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

Roger Mooney April 1, 2021

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.

April 1, 2021 0 comment

Customization Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Savings Accounts Featured News News Features Parental Choice Private Schools School Choice School spotlight

National nonprofit ‘pressure-tests’ innovative education choice programs in Florida and beyond

Lisa Buie March 30, 2021

Lisa Buie

Verdi EcoSchool and EcoHigh’s place-based education philosophy envisions the immediate environment as the student’s most important classroom.

Like most great ideas, this one started on the ground, with a handful of eighth graders.

After spending middle school in a unique environment that has earned the reputation of being the Southeast’s first urban farm school, the teens were unwilling to trade the lush gardens of the Melbourne Eau Gallie Arts District for the vanilla hallways of a traditional high school.

They asked: Would Ayana and John Verdi, founders of Verdi EcoSchool, consider adding a high school to their K-8 treasure?

Ayana initially dismissed the idea, calling it “a whole new stratosphere of education” she was not prepared to explore.

But the students persisted. They won support from their parents and organized a presentation. Their enthusiasm, combined with the Verdis’ entrepreneurial spirit, ultimately influenced the couple’s decision to give it a try. School staff and students then organized a meeting to sell the project to the community.

“We talked about why continuing into high school with a passion-based learning approach that’s student-driven in a community that we use as our campus was vital for current and future families,” Ayana recalled.

Using the local community as a classroom creates an immersive curriculum that underscores Verdi EcoHigh’s place-based education philosophy.

Their pitch won over local leaders. In 2020, Verdi EcoHigh opened its doors to students in grades 9 through 12. But the key piece to making EcoHigh a reality came from the Drexel Fund, a national nonprofit foundation that provides financial support and mentoring to educational entrepreneurs seeking to launch and scale pioneering private schools focused on underserved communities.

The organization awarded Verdi EcoSchool a fellowship package worth $100,000.

“Ayana had an exciting K-8, but she wanted to open a high school for it,” said John Eriksen, Drexel co-founder and managing partner. “We look for interesting and diverse models of schools, and we couldn’t find anything like that anywhere in the country.”

Drexel’s mission to kickstart private schools accessible to all socio-economic groups makes focusing on states with robust education school choice policies like Florida’s a natural fit, Eriksen said. About 60% of Drexel applications come from the Sunshine State.

Other schools the fund has assisted in Florida include Cristo Rey in Tampa and the three Academy Prep Centers for Education in the Tampa Bay area and Lakeland. A more recent project is SailFuture Academy, a St. Petersburg foster care agency that is opening a vocational high school this fall for lower-income and at-risk teens who have become disengaged in traditional high school settings.

“The Drexel Fund provided me with an incredible network of school leaders who could help to offer guidance and tangible resources as I worked to implement the EcoHigh vision,” Ayana said.

The fund picked up Ayana’s travel costs to visit trailblazing public, private and charter schools across the nation so she could learn best practices when launching EcoHigh. She also received a consultation with Darren Jackson, Drexel Fund board member and former CFO of Best Buy and Nordstrom.

Most import, Ayana said, the Drexel Fund offered the power of reinforcement through their recognition of her hard work to become a school of innovation.

About one-third of the students who attend the Verdis’ school use state choice scholarships.

“At the end of my fellowship year, I was given the opportunity to present my plan for a new place and project-based high school and received a grant to support the creation of EcoHigh and the potential for continued partnership with the Drexel Fund through replication support,” she said.

EcoHigh offers three tracks: sustainability studies, agricultural science, and agri-business. The program is place- and program-based, meaning that learning happens in many places and many ways. At this unique high school, one of the places learning takes place is the Brevard Zoo.

A partnership with the zoo allows high schoolers to spend three days a week there, where they learn, design and work on the campus. The other two days are spent at the main campus in the Eau Gallie Arts District, where the students learn in nature and work on community improvement projects.

Tuition at the 77-student school is $9,350 annually. The school accepts the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and the Family Empowerment Scholarship, for which about one-third of the students qualify.

Ayana said she hopes to continue to grow the school, which offers full-time and part-time education as well as enrichment opportunities for homeschool students. The Drexel Fund has pledged to be there for her when the time comes to expand, as it stands with all innovative school leaders who have a desire to help underserved students.

“They bring us the innovation and diversity,” he said. “We help them pressure-test their ideas.”

Eriksen said some ideas, which involve micro-schools or pods, “we can’t touch right now in Florida” because the state relies heavily on a traditional school education model. If the Florida Legislature chooses to expand education savings accounts or make other tweaks to existing law, those changes could make Florida, already hospitable to choice, an even more fertile ground for innovation.

“If Florida went for a more personalized model,” Erickson said, “the amount of investment would be incredible.”

