TAMPA, Fla. — The words on the trophy read “Future Philanthropist,” and Mrs. Finley, who taught fifth grade that year, cried when she presented it to Andrew Weber during graduation.
Andrew smiled at the memory.
“It was one of the highlights of my elementary school career,” he said. “Mrs. Finley said I was one of her favorite students. That meant a lot to me.”
So did receiving the trophy, which still holds a place of honor on his nightstand.
“It made me realize my potential and how I can help others,” Andrew said.
Almost seven years later, Andrew, a 17-year-old senior, is nearing another graduation, this time from Jesuit High School, the Catholic school in Tampa he attends with the help of a Florida education choice scholarship.
The altruistic nature Mrs. Finley saw in Andrew when he was in elementary school blossomed during the ensuing years.
Jesuit’s mantra is “Men for Others,” and Andrew embodies that.
“He does 100%,” said Andy Wood, Jesuit’s athletic trainer and track and field coach, and the school’s former director of community service. “Andrew is one of our top students. And when you talk about a total package, including his community service work, being a student athlete, he's what we envision our seniors being at graduation.”
Andrew volunteered for eight service organizations while in high school.
He made two trips to an orphanage in Guatemala with his Jesuit classmates, feeds people at Metropolitan Ministries, and delivers Meals on Wheels with his mother, May.
He’s volunteered for the Faith Café, the Young Men’s Service League, Teens United Florida, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and the Ryan Nece Foundation, a non-profit founded by a former Tampa Bay Buccaneer that empowers teens to become leaders through volunteering.
Andrew traveled to Asheville, North Carolina, last June with the Ryan Nece Foundation to help families with home repairs still needed after the flooding caused by Hurricane Helene.
He is a pole vaulter on the track and field team, and in his spare time, he plays the piano at a local nursing home.
As a junior, Andrew received the Anne Frank Humanitarian Award from the Florida Holocaust Museum in Tampa for his outstanding humanitarian efforts.
Andrew’s parents, May and Tim, raised him and his older sister, Elise, to be community-minded. Elise, now a sophomore at the University of Georgia, also volunteered for the Ryan Nece Foundation while in high school.
“As his parents, we always wanted Andrew to be very involved in a lot of things and explore different passions, and luckily for him, many of those passions really stuck,” May said.
Andrew set the foundation in elementary school when he sold lemonade, handmade crafts, and rocks (crystals and gems) from a stand in the front yard of the family’s Tampa home. He said he would raise maybe $100 over several weeks and donate the money to charities such as Dogs Inc (formerly Southeastern Guide Dogs).
“I was 8,” he said. “I felt the money could benefit other people more than it could benefit me.”
“His heart was always generous,” May said.
For a teenager as service-oriented as Andrew, he certainly found a home at Jesuit, where students are required to complete a minimum of 150 hours of community service during their four years. Andrew, though, has accrued more than 500.
Yet, the decision to attend Jesuit was not easy.
“It was a very hard decision,” Andrew said.
His options were these: his district school, where Elise was a rising junior and where a lot of his friends were headed, or Jesuit, an all-male parochial school with demanding academic standards.
For help, Andrew turned to his role model: his big sister.
“She said, ‘Andrew, if you pass up this opportunity, you might regret it for the rest of your life.’ So I said, ‘I'm going to listen to you,’” Andrew said.
Thinking back on it now, Andrew added, “She was right.”
He has no regrets.
Andrew’s two trips to Orfanato Valle de Los Angeles (the Valley of the Angels orphanage) outside of Guatemala City with his classmates opened his eyes to how fortunate he is to live in America.
The orphanage did not have air conditioning, and hot water was spotty at best.
Wi-Fi? Yeah, right.
“I just put down my phone and started living in the environment, living how these kids live, and I realized that life can be fun,” Andrew said.
The Jesuit students spent nine days with at-risk children, teaching them English and about their faith.
Andrew called the experience “life-changing.”
“In Tampa, we really live in a bubble,” he said. “There are things I don’t take for granted anymore.”
Like AC, hot water, and a strong Wi-Fi signal.
And how a simple act of kindness can make a world of difference in someone’s day.
