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    • Voices for Education Choice
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    • Virtual Education
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  • Guest Bloggers
    • Ashley Berner
    • Jonathan Butcher
    • Jack Coons
    • Dan Lips
    • Chris Stewart
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Student spotlight

Education ChoiceFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipNewsParent EmpowermentParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsPrivate SchoolsSchool ChoiceStudent spotlightStudentsTax Credit ScholarshipsVoucher 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 0 comment
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Education ChoiceFeaturedHope ScholarshipParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool ChoiceSpotlightsStudent 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
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Education ChoiceFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsPrivate SchoolsSchool ChoiceSpotlightsStudent spotlightTax 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
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Coronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation ChoiceFeaturedNewsSchool ChoiceStudent spotlightVirtual 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
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Education ChoiceEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedGardiner ScholarshipHomeschoolingSchool ChoiceSpotlightsStudent spotlight

Gardiner Scholarship brings hope, healing to blind teen

Lisa Buie March 18, 2020
Lisa Buie

Sarah Clanton, blind since birth, works twice a week with therapist Lisa Michelangeo, owner of Emerald M Therapeutic Riding Center. The center has been an approved Gardiner Scholarship provider since 2016.

BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — The teenage girl in the bright pink helmet sits astride the dark bay horse with the poise of an experienced equestrian.

“Sarah, can you tell your horse to go?” the physical therapist asks. Sarah gently taps the top of Cappy’s head, and the 1,000-pound beast negotiates the ring at a gentle trot.

For half an hour or so, Sarah and Cappy move as one. Sarah experiences the horse’s movements, which are similar to the human gait. Sessions like this are helping Sarah learn to walk. They’re also helping the 13-year-old, who was born blind, learn balance and coordination.

The therapist guides her through a routine that includes raising her arms, then reaching for a plastic ring and grabbing it. Sarah’s mother, Yvonne Clanton, watches from just outside the fence.

“Yvonne said we were her last hope,” said Lisa Michelangelo, who has worked with Sarah for nearly two years. “She has improved tremendously.”

Sarah uses a bareback pad so she can feel the motion of the horse beneath her.

Sarah was non-verbal and didn’t want to be touched when she first arrived at Emerald M Therapeutic Riding Center, carried in her brother’s arms.

Now, each therapy session ends with Michelangelo asking: “Sarah, can you hug your horse?”

Every time, Sarah leans forward and wraps her arms around Cappy’s neck.

***

Before her adoptive parents named her Sarah, this daughter of a Russian army soldier was named Victoria. But the workers at the Ukraine mental institution where she was sent shortly after her birth never used her name. They never cuddled her. They kept her head shaved.

Born with Peter’s Anomaly, a rare genetic condition that involves thinning and clouding of the cornea, she spent the first five years of her life strapped to a bed.

Yvonne and her husband, Jon, pastor of a local church and chaplain at a nearby state prison, already had two children, but they were captivated by a photo of Victoria that they saw on an international adoption website. Yvonne initially planned to launch a fundraising campaign and encourage a family to adopt Victoria.

“That lasted about three days,” Yvonne said.

Within eight weeks, the Clantons had initiated adoption proceedings and were off to Ukraine to bring their daughter home.

Yvonne recalls seeing Victoria for the first time sitting in a wheelchair in the institution’s foyer. The child could barely move and was unable to hold her body upright. She weighed only 18 lbs. and wore infant-sized clothing. 

For the next two-and-a-half months, the couple made daily visits to feed and play with her. They changed her name to Sarah, which means “princess” in Hebrew.

After each visit, a worker would return the child to her small cot and apply three straps, one across her chest, one at her waist and one across her thighs.

“They told us she was mentally retarded, that she would never walk or talk,” Yvonne said. “They said, ‘She’s always going to be a vegetable.’ ”

The staff’s attitude changed when the Clantons brought their son Sam to visit. Born with the same condition as Sarah, as well as cerebral palsy, he had learned to walk.

“It’s like they began trusting us more,” Yvonne said.

***

Back home, the family’s challenges were just beginning. Their pediatrician told them Sarah was only months from dying when they rescued her.