March 30, 2021 0 comment

Customization Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Savings Accounts Featured Gardiner Scholarship News Features Parental Choice School Choice Special Needs Education

How an education savings account is helping one Florida student see the world — virtually

Roger Mooney March 18, 2021

Roger Mooney

Tristan Drummond, 8, has increased his attention span, improved his hand-eye coordination, and developed his core strength through virtual reality.

Danielle Drummond was skeptical when she first saw the virtual reality headsets and consoles, and even the large-screen TVs, that are available to families who receive Florida’s Gardiner Scholarship for students with special needs.

“At first, I even wondered, ‘What on earth is the educational value of this?’” said Drummond, who lives in Fort Lauderdale.

It was 2018 and Drummond’s son Tristan, who is on the autism spectrum and is homeschooled, had recently undergone back surgery to correct a tethered spinal cord, which he had since birth. Drummond hoped Tristan, 6 at the time, could relearn to walk with the help of virtual reality.

Virtual reality has been used since the mid-1990s to help people on the spectrum learn to communicate and connect with others. Adults can use the technology to prepare for job interviews. Children use it to improve cognitive and gross motor skills.

Drummond believed the VR equipment could do the same for her son. She purchased the equipment with funds from Gardiner’s education savings account (ESA) through MyScholarShop, Step Up For Students’ online catalog of pre-approved educational products. It includes curriculum materials, digital devices, and education software.

Families can also 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, and it 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.

Thanks to the VR equipment made possible by the ESA, Tristan, now 8, did relearn to walk. But that was just the beginning.

“Then we discovered it had a lot more value,” Drummond said.

Since he began using virtual reality, Tristan has increased his attention span, improved his hand-eye coordination, and developed his core strength. He has learned how to interact socially, how to count and how to exercise.

Tristan cannot go on field trips like other students. He can’t even sit in a movie theater.

However, through virtual reality, Tristan has visited Walt Disney World’s Epcot Center and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. He landed on the moon with Apollo 11, and went scuba diving through the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, where he swam with sharks.

“It’s enriched his life in ways that we would have been otherwise unable to do,” Drummond said.

Tristan also uses VR for his occupational and physical therapy. Drummond said it used to be a chore to get Tristan to participate in therapy.

“We would lose 75% to 80% of therapy lessons trying to get him into a groove to enjoy what he is doing,” she said. “It’s a struggle every parent with a child like Tristan knows.”

But with virtual reality now part of the sessions, Drummond said it only takes Tristan a few minutes to get into the therapy groove.

“So, we’re now getting full therapy sessions and because of that, he’s talking more, he’s interacting with us more. He’s actually becoming more social,” she said. “It’s gotten him into being healthier, because he has the ability to do physical therapy, which is absolutely his favorite thing to do.”

The technology also helps Tristan overcome his fear of visiting a place for the first time, like a medical facility. He can tour the facility virtually ahead of time.

“But now with the virtual reality, I can set him up on that, have the exact place we are going on it, and allow him to look around in a safe environment,” Drummond said. “That way when he finally goes, I don’t have to make plans for our arrival like an army general. I don’t have to have 500 contingency plans because he’s expecting it. He knows what it’s going to sound like. What it’s going to look like. He’s going to know where things are. All these things help him get acclimated and actually get more out of going to these places.”

Drummond never thought that Job Simulator on Oculus Quest, or the Ring Fit Adventure game for Nintendo Switch, or Beat Saber would improve Tristan’s life in so many ways, but they have.

“They’re a lot of fun, but it’s also a way to sneak education into him,” Drummond said. “I don’t know if I can really say it enough about it. It just helps him to do pretty much everything. He has a blast with it.”

March 18, 2021 0 comment

Education Choice Featured Florida Tax Credit Scholarship News Parent Empowerment Parental Choice Private School Scholarships Private Schools School Choice Student spotlight Students Tax Credit Scholarships Voucher Left

A school choice scholarship changed this LGBTQ student’s life – and may have saved it

Ron Matus January 18, 2021

Ron Matus

Marquavis Wilson, right, attends West Park Prep in Hollywood, Florida. A Florida Tax Credit Scholarship allowed his mom, Lamisha Stephens, to send him to the LGBTQ-affirming faith-based private school after he was bulled at his district school for his sexual identity. PHOTO: Lance Rothstein

Editor’s note: To hear Lamisha Stephens and her son, Marquavis Wilson, tell the story in their own words, watch the video at the end of this post.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – In fourth and fifth grades, Marquavis Wilson was tormented because of his sexual identity. In public schools, he was taunted with repeated slurs, teased for how he walked and talked, told he was going to hell. His life was a blur of fights and suspensions. “I am not the type of gay boy who takes stuff,” Marquavis said. “I stuck up for myself.”