During the summers, he and his mom deliver Meals on Wheels to older adults and others unable to leave their homes without difficulty. It’s a bonding moment between the two, quality time spent together for a mom and her son.
“It's probably my favorite thing that we have done together,” May said.
“It’s the favorite thing that I do,” Andrew said.
They don’t rush through their route. Instead, they spend a few minutes at each stop, checking on the people receiving the meal, making small talk, and letting them know they matter.
When they first started delivering the meals, May told Andrew: “We’re probably the only people they're going to talk to that day, so even though this is sort of a blip on your radar, this is their day; this is their weekend; this is their week. So, make it count.”
Andrew took that lesson to heart.
A man for others.
“I feel like if I were in that situation where I needed help, I obviously want someone to do the same thing for me,” he said. “Spreading Jesuit’s values across what I do is a big part of why I do it. What I've learned here, it really propels me to do what I do in such a great way.”
Andrew wants to major in business in college. Where? He hasn’t decided. His choices are the University of Georgia, the University of Tennessee, Boston College, and Florida State University.
Where will that major lead him? He’s not sure.
“I can tell you it will be with people,” May said. “Whether it's finance or accounting, marketing or entrepreneurship, his love is working with people. I think it's just what comes naturally to him. He motivates people and makes people feel better about themselves. So, that’s my prediction.”
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Life, it’s often said, is what happens when you’re making other plans.
Tasia Mathis planned on joining the U.S. Navy Reserve. Then her grandmother, with whom Tasia and her younger brother Jeremiah lived with, died suddenly from complications of kidney failure.
“The papers were signed, but I wasn’t able to go through with it,” Tasia said. “I had to make sure he was OK.”
Tasia, 20 at the time, became her brother’s guardian.
While Tracy Crawford’s passing in June 2023 ended Tasia’s goal of joining the Navy, it didn’t end her goal of a bright future for herself and Jeramiah.
For that, she credits Florida's private school scholarships managed by Step Up For Students.
The scholarships enabled Tasia, now 22, and Jeremiah to attend Academy Prep Center of St. Petersburg for middle school and allowed Jeremiah, 15, to continue his private school education at Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, where he is a sophomore this year.
“(The scholarship) gave us the opportunity to go to a school that we probably wouldn't be able to go to,” Tasia said. “It gave us the opportunity to expand our knowledge so good things can come into our lives.”
Tasia is studying to become a phlebotomist and works as a teacher at the Academy for Love and Learning in St. Petersburg.
Jeremiah would like to attend the United States Air Force Academy and work in cybersecurity.
The two, who share an apartment in St. Petersburg, have goals and are working toward them with a determination forged by Tracy Crawford, their grandmother, and reinforced by their years at Academy Prep.
“They don’t let you give up,” Tasia said when asked what she liked about attending Academy Prep. “Even if you had issues, they never let you give up.”
Could you blame them if they did?
Tasia was 8 and Jermiah was three weeks old when their mom died. Staci Crawford was only 34 when she suffered a heart attack. That left the children in the care of their grandmother, whose failing health forced Tasia to find work as a counselor at the Police Athletic League when she was 14.
“I had to help out with the bills,” she said. “By the time I was 16, I was cooking, washing everybody's clothes, helping my grandmother out the best I could.”
So, when asked what it’s like to have his sister as his guardian, Jeremiah said, “It’s kind of all I’ve known.”
Tracy wanted Tasia to attend a school that would challenge her academically and offer a safe environment. That’s why she used the private school scholarship to send her to Academy Prep.
At first, Tasia said, it wasn’t a good match. She was not a fan of the school’s long days (7 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or the fact that she had to wear a uniform.
“It took her a while to buy in, and then once she did, she was a high-achiever, and she set the tone for the other kids,” said Lacey Nash Miller, Academy Prep’s executive director of advancement.
For that, Tracy gets a big assist.
“She made sure my grades were straight, my attitude was straight,” Tasia said. “By seventh grade, it all came together.”
For high school, Tasia attended her assigned school because it offered a BETA (Business, Entrepreneurial, Technology Academy) program that interested her.
Jeremiah attended his assigned elementary school, but Tracy wasn’t a fan of his assigned middle school.
“It wasn’t up to her standards,” Tasia said. “She wanted to challenge him.”