After they got her stabilized, they enrolled her in the Hernando County School District’s hospital homebound program for medically fragile children, but it wasn’t a good fit. Then they learned that both Sarah and Sam were eligible for the Gardiner Scholarship, which helps Florida families individualize education plans for their children with certain special needs.

Created in 2014, the scholarship currently serves more than 13,000 students. It differs from other state scholarship programs in that it provides an education savings account that parents can use to direct money toward a combination of programs and approved providers. Approved expenses include tuition, therapy, curriculum, technology and a college savings account.

The Clantons used Gardiner funds to send Sarah and Sam to a small private school. But Sam got sick and had to be hospitalized, so Yvonne opted to homeschool both children.

Meanwhile, the family experimented with many therapies to help Sarah gain more independence. Her strength improved, but she still had no motor control. And because she was blind, she had trouble orienting herself. Therapists told the family she probably would never walk. Invest in a handicap-accessible van, they suggested.

As Sarah grew, it became more and more difficult for Yvonne to carry her and to lift her in and out of the bathtub. Then she remembered seeing an Emerald M flier at Sarah’s former private school, and she made what turned out to be a life-changing phone call.

Sarah’s therapy includes movement exercises that have improved her agility both on and off her horse.

The 20-acre center nestled in the rolling hills of eastern Hernando County has been providing horse therapy to veterans and special needs children for four years. Among its offerings is hippotheraphy, a modality used by physical, occupational and speech therapists to utilize the movements of a horse to assist clients with motor and sensory impairments. Luckily for the Clantons, Emerald M has been an approved Gardiner Scholarship program provider since 2016. They were able to use their scholarship funds to pay for Sarah’s twice-a-week horse therapy.

“It’s been tremendous in servicing our families who may not be able to afford this type of therapy for their child,” Michelangelo said, noting that not all health insurance providers cover horse therapy.  

But even with the financial burden lifted, the therapist knew Sarah would have challenges given what she endured in Ukraine.

“She had no concept of where the placement of her feet were,” Michelangelo said. “The legs were crisscrossing and scissoring, her knees were giving way, her hips were buckling. Her pelvis was all over.”

Residual traumatic stress caused Sarah to fear noise and touch. She balked at getting close to the horse’s face. Michelangelo positioned her on a bareback pad so she could better feel the horse move beneath her. Within weeks, the therapy team started seeing improvements. Sarah’s core strengthened. She became more aware of her movements. She began maneuvering better.

The team then had her touch the horse’s face and feel its breath. Michelangelo put her hand over Sarah’s, guiding her to make the horse move forward by tapping it twice. Now Sarah can command the horse to move on her own.

“It just blows my mind because … she’s never seen a horse,” Michelangelo said. “She has no idea what it looks like, but she trusts that he’s here to help her.”

***

Sarah’s mother, Yvonne, sees weekly improvement in her daughter thanks to the Gardiner Scholarship.

Sarah’s progress extends beyond the ring at Emerald M. Her sessions there, combined with more traditional physical therapy, have made it possible for her to get in and out of the bathtub with only a handhold from Yvonne. She can move from one couch to another in the family’s living room and can navigate the van on her own.

She’s also developing verbal skills, saying “yeah” and making an “n” sound for no.

Yvonne, who still carries with her the photo of Sarah at age 5, wishes her daughter’s former caregivers could see her now, benefiting from equipment purchased with Gardiner funds including a record player, rocking toys for vision-impaired children and an indoor foam slide.

“Here’s this little kid who was tied to a bed in Ukraine, and she’s in my living room throwing herself down the slide, just like any other kid would do,” Yvonne said.

She credits the Gardiner Scholarship for giving Sarah a second chance.

“Gardiner is an incredible thing to have in our family, and we are so completely grateful for it,” she said. “It has changed our lives.”

 

March 18, 2020 0 comment
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Education ChoiceFaith-based EducationFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool ChoiceSpotlightsStudent spotlightVouchers

Florida Tax Credit Scholarship eased journey for college-bound high school senior

redefinED staff March 3, 2020
redefinED staff

Carlos Escobar noticed a difference in his attitude and academic performance almost as soon as he transferred to Classical Christian School for the Arts.