But the bullying and battling took a toll. Marquavis no longer wanted to go to school. His grades fell to D’s and F’s. He told his mom, Lamisha Stephens, he wanted to kill himself.

Stephens knew she had to make a change. First, she secured a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, a school choice scholarship for lower-income students. Then she enrolled Marquavis in West Park Preparatory School, a tiny, faith-based private school she concluded would be the safe haven he needed.

It was. Now 16 and in tenth grade, Marquavis is no longer fighting. His grades have improved to B’s and C’s. He’s thinking about college and careers.

He said the scholarship and the school changed his life.

His mom said they saved his life.

Lamisha Stephens. PHOTO: Lance Rothstein

“If Marquavis hadn’t come to this school,” said Stephens, a part-time supervisor at a delivery company, “he would probably be a dropout. Maybe in jail. Or he wouldn’t be here with us.”

“He would probably have taken his life,” she continued, “because he was tired of the bullying.”

Marquavis’s story reflects the tragic reality of hostility and intolerance for far too many LGBTQ students. At the same time, it offers a strong counterpoint to misleading narratives pushed by opponents of education choice. In Florida and other states, some religious schools have come under fire for policies adhering to their faith. But LGBTQ students themselves tell a more complicated story.

The most recent survey from the LGBTQ advocacy group GLSEN shows LGBTQ students in public district schools experience bullying, harassment and assault at higher rates than LGBTQ students in private religious schools. (For the details, go to survey page 119.) Given that backdrop, it’s no surprise that schools of choice aimed at LGBTQ students are springing up (see here, here and here), and that LGBTQ students are among those using – and in some cases, being saved by – education choice scholarships.

In Marquavis’s prior public schools, Stephens said she was having conferences with school officials every other week. Students weren’t the only problem.

At one point, a school security guard asked Marquavis if he had been molested, suggesting a link between molestation and sexual identity. “No,” Marquavis responded, “God made me this way.” Stephens complained to the principal. Eventually, she said, the guard was disciplined for inappropriate remarks.

Marquavis is athletic, confident, reflective, honest. His words sometimes roll out in torrents before he punctuates them with a “so” … or a “you know” … or, sometimes, a quick smile.

He said he was nervous when his mom told him he would be going to West Park Prep. The K-12 school is predominantly Black, with 110 students, nearly all of them on choice scholarships. He wondered if he’d have to fight there, too.

But his new classmates embraced him.

“On the first day,” Marquavis said, “all the kids were coming up to me. They were talking to me, asking what school I was from. They were friendly. All of them. It was unexpected.”

The school feels like a family, Marquavis said. The founder and principal, Jovan Rembert, encouraged him to be himself. He said no bullying or disrespect would be tolerated, ever.

“He was like, ‘Don’t let people get in your head,’ ” Marquavis said. “I told him about my past, and he said that’s not going to happen here. He kept his word.”

Marquavis found a safe space at West Park Prep that has allowed him to focus on being a student again.

Marquavis said there was only one incident involving his sexual identity at West Park. A new student called him a slur and was quickly suspended. The student apologized to Marquavis when he returned – and the two have been friends ever since.

Tragically, Rembert died in March, struck by a car when he went to check on an accident involving some of his students. But the warm, welcoming culture he established lives on, said teacher Billy Williams.

Last December, Williams said, Marquavis and other members of the dance team were set to rehearse for the holiday show when they veered into a little free-styling. Marquavis, comfortable among friends, poured his personality into a few new moves. “His body language and freedom of expression was so different,” said Williams, who worked in public schools 13 years before joining West Park full time. “But what was so magical was all the students embraced it. They hyped him up.”

The safe space allowed Marquavis to focus on being a student again. “He has more confidence in participating in group activities,” Williams said. “He’s more vocal. He speaks up. He asks questions.”

He’s thinking about the future, too. A diploma. Then college maybe. Then, maybe, a career in fashion.

Marquavis said without the scholarship and the new school, the fighting would have continued until he got expelled or dropped out. But West Park Prep won’t let him fail, he said.

“It’s like all love here,” he said. “It’s really all love.”

January 18, 2021 1 comment

Education Choice Featured Hope Scholarship News Features Parental Choice Private School Scholarships School Choice Student spotlight

The light at the end of the tunnel was a Hope Scholarship

Ron Matus December 15, 2020

Ron Matus

Parker Hyndman, who attends Montessori by the Sea in St. Pete Beach, Florida, is described by the assistant to the head of school as “an old soul” with “a big heart” who clicked immediately with teachers and classmates at the private school he attends on a Hope Scholarship. PHOTO: Lance Rothstein

Editor’s note: To hear Tamara Arrington and her son, Parker, tell the story in their own words, watch the video at the end of this post.