So, like his sister, Jeremiah headed crosstown to Academy Prep, where he said he benefited from the school’s academic environment and the self-discipline the teachers try to instill in the students.
Jeremiah said he became more extroverted during his years at Academy Prep.
“I was naturally a quiet person. I didn’t talk much,” he said. “Now, I talk to people. I try to start conversations.”
He also credited his teachers, specifically Zack Brockett, a science teacher, for guiding him toward being a young adult.
“He pushed us to grow up, so that we can go into high school as mature students,” Jeremiah said.
His teachers at Academy Prep describe Jeremiah as a quiet student who completed his assignments on time, helped out around campus, and amazed them with his drawing ability.
“Jeremiah is very self-driven,” Britanny Dillard, Academy Prep’s assistant head of school, said. “He’s one of those people that you kind of underestimate because he's so quiet that you don't even truly realize the talents that he actually has. He’s not the first to raise his hand, but he knows the answer.”
Jeremiah was a member of the school’s track team. He threw the shot put and discus. At graduation, Jeremiah received the Priscilla E. Frederick Foundation, worth $1,500 toward the balance of his freshman year tuition at Admiral Farragut. Frederick is a former Olympic high jumper who competed for Antigua and Barbuda in the 2016 Summer Games. Her foundation awards scholarships and grants to students raised in single-parent households. Jeremiah was the first Academy Prep student to earn that scholarship.
He is a soft-spoken, unassuming young man with a growing vinyl record collection and an interest in graphic novels and comic books. He will participate in track and field this year and will take an aviation class, which he feels will benefit him when he gets to the Air Force Academy.
Jeremiah spends his high school volunteer hours at Academy Prep. He helps grade papers, organize classrooms, and move supplies around campus.
Jeremiah and Tasia are spoken highly of at Academy Prep. Both Dillard and Nash Miller said they were “heartbroken” when they learned of Tracy’s death, and both admitted they were worried for the future of the siblings.
“They only had each other, and I think it speaks highly of Tasia that she was willing to accept that role,” Dillard said.
Said Nash Miller: “The news that her grandmother passed just gutted me. She had all these plans, and she just cancelled them to be her brother’s primary caregiver. What a superhero to put her brother’s needs ahead of her own.”
Among Ilen Perez-Valdez’ many accolades: National Honor Society member, Immaculate-LaSalle’s Spanish Honors Society president, Science Honors Society vice president, and English Honors Society treasurer.
MIAMI – Nery Perez-Valdes wanted to become a doctor, but life got in the way.
She fled Cuba for Miami with her mom when she was 11 and found herself working at 14 to help pay the bills. Nery would become a single mom and for a long stretch worked two jobs to keep the lights on and food on the table.
Nery always wanted a private school education for her daughter, Ilen, and a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship made possible by corporate donations to Step Up For Students allowed that to happen.
“I was a single mom since I was three months pregnant, and when I’m saying, ‘single mom,’ I’m telling you ‘single mom.’ No child support. No help. No nothing. Period. The end,” Nery said. “Thanks to Step Up For Students, Ilen was able to get the education I wanted for her.”
Ilen has made the most of that opportunity – and then some.
She graduated this spring near the top of her class at Immaculate-LaSalle High School, a prestigious Catholic school in Miami. She has a scholarship to the University of Miami and plans to major in neuroscience and double minor in business administration management and Spanish. Her goal is to attend medical school and become a pediatric oncologist.
“My mother never received a college education. She was barely able to graduate high school. All she has done since she got (to the United States) is work, work, work,” Ilen said. “She came here looking for the American dream. I feel like if I succeed, she can live out her American dream through me.”
Ilen has received a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship since kindergarten. She said she’s grateful for the opportunity to receive a quality education – first at Saint Agatha Catholic School, and then at Immaculata-LaSalle.
“It was really difficult to make ends meet when I was younger, so I wouldn’t have been able to attend a private school where I received such an excellent education,” she said.
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Editor’s note: This article about Black Minds Matter founder Denisha Allen appeared recently on theharlemtimes.com. To read a report about Black educator-entrepreneurs authored by Allen and Step Up For Students’ Ron Matus, click here.