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. – Carlos Escobar, a popular and successful senior at Classical Christian School For The Arts, will be graduating in May. But his walk across the stage won’t begin to describe the twisting road he traveled to get there.

Carlos was born in Puerto Rico and entered the U.S. as an infant in foster care. He was moved from home to home with his little brother and recalls feeling hopeless.

The two were finally adopted when Carlos was 4 years old and his brother just a year younger. But not long after, his parents dropped a bombshell on him: The family was moving to Florida, uprooting him from friends in Massachusetts. “I didn’t like it at all,” he says.

School didn’t help either. He entered a public middle school where he says the classes were too big and too rowdy. He was unable to focus and do his work. He felt like the teachers didn’t really care about him. The result was academic failure.

“It was horrible,” says Carlos. “I was failing every class. I didn’t want to be in Florida.”

Classical Christian School for the Arts provides instruction in all subjects from a Christian world-view.

When the time for high school came around, Carlos and his mother were afraid things were only going to get worse. They knew he needed something new and different. So the family took a chance and scheduled a tour of the school at Classical Christian School For The Arts in Pinellas Park.

Kim Merrigan is the school’s executive director and remembers the meeting well.

“They were concerned about the public school system and really wanted a private school education for their boys,” says Merrigan.

The family knew they would need some kind of financial aid to make attendance possible, so they were pleased to learn about Step Up For Students and the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for families with limited financial means. They anxiously applied and learned that both of their boys were eligible.

Carlos noticed a difference immediately. Even as a freshman, he started to improve his grades and his outlook on the future. But he was way behind in his subjects, and his challenge was enormous.

School director Merrigan was impressed with Carlos’ ability to focus through his adversity, including some struggles at home.

“Because of the resources that were available to him here through the Step Up For Students program, he was able to reach out to the staff and his fellow students here at school, and get back on the right track,” she says.

Francesko Cekrezi, the school’s athletic director and Carlos’ soccer coach and geography teacher, agrees. He saw Carlos push himself in the classroom and become a leader on the basketball court and the soccer field.

“I have seen him grow so much,” says Cekrezi.

Slowly, after all the F’s in middle school, Carlos’ grades began turning to C’s and B’s. As a senior, he is tackling Algebra 2, English 4 and physics in the classroom, as well as pursuing online courses in economics and statistics.

Carlos gives credit to Classical Christian.

“Private school is different,” he says. “The classes are smaller. There’s not one teacher that doesn’t care here, and I’m proud to say I’ll be graduating in 2020.”

Carlos Escobar enjoys the combination of a brick-and-mortar curriculum and online classes.

In turn, Cekrezi gives credit to Carlos.

“His has been a wonderful journey. The journey has not been without road bumps, a lot of road bumps but a lot of joy, because when I see where he was and where he is right now, I feel pride on that because he worked so hard to achieve that.”

After graduation, Carlos plans to stay close to home and go to a local or community college for his first two years. He hopes to continue playing basketball but also plans to study in the one field that he feels helped him most along his way.

He wants to become a teacher.

March 3, 2020 0 comment
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CustomizationEducation ChoiceFeaturedGardiner ScholarshipHomeschoolingParental ChoiceSchool ChoiceSpotlightsStudent spotlight

archivED: Gardiner Scholarships give students with autism a homeschool lifeline

Livi Stanford January 11, 2020
Livi Stanford

Jared Wendlberger, pictured with his mother, Sandy Edwards, who learned about the Gardiner Scholarship from an administrator at Jared’s school.

Every school day was a battle for Jared Wendlberger.

The 7-year-old would come home in tears after his backpack and lunch were stolen by his classmates.

Jared, who is on the autism spectrum, was placed in an emotional behavior disorder class in the second grade. Some of the students in the class were two years older and several of them were violent, his mother, Sandy Edwards, remembers.

Jared was bullied regularly and it affected him on many levels. He was self-conscious about everything and became withdrawn. He was unable to finish his school work and was performing poorly.