The other student was older and bigger. But Parker, a 35-pound “runt” of a first grader, as his mom described him, didn’t hesitate. When the other student called his friend a racial slur on the bus, Parker piped up: “Don’t call her that.”

Parker felt proud for sticking up for his friend. But daring to do so tripped off a chain of events that would plunge him and his mom, Tamara Arrington, into a year-long nightmare. Some of the other kids put Parker in their sights. When Arrington asked them to stop, one of their parents called police. Eventually, Arrington sought relief in court.

“It was a very dark tunnel for us,” said Arrington, a personal chef and published author. “I had no way to protect my son. I had no way to make sure that my son was getting the education that he needed.”

Hope arrived unexpectedly when Arrington stumbled on to the existence of the Hope Scholarship, an education choice scholarship that Florida lawmakers created in 2018 for students like Parker. Having that option, she said, changed everything.

“Our light came in the form of a Hope Scholarship,” she said.

Parker Hyndman. PHOTO: Lance Rothstein

Arrington and her son moved to the Suncoast six years ago. For more than a year, the school she handpicked, an A-rated elementary near some of America’s sweetest beaches, couldn’t have been more perfect. Parker excelled socially and academically. Arrington joined the PTA.

When Parker got to first grade, he wanted to ride the bus. Arrington said okay, thinking it would boost his independence. But after Parker stood up to the other kid, things went south.

A group of students on the bus started making fun of his name. (Parker’s last name is Hyndman, so they called him variations on “Hiney.”) They made of fun of his teeth. (Some of his baby teeth were discolored after a tumble down some stairs.) They threw paper balls and candy wrappers at him.

Nearly every day, it was something. Arrington said she went to school officials repeatedly, and was assured repeatedly things would get better. But they didn’t get better – and Parker went from loving school to “despising it.”

“I no longer had that smiling little kid that got off the bus and was happy to see me,” Arrington said. “I had a child in tears, in a rage, just so upset that sometimes he … couldn’t even form words to tell me or any of the other mothers at the bus stop what had happened.”

Arrington felt she had no choice but to take matters into her own hands, but the conflict escalated in ways she never would have imagined. One time, she told one of the students, while at the bus stop with other parents, to please stop picking on her son. That night she got a call from police, who said they got a call from the student’s parent. Another time, she did the same thing – only to have police show up at the bus stop. Arrington now had to respond to allegations that she was the bully.

Meanwhile, Parker started getting frequent headaches and stomach aches. At one point, Arrington took him to the emergency room. The doctors couldn’t find anything physically wrong. They asked, “Is Parker under a lot of stress?”

In late 2018, the stress boiled over. At a community event, there was an incident involving Parker and one of his friends and one of the same students on the bus. Afterwards, Arrington went to court and was granted a temporary restraining order. Two weeks later, a judge extended it three months, and urged the other parent to “get professional help” for the other child.

At school, things still weren’t right. Arrington said the school was upset because now it had to make special accommodations to keep the students separated. There was still too much tension.

She started thinking more about a potential solution she learned about a few months prior. She said she was Googling bullying prevention when an article about the Hope Scholarship popped up. Arrington thought it was too good to be true. But in the spring of 2019, she applied.

She and Parker were at the beach at sunset when she saw the email from Step Up For Students saying he had been awarded. Moments later, Parker said, a pod of dolphins started leaping out of the water.

“Definitely a sign,” he said.

“I just felt this wave of relief coming off of me,” Arrington said.

Parker Hyndman and his mother, Tamara Arrington. PHOTO: Lance Rothstein

Arrington began checking out other schools. She wanted a place where Parker could find peace. A friend suggested Montessori by the Sea, overlooking the sand dunes and sea oats in St. Pete Beach. Parker sat in on classes for two days – including yoga on the beach – and loved it.

“When I was at the other school, I felt like okay, I’m going into the worst day in my life repeatedly,” said Parker, now a fourth grader. “But here, I’m excited to get out of bed to come to the beach at my own school. And I’m excited to learn about fun stuff. Definitely.”

Christina Warnstedt, the assistant to the head of school, said Arrington told them about the trauma Parker had endured. But there was never any trepidation about enrolling him. “It was more like, ‘This could be the answer for him,’ ” she said.

And it was. Warnstedt described Parker as “an old soul” with “a big heart” who clicked immediately with teachers and classmates. He became a comforter to another student who was experiencing emotional challenges. “He’s just a light,” she said.

Arrington called the school a hidden gem “tucked away in this little bubble of happiness.”

“I have no doubt that every morning when I drop off my son at school,” she said, “he’s going to come home a better human being.”

Arrington said she’s not sure what would have happened had the scholarship not made that possible.

“There’s no better word than to say that it gave Parker hope for his future. And it gave me hope,” she said. “Making sure that as a mother, that I was making the right decisions for my son. And that he would thrive. Thrive in school. Thrive in life. Thrive. That’s what I wanted. So, the Hope Scholarship truly gave us hope.”