Denisha Allen’s journey from a troubled student to a master’s degree graduate and leader in education reform is a model of the American Dream. Born in a poor neighborhood in Jacksonville, Florida, Denisha’s early experience with public schools was about as bad as it gets.
Her life at home was a struggle, and going to school was like going off to battle. Her mom and uncles had already dropped out, and her teachers had already given up on her because she shared their last name. She was terrified of being called on in class because she was reading below her grade level and regularly had to avoid getting into physical and emotional fights with her classmates.
Then things began to change. She moved in with her godmother who applied for a state scholarship program to a small private school. It was a revelation. Her new school was immaculate, and every day, teachers greeted the kids with smiles and sunny personalities.
She was able to let her guard down and for the first time felt compelled to compete in academics. She received one-on-one tutelage, and her reading and math ability jumped above her grade level. Denisha’s biggest concern became not achieving honor roll. In junior and senior year, she achieved straight A’s and went on to graduate with a master’s in social work from the University of South Florida.
She worked in the U.S Department of Education for two years and then the American Federation for Children where she started Black Minds Matter.
Denisha went on to share her success story at her old school and church. While her family wasn’t thrilled about the idea of sharing her humble beginnings, the experience was a form of therapy. She felt like a celebrity when she was invited by Governor Charlie Crist of Florida to promote his program for education reform and an expansion bill to target corporate dollars at primary school scholarships.
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Serving students on the south side of Peoria, Illinois, an area that struggles with high unemployment, poverty and crime, South Side Christian Academy is a “faith-funded school,” self-described as one with faith that God will provide the funds needed to educate students.
Editor’s note: This commentary from Keri D. Ingraham, a fellow at Discovery Institute, director of the American Center for Transforming Education, and a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, appeared earlier today on washingtonexaminer.com.
On the heels of a historic year of school choice advancement, including legislation that enacted universal or near-universal school choice programs in seven states, Illinois is poised to go in the opposite direction, delivering a blow to low-income families.
Specifically, the Democratic-controlled legislature in Illinois is positioned to let the Invest in Kids $100 million tax-credit scholarship program, enacted in 2017, sunset at the end of this calendar year. The action will nix a school choice program currently providing educational options to 9,000 low-income students.
As a tax-credit scholarship, the school choice program is not directly funded with taxpayer dollars but is privately funded by people and businesses who contribute through a qualified scholarship-granting organization.
Regardless, state lawmakers intentionally opted not to extend the program during the spring legislative session by failing to include it in the state’s budget implementation bill. Several other bills introduced during the session that would have extended the program also failed.
According to Myles Mendoza, founder and former President of Empower Illinois, the organization that led the inception of the tax credit scholarship policy, “despite daily pleas throughout the legislative session to extend the school choice program from parents, grandparents, foster parents, and guardians of children receiving the tax credit scholarship, Democratic House Speaker Chris Welch didn’t seem to even notice.”
The Democrat lawmakers’ loyalties lay with the public school teachers unions, who are stark opponents of school choice because having more children enrolled in public schools increases teacher staffing levels, equating to more members’ dues into union coffers, and who spend millions of dollars fueling Democratic political campaigns every year.
It’s a vicious funding cycle, with Democrat politicians and teachers union leaders pledging unwavering allegiance to each other in this quid pro quo relationship. Clearly, the importance of providing low-income students an opportunity to receive a better education pales in comparison.
But there was another reason the teachers unions pressured Illinois’ Democratic lawmakers to ensure the school choice program ends: The program shed a glaring light on the magnitude of parents seeking to free their children from the failing union-controlled Illinois public schools.
According to test data released by the Illinois State Board of Education, a startling 70% of Illinois public school students fail to read at grade level, and 75% fail to meet proficiency in math.
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A new study from a professor of economics in the Gatton College of Business and Economics at the University of Kentucky finds positive correlation between states’ K-12 student achievement and their education choice policies.
According to the paper, “Enhancing economic freedom via school choice and competition: Have state laws been enabling enough to generate broad-based effects?” released in early May, states with school choice programs saw large improvements in statewide test scores.
The report follows a study released earlier this year from Patrick J. Wolf, Jay P. Greene, James D. Paul and Matthew Ladner that shows similar results.