But the abuse did not happen just at school. He faced it with other adults in his life, in encounters that had to be handled in the court system. He was beaten and ended up with a major concussion.

Edwards moved Jared from three different public schools to a private school. But each school presented new challenges.

Jared found it hard to participate in a classroom setting. He was reluctant to finish his work and became argumentative with the teacher. He would say no to everything. Depending on the situation, he would either display zero emotion or every emotion. He would read something and burst into tears. These were traits, his mother says, that are common for children with high-functioning autism.

“We were in the midst of the trauma of behavior issues,” Edwards said. “There were days when I did not know what I would do as a parent because there were times when the behavior was so bad that we were almost at our wit’s end.”

An administrator at her son’s private school then told her about the Gardiner Scholarship, a state program that allows families with children with severe special needs to pay for therapy, school tuition and other education-related services of their choice. The scholarship afforded Edwards the ability to tailor education programs, high-end curriculum and therapies to suit her son’s needs.

The Gardiner Scholarship is also unique in another way among the educational choice options that Florida provides: It provides scholarship support for parents who choose home education for their children. Last year, 1,615 students with autism were homeschooled with help from Gardiner.

Now in his fourth year as a homeschooled student, Jared is thriving, Edwards said. He is ahead in every class and is taking Algebra 1 as a seventh grader.

“When you talk about the power homeschooling has given me to provide him the best path, it doesn’t get any better than this,” Edwards said.

With the scholarship, Edwards can provide a full engineering curriculum for her son, who aspires to go to MIT. She ordered a Lego robotics kit and enrolled him in occupational therapy to help him work on hand-eye coordination and growth motor skills.

The Lego set has a programmable robotic brain, so he can create working prototypes. Next year, he will be old enough to join a robotics team. Within a homeschooling environment, he can work one-on-one with his mother figuring out problems. This makes it easier for him to grasp concepts.

Writing is his biggest challenge.

“It is not coming up with the words on paper,” Edwards said. “It is the act of putting the words on paper. He is so self-conscious about his penmanship.”

While in the school system, Jared worried so much about the penmanship he was paralyzed from writing anything coherent, Edwards said.

Now he is constantly working on his writing, overcoming his anxieties. He is performing above grade level.

Jared is in many ways your typical middle school child. Oftentimes, you will find him with a book, his mother says. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are his favorites. He also loves to build things.

To a great degree, Edwards credits the scholarship options. “Having my son, I have learned that these choices are so important for kids because no kid fits in the same box as another child,” she said.

Other students with autism have also benefited from homeschooling with the help of the Gardiner scholarship.

Erin Voshell’s son, Garrett, who also has autism, was bullied and struggled in traditional public schools.

Voshell said he couldn’t complete 50 percent of the work in fifth grade.

The family looked for options and thought about enrolling him in a high-functioning autism private school. But administrators said he was too high-functioning, Voshell said.

Looking for a different option, Voshell learned about Gardiner, and like Edwards, found that coupling the program with homeschooling was the most beneficial option for her son.

Now he is enrolled in Classical Conversations, a worldwide homeschool curriculum focused on the classical method of teaching. He is taking Latin and Algebra. The 14-year-old is performing better than he did in the traditional public-school system, his mother says.

In public school, Garrett was timid and did not want to engage in much conversation. The scholarship provides Garrett with Applied Behavior Analysis, a therapeutic approach that helps students with autism improve their communication, social and academic skills.

As a result, he became more confident, Voshell said.

“You can see how lighthearted, fun and happy he is,” said Voshell. “He loves school now. That is not something you hear out of a 14-year-old.”

Garrett hopes to become a video game designer. The scholarship allowed Voshell to buy her son a computer that teaches him how to code for video game design.

“The (Gardiner) program has helped to give me my child back,” she said.

January 11, 2020 0 comment
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Faith-based EducationFeaturedHope ScholarshipSchool ChoiceSpotlightsStudent spotlight

archivED: First Hope Scholarship brings peace to fifth-grader

Scott Kent December 26, 2019
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.”

December 26, 2019 0 comment
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