December 15, 2020 1 comment

Education Choice Featured Florida Tax Credit Scholarship News Features Parental Choice Private School Scholarships Private Schools School Choice Student spotlight Tax Credit Scholarships

Elisabeth’s story: From a mom’s worst nightmare to a mom’s best dream

Roger Mooney November 2, 2020

Roger Mooney

Elisabeth Edwards 9, attends Master’s Training Academy in Apopka, a K-12 private Christian school about 20 miles outside of Orlando, on a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship.

Elisabeth Edwards came home from school one afternoon and told her mom that she wanted to die.

She was 6.

Elisabeth was stupid, she told her mom. That’s how they made her feel at school. She questioned why God made her that way. She questioned why God made her at all.

She told her mom that she wanted to kill herself. She asked if she could kill herself right then.

Her daughter’s words were nearly too much for Consuelo to process. But she clung to the hope that Elisabeth was having a rough time adjusting to the first grade and to her new school, and this was her way of acting out.

But then Elisabeth began banging her head against the walls at home when she was angry. Then she started banging her head against the walls at school.

“That’s when I knew she was serious,” Consuelo said.

Elisabeth, now 9, has a sensory disorder that can prevent her from processing at lot of information at once. It became an issue soon after Elisabeth began attending the first grade. She would get confused in class and grew angry over her confusion. What Elisabeth perceived as a less-than-empathetic reaction from those around her – classmates and teachers – made the situation worse.

That’s when Elisabeth developed suicidal thoughts. Consuelo found a therapist and another school for her daughter. Elisabeth lasted a week. Administrators at the new school asked Consuelo to withdraw Elisabeth because they weren’t equipped to handle students with behavioral issues.

Consuelo and her husband, Maxwell, a plumber, qualified for a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, one of two income-based scholarships managed by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog. She found herself scrolling through the school directory on Step Up’s website, searching for one near their Apopka, Florida, home that accepts students with a sensory disorder.

Consuelo came across Master’s Training Academy in Apopka, a K-12 private Christian school about 20 miles outside of Orlando. The school focuses on students with behavioral health and learning disabilities. She called Helenikki Thompson, the school principal. Consuelo was upfront about Elisabeth’s condition and expected to be turned away. Thompson invited Elisabeth to spend a day at the school.

It was a perfect match. Elisabeth is now in the fourth grade at Master’s. She has a legion of friends. She leaves thank you notes and homemade muffins for her teachers. She said she can’t remember the last time she was angry at school.

“I felt like I was at home, because I just saw everybody was happy,” Elisabeth said of that first visit. “All the kids were funny, happy, everything that you would want in a friend. So was the teacher.”

Consuelo no longer receives phone calls from exasperated teachers and is no longer worried about her daughter’s mental health. She said she owes Elisabeth’s life to Master’s Training Academy and to Step Up.

“If it wasn’t for Master’s, I’d probably be going to grave site grieving for her,” Consuelo said. “It was that bad.”

‘We want her back’

Consuelo describes her daughter as an outgoing young lady with a beautiful smile and a warm heart.

“To me she is a typical person who is trying to find her way in a world that is full of craziness,” Consuelo said. “Sometimes, when she was young, she didn’t know how to internalize that.”

A person’s tone of voice can provoke Elisabeth. Stern language from the teachers and staff at the first two schools Elisabeth attended only made her outbursts worse.

“I had broken out in hives when she was going through all that,” Consuelo said. “That’s how bad it was. It was because of nerves. When your kid goes through something, you go through something.”

Elisabeth did have an outburst during her initial visit to Master’s Training Academy. It happened when a teacher asked her to read out loud. Elisabeth received speech therapy to help her properly enunciate words. She had some bad experiences when asked in school to read in front of the class. She thought this new teacher was setting her up for more embarrassment.

The reaction from Thompson, who was in the room, was not what Consuelo or her daughter expected.

Thompson remembers telling Elisabeth, “I’m sorry for your past hurt. I don’t know who hurt you. We’re not here to hurt you. We’re here to help you.”

She said she gave Elisabeth a hug and told her she would see her the next day.

“I don’t know what type of experiences she had, but I know she was hurt,” Thompson said. “She was damaged really bad.”

Thompson’s son, Brendan, was bullied in his district school. He received therapy and attended Apopka Christian Academy for high school, where he attended on a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship. He graduated in 2016 and is currently enrolled in Seminole State College of Florida.

Dealing with what her son went through gives Thompson a unique perspective on why children can feel threatened at school. Thompson and her staff do not raise their voices when a student is acting out. They try to dilute the situation with kind words and hugs. The school has a quiet room, where a student go to calm down. The room has soft lighting and comfortable chairs. The student can read, listen to soft music or pray if they choose.