“This paper’s basic findings indicate strikingly large fourth grade reading and math test score gains for states that have adopted voucher programs and/or Education Savings Accounts,” wrote the researcher, John Garen.
The study shows that charter schools produced positive test score improvements, though only if the state’s enabling charter school law was not deemed “restrictive.”
Additionally, Garen found that increases in per-pupil spending correlated with improved test scores, but this impact was significantly smaller than offering a voucher or education savings account.
The paper compared National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores from 1992 to 2019 and to the availability of school choice programs and the restrictions on student eligibility, as well as scholarship funding. However, the research did not include home education or district open enrollment policies in the results.
The study also considers whether school choice laws permit or restrict enrollment and new school entry, total public school per-pupil spending, and adjusts for the student’s race, income and learning disability status.
The number of states offering private school choice programs has grown steadily over the last two decades. (Scholarship Tax Credit (STC), Individual Tax Credit (ITC), Voucher (VOU), Education Savings Account (ESA))
According to Garen, for every $1,000 increase in per-pupil spending, there was a corresponding increase of 0.25 points in reading and 0.14 in math.
States with charter schools, however, saw decreases in both math and reading scores, but this may be impacted by restrictive charter school laws. States with less restrictive charter school laws, which would allow more students and schools, saw an increase of 0.65 points on the NAEP, the equivalent of increasing per-pupil spending by $2,500.
A statewide voucher program improved reading by 2.25 points, and the education savings account improved reading scores by 3.46 points, an effect that is 13 times stronger than simply increasing per-pupil spending.
Math scores also improved significantly in states with voucher and ESA programs. According to the researcher, the effect of an ESA program on statewide math scores was 27 times stronger than increasing per-pupil spending by $1,000.
States with ESA programs observed in the study include Arizona, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida.
Here are some additional findings:
According to Garen, vouchers and education savings accounts were better funded than tax credit scholarships but funded less than traditional public schools.
“Such programs,” the research concludes, “are associated with large improvements in Grade 4 reading and math NAEP test scores and are much bigger than the effect of school funding. Moreover, they are associated with lower school costs, implying a double dividend of better outcomes at lower cost.”
The report was published May 1.
Spring Valley School in Birmingham, Alabama, one of 457 private schools in the state serving more than 81,500 students, is a college preparatory school whose mission is to provide excellence in education for bright students with learning differences.
Editor’s note: This article appeared last week on al.com.
Alabama lawmakers passed tweaks to the state school choice landscape during the 2023 session but turned down proposals for sweeping expansions. Two school choice bills, one expanding the decade-old Alabama Accountability Act to allow school choice for students with disabilities, and one remaking the 8-year-old public charter school commission, received final passage Thursday.
The Alabama Accountability Act was expanded to allow more students to be eligible for tax credit scholarships, more money for individual scholarships, higher amount of tax credits available and more schools designated as priority – previously called “failing” – meaning more families could claim tax credits for moving their child away from a priority school.
The act now allows students with disabilities, specifically those with an Individualized Education Program or Plan called an IEP, to be eligible for tax credit scholarships to pay for tuition and fees. In addition, students with IEPs can use scholarship proceeds to pay for therapeutic services such as speech and occupational therapy.
More than 80,000 students statewide have IEPs. Currently, only students whose family income is below 185% of the federal poverty level are eligible. That level was raised to 250% under the changes.
About 2,800 students are using tax credit scholarships during the current school year according to the Alabama Department of Revenue. At its peak, more than 4,000 students used the scholarships.
Scholarship availability depends on how much money was contributed to the scholarship granting organizations that determine student eligibility and distribute scholarships. That figure, too, was increased to $40 million from the current level of $30 million.
Just under $20 million in contributions were claimed for tax credit purposes in 2021, according to the Department of Revenue.
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Oklahoma voted to approve the nation’s first religious charter school on Monday, a vote that will almost certainly be challenged in court as debate rages over whether taxpayer dollars can constitutionally go toward funding for religious schools.
An Oklahoma board made history Monday by approving the nation’s first religious charter school, a move that could set the stage for a legal battle over whether such schools, which receive taxpayer money but are independently managed