Among other findings:

·       Most Hope Scholarship recipients are white (48 percent). Most were in middle school (47 percent). Bullying was the most common incident reported (34 percent).

·       Most respondents said the application process was easy (83.7 percent) and most disagreed or strongly disagreed that it took too long (75.5 percent).

·       Seventy-three percent said finding a safe school using the scholarship was very easy or somewhat easy. Twenty-seven percent found it somewhat or very challenging.

·       Respondents gave their children’s new schools high marks for safety, environment and engagement. On a scale of 1 to 4, overall ratings for the new schools averaged 3.58, compared to 1.85 for the prior schools.

One Hope parent said her son was two grade levels behind in reading in his prior school “because of all the issues.” But in his new school he revved two grade levels ahead.

“It’s the best experience I could have ever hoped for,” she said.

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DOE approves scholarship funding organization’s request to continue providing education choice options

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

Twins Brian and Leah Davis, who endured bullying in kindergarten at their assigned public school, attend The Foundation Academy in Jacksonville with assistance from a state scholarship administered by Step Up For Students. PHOTO: Lance Rothstein

The Florida Department of Education today unanimously approved the renewal of an application from Step Up For Students as an eligible Scholarship Funding Organization, allowing Step Up to continue administering the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program, the Gardiner Scholarship program, the Hope Scholarship program, the Reading Scholarship program and the Family Empowerment Scholarship program for 2020-21.

Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, served more than 99,700 of Florida’s most economically disadvantaged students on the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program last year. The organization was able to serve 11,458 students with unique abilities on the Gardiner Scholarship and is projecting to serve more than 14,000 in the current year.

Additionally, Step Up served 127 students on the Hope Scholarship and 5,639 students on the Reading Scholarship.

Charitable organizations that seek to be a nonprofit funding organization must submit applications for initial approval or renewal to the Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice no later than Sept. 1 of each year prior to the school year for which the organization intends to offer scholarships. The Office, in consultation with the Florida Department of Revenue and the state’s Chief Financial Officer, reviews applications, and the Commissioner of Education then recommends approval or denial of the application to the Board of Education.

In a separate vote, the Department unanimously approved the renewal application from the AAA Scholarship Foundation to administer the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program, the Gardiner Scholarship program and the Family Empowerment Scholarship program for 2020-21.

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archivED: First Hope Scholarship brings peace to fifth-grader

Scott Kent
Scott Kent

Jordyn Simmons-Outland escaped school bullies and found a lifeline with help from a Hope Scholarship.

Editor’s note: During this holiday season, redefinED is republishing our best articles of 2019 – those features and commentaries that deserve a second look. This student spotlight from Step Up For Students’ strategic communications manager Scott Kent originally published Jan. 14.

LAKE PLACID, Florida — Jordyn Simmons-Outland is a fifth-grader who was in need of a lifeline.

The 10-year-old has a sweet demeanor and a love for the online video game Fortnite. However, his lack of self-confidence made him a target for bullying in his public school since the second grade. Teased about his weight. Tripped and hit. Complaints to teachers and administrators failed to bring relief.

In the past year, the physical and emotional abuse had become so bad, he told his grandparents he wished he were dead. He began seeing a therapist.

A new state school choice scholarship, the first of its kind in the nation, provided him with hope – literally.

“I don’t know what I’d do if the scholarship wasn’t available,” said his grandmother, Cathy Simmons, who has been a fierce advocate for her grandson most his life.

Jordyn is the first recipient of Florida’s Hope Scholarship, created by the Legislature in 2018 to give K-12 public school children relief from bullying and violence. More than 47,000 students in Florida reported being bullied during the 2016-17 school year.

The program provides families with financial assistance to send a child to an eligible private school, or to transport him to a public school in another district. The scholarship value depends on the grade level: $6,519 for K-5, $6,815 for 6-8, and $7,111 for 9-12. The transportation scholarship is worth up to $750 and can be used to attend any out-of-district public school with available space. The scholarships are funded by consumers who choose to redirect up to $105 of their motor vehicle purchase taxes to the program. (Editor’s Note: Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, administers the Hope Scholarship.)

Applications for the new scholarships opened Nov. 1, which proved timely for Jordyn. In September, a girl in school slapped him. That was the last straw for his grandmother, who along with Jordyn’s grandfather Danny Simmons has helped care for the boy for much of his life. She needed to get Jordyn into a new school pronto.

She went to Lakeview Christian School in Lake Placid to inquire about tuition costs. With Cathy and Danny in the process of selling their furniture business, money has been tight. However, Lakeview’s school administrator, Christena Villarreal, and her assistant told her about the new Hope Scholarship.

The Simmonses immediately enrolled Jordyn into Lakeview Christian, then began the process of applying for the Hope. They became conditionally eligible Nov. 2. Cathy received the acceptance letter Nov. 30.

It was like Independence Day.

“I was sitting (upstairs) in the rocking chair when I got the email,” she said. “I just wanted to scream, ‘Hallelujah! Thank you, God!’”

The scholarship means Jordyn can stay in the school where he now fits in. He feels welcomed and comfortable.

“They knew how he was when he got there,” Simmons said of the Lakeview Christian staff. “Jordyn didn’t just go there from the old school. He took baggage with him, too. He took stuff with him to that school.”

Nevertheless, Jordyn says he wasn’t nervous his first day there. “I knew it was going to be good.”

He doesn’t like to talk about his previous school, but he lights up when the subject turns to his new one.

“The people are nice,” he says.

Since the change, not once has he complained he didn’t want to go to school. In fact, after being laid up in bed with an inner ear infection followed by the stomach flu near the end of Christmas break, Jordyn was excited to return to school Jan. 7.

Simmons and Villareal both point to Lakeview Christian’s smaller class sizes as making a big difference for students like Jordyn.

“I like to think we’re a safe place for bullied students,” said Villareal, who noted the school has had several students transfer there because they were bullied elsewhere. “In other schools they might get lost in the shuffle.”

Simmons shows pics of a smiling Jordyn in his fifth-grade class, getting hugged by his teacher, interacting with classmates during their holiday party. According to a Nov. 14 school progress report, Jordyn “is a pleasure to have in class” and “is very polite and courteous.”

A fresh start in a more welcoming environment has boosted Jordyn’s confidence.
Two months ago, he did a mile run at school in 17 minutes. By mid-December, with the help of his new classmates, he completed it in 14 minutes.

“I’m probably the last one to finish, so I’d get really tired and out of breath,” he said. “And they would all get up and try to help me finish it.” They’d cheer him on and run with him.

He says he’s now shooting for finishing in 11 minutes, “maybe 10.”

At Lakeview Christian’s elementary school Christmas concert Dec. 18, Jordyn was one of six students chosen to sing at the front of stage. He wasn’t forced to do it – he volunteered.

So far, 469 private schools have signed up to participate in the Hope Scholarship, and 67 students have been awarded the scholarship. Jordyn and his grandmother are excited and thankful that he was the first.

“Hope is the best description. I keep thinking ‘There is hope, there is hope, there is hope.’ ” Simmons said. “I can’t wait to tell everyone what a blessing the Hope Scholarship has been. Now there’s peace.”

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