Teachers at Master’s have been known to diffuse a situation by taking the student or the entire class outside for some fresh air. Thompson said there is at least one activity a week that allows the students to put away the books and have some fun. An example: a spa day for the elementary school girls, where they do each other’s hair and nails. Pre-pandemic, of course.

Consuelo said it took Elisabeth months before she realized she could trust the staff at her new school. And when she did, she took off academically.

“I can tell you, when someone breaks down a kid, they can really break a kid down, and it takes a long time to build a kid back up,” Consuelo said. “What they did for her in the beginning, when she had her blowouts and cried, the teacher would look at her and say, ‘You know what? We still love you here. You can be mad at us and you can cry, but we’ll see you again tomorrow.’”

Thompson remembers a day not long after Elisabeth enrolled when Consuelo came after school to pick up her daughter. Consuelo asked Thompson how the day went. Thompson said Elisabeth had a moment.

“She said, ‘I’m sorry. I know you don’t want her back,’” Thompson recalled. “I said, ‘Why would you say that? We want her back. I just want you to know as a parent that she was having a bad day.’”

Master’s tailored the curriculum for Elisabeth, giving her extra time in subjects where she struggled and letting her advance at her own pace in those where she excelled.

Elisabeth has stopped telling her mom that she feels stupid. “I feel like I’m the smartest kid in the world,” she said.

Consuelo volunteers at the school. She’ll help out in the main office, chaperon field trips and watch a class if a teacher needs to step away. She has nothing but praise for Master’s Training Academy, the empathy toward Elisabeth shown by Thompson and her staff, and for Step Up, for managing the scholarship that enabled Elisabeth to attend the school.

“(Master’s) represent the scholarship very well,” Consuelo said. “If it wasn’t for Step Up, I wouldn’t be able to afford the tuition. I owe (Step Up) my daughter’s life, and that means the world to me.”

November 2, 2020 0 comment

Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education Choice Education Equity Faith-based Education Featured News Private School Scholarships Private Schools School Choice School spotlight Technology and Innovation Virtual Education

For this Christian school, pandemic is opportunity to shine

Ron Matus June 3, 2020

Ron Matus

Jim McKenzie, headmaster at The Rock School in North Central Florida, communicates with families in a virtual town hall meeting via Zoom.

Last week, the headmaster at The Rock School, a Christian school in Gainesville, Florida, led a Zoom town hall with hundreds of parents. All of them had re-enrolled their children for the fall back in February, before COVID-19 upended everything. But Jim McKenzie told them during the meeting that if they wanted out of their contracts, the school understood. Just let the school know by June 1, he said.

The result? The parents of 26 students, 6 percent of the total, reluctantly opted out, with most of them saying they wanted to homeschool a year.

The impact? With waiting lists for every grade, The Rock School should be at or near capacity in the fall, no matter what the pandemic has in store.

Even in these trying times, McKenzie and his PreK-12 school are holding their own. They’ve found creative ways to relentlessly emphasize all the things, beyond academics, that make The Rock distinctive and desired. Faith. Family. Identity. Community. To date, that has made the difference.

Transitioning to a virtual education reality “wasn’t necessarily easy for parents, but what they appreciated was they stayed connected,” McKenzie said. “Whether we’re on campus or we’re online, we are The Rock. That’s been our motto.”

“No matter the circumstance, you’re still our community,” McKenzie continued. “That community can still exist, even in the middle of COVID-19.”

The hopeful situation at The Rock School may appear to be at odds with dire concerns about private schools across America. It would be tragic to see it that way. Private schools face real challenges in the months ahead. Many are worried about bleeding enrollment. Dozens have already closed. Their plight, the prospect of equitable relief, the negative repercussions for public schools – none of that has received the attention it deserves.

But The Rock School still offers lessons, both to private schools struggling to maintain enrollment and to other audiences who may better see the value that private schools bring to families and communities – and by extension, to all of us.

“A lot of times Christian schools get caught up in what I call me-too branding,” McKenzie said. “Oh, you know, the big public school’s doing this. Oh, me too. Oh, you’re teaching Latin. Oh, me too. Oh, you’re starting a lacrosse program. Oh, me too. Oh, you’re giving every kid an iPad. Oh, me too. We copy in an effort to keep up.”

“The problem is, I don’t have the resources to copy what the large public school systems in our area can do. So instead I have to look for ways to differentiate myself. I have to look for things … that would be hard for my competitors to copy but are a meaningful difference for the people that we serve.”

“There’s a lot of people that can deliver reading and math academic content in an online format, as good or better than I did, right?” McKenzie continued. “So, the piece that differentiates my school … is this idea of community.”

About a third of the 435 K-12 student at The Rock School use state choice scholarships, including 108 who use the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for lower-income students and 15 who use Gardiner Scholarships for students with special needs. (Both programs are administered by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.) Having a high percentage of non-scholarship parents makes the school more vulnerable to economic turbulence. Being in Gainesville, a college town that is more recession-resistant than many places, makes it less so.

An example of a daily schedule to keep students at The Rock School connected with community activities

The Rock School had a good academic reputation long before the pandemic, and in the wake of school closures it quickly built a quality distance learning program. Its “TRS Online” was geared to flexibility with a personal touch. Core academic content was delivered via videos, so students and parents could work them into schedules that were best for them. Teachers could be reached by Zoom daily. Staff checked in with families at least once a week.

But that was just the basics.

What The Rock did beyond the basics endeared it even more to its students and parents. It didn’t shrink its events calendar. It expanded it. It made sure there was something to keep everyone in the school community engaged – and to pique the interest of prospective parents and others who might be on the outside looking in.

McKenzie joked that he felt like “the cruise director of the SS Rock School.”

On a field outside town, the school hosted a dance party for its high school students, complete with DJs and glow sticks to help make the social distancing tolerable. The school broadcast the event on facebook live. Ditto for chapel, book readings, lessons in art class. Ditto for a talent show, where McKenzie sported a red-and-black tux. Ditto for gym, where Coach Jones and Coach Ken became celebrities, with some of their classes getting 1,000 views. The Rock’s pet show reached 7,000 people. Its last-day-of-school parade made news.

An end-of-year parade kept members of The Rock School community connected.

“We felt like there was still a way to provide students this meaningful experience,” McKenzie said. “Where most people’s default was, ‘Well, because of Covid, I guess we’ll have to cancel everything,’ you know, we said, ‘Well, how can we do it differently? How can we translate what we have done to a virtual context that works in the midst of a pandemic?’ ”

McKenzie won’t fit snugly in anybody’s box. He started college as an engineering major, fell in love with teaching, ended up earning a master’s in education from the University of Florida. He’s partial to bow ties. He’s as comfortable quoting marketing gurus as he is as citing Bible scripture. Over the past 10 years, he helped triple The Rock’s enrollment and made it even more racially and economically diverse. (The school is 42 percent non-white.)

In a TEDx talk last year, he pitched a revolution for public education, suggesting lost relevance in an era where millions of current students will work in jobs that don’t yet exist. “Critics will say our education system needs to be reformed. No,” he said. “Our current educational system needs to be re-imagined. We need to stop doing things better. And start doing better things.”

It’s not hard to find folks who predict the pandemic will springboard big change. But in the meantime, thousands of little private schools need to survive it. McKenzie thinks they can better their odds by better telling their own stories, and better highlighting what makes them special. (Get McKenzie’s in-depth take on that subject in this webinar here.)

In that virtual town hall, McKenzie didn’t shy from telling The Rock’s parents about the uncertainty ahead. But he also asked them to compare their pandemic experience with the parents at other schools.

“I think we have proven to be a proven and trusted guide in the midst of a crisis,” McKenzie told them. “And so if the COVID-19 crisis isn’t going away any time soon … isn’t it worth knowing that if things escalate again in our community, that you have a school that you know can manage the crisis again?”

In front of hundreds of screens in the school’s orbit, heads nodded.

June 3, 2020 0 comment

Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education Choice Featured News School Choice Student spotlight Virtual Education

Florida Virtual School likely to be ‘new normal’ in Sunshine State and beyond

Scott Kent May 13, 2020

Scott Kent

Florida Virtual School student Maya Washburn, pictured here in Lofoten Islands, Norway, has been able to keep up with her classes from anywhere in the world with her MacBook Air and a reliable WiFi connection.

When she was a junior in high school, Maya Washburn spent six weeks of her fall semester backpacking around Europe with her mother. From England to Sweden, Norway to Slovakia, the Czech Republic to Austria, the Fort Lauderdale teen never missed a day of class back home.

Her classrooms were trains, ferries, coffee shops, restaurants, hotel rooms, and even cabins at campsites. All she required to maintain her studies were her MacBook Air, a reliable WiFi connection – and Florida Virtual School (FLVS).

“It’s been amazing,” said Maya, 17. “I love making my mark on school and on the world. It’s brought out so many passions that I don’t think I ever would’ve discovered or tapped into if I was not a member of this school.”

FLVS may sound like a recent technology, but it dates to when “Seinfeld” was still the nation’s most-watched TV show. Founded in 1997 as the country’s first statewide K-12 virtual public school, Orlando-based FLVS operates as its own school district.

Over its two decades, FLVS students have successfully completed nearly 5 million semester courses, and not just in the Sunshine State – it has served students in all 50 states as well as more than 100 countries and territories around the world. Today, FLVS offers more than 190 courses, from core subjects such as English and Algebra to electives such as Guitar and Creative Photography. FLVS is available to full- and part-time (or “Flex”) students from public, private, charter and homeschool backgrounds.

Because FLVS’s funding is determined by successful course completions rather than time spent in a seat, students, teachers and parents have the flexibility to customize instruction to each student’s needs. Its graduates perform as well as or better than other students in Florida and the nation in most Advanced Placement course exams.

Unlike the scores of students who were forced by COVID-19 to become online learners, Maya went the virtual route willingly – she has been a full-time FLVS student since ninth grade. She will graduate this month with a 4.2 grade point average and has been accepted to the Florida International University Honors College, where she will pursue a pre-law curriculum.

For Maya, it was all about finding the right fit.

She initially attended a public elementary school but was miserable by third grade from being bullied. She transferred to a private school, which was terrific — until it wasn’t. In middle school, she became an outsider in a cliquish environment, and again was bullied.

“I never really fit into any box,” Maya said. “I’ve always marched to my own beat.”

Homeschooling, her first choice, was not an option – she’s the only child of a single mother who was working full time outside the home. So, she took the initiative to research Florida Virtual School. Mother and daughter agreed to give it a try.

Four years later, it has proved to be the right choice.

“FLVS was perfect for me,” Maya said. “I’m very self-disciplined, and FLVS has broadened my horizons in the sense that I directly apply what I learn in my courses to my everyday life, which I live outside of the clear-cut class times that I might have to stick to at a traditional brick-and-mortar school.”

She considers the flexibility and opportunities for growth provided by FLVS the perfect atmosphere for success.

“The learning environment has never been stagnant,” she said. “It’s ever-evolving.”

Maya experienced the usual jitters about adjusting to a new concept of learning. A friend who joined FLVS at the same time soon dropped out and returned to a brick-and-mortar school.

“She needed someone to sit next to every day, I completely get that. We had different learning styles,” Maya said. “It’s not for everyone.”

She acknowledges there was a bit of a learning curve, but otherwise says the transition was “pretty seamless.”

“The teachers are so encouraging and supportive and helpful,” she said. “It’s the best education I’ve ever received.”

Maya Washburn will graduate from Florida Virtual School this month with a 4.2 grade point average.

Although she attends an unconventional school, Maya still enjoys the conventional trappings of a high school social life. She’s belongs to six of the more than 50 clubs FLVS offers: Student Council, Mega News Network (which she helped found), National Honor Society, National English Honor Society, Virge Literary Arts Magazine – oh, and she just started Glee Club this year.

Students meet online and face to face. Student Council hosts Shark Week, which includes a daily virtual event – trivia day, costume day, contests – before culminating on Fridays with an in-person get-together. Maya’s favorite FLVS event is the annual Club Awards Day in Orlando, where students get to celebrate their clubs and be recognized for their accomplishments.

“That’s just a little taste of what we do,” Maya said. “We do a lot of connecting students to each other, and to students and administrators.”

The first day of Maya’s senior year began on a bus from Prague to Berlin last summer, when she and her mother returned to Europe for a three-month backpacking tour. She used her finely honed time management and prioritization skills to complete a dual-enrollment humanities class through Polk State College, while checking internet signals and time differences to ensure she could lead student council meetings despite being thousands of miles away.

Because Maya’s education has not been defined by the system she attended or by where she lives, she and her FLVS classmates already were surfing the wave when COVID-19 closed brick-and-mortar schools across Florida and sent teachers and students scrambling to institute a new, unfamiliar form of learning. In fact, FLVS stepped into the breach, providing 100 digital courses – core curriculum, electives, Advanced Placement, and career and technical education – free of charge to all K-12 Florida schools through June 30.

It also quickly ramped up its server capacity, from the 215,000 students it served last year to accommodate 320,000 students by March 31, to 470,000 by mid-April, to 2.7 million by May 4.

Alaska took notice and contracted with FLVS to provide online learning to about 150 students. FLVS also will train Alaska teachers how to lead online courses themselves, and then license its digital curriculum for use by the new Alaska Statewide Virtual School.

That was a swift reaction to a rapidly changing landscape with an eye on the future.

Among plans being bandied about for re-opening schools this fall is an option for continued learning at home for students from high-risk groups, such as those who live with elderly people and those with compromised immune systems. Other students who got a taste of remote education and enjoyed the flexibility it offers might opt to continue that route either full time or part time.

Maya already has felt the impact. When the student council met the Friday after the virus shut down Florida schools, members were told that the usual end-of-school-year officer elections was being postposed to the beginning of the next academic year because FLVS expects a lot of new students in the interim.

“FLVS is growing,” Maya said, “and it will become the new normal for a lot of students.”

May 13, 2020 0 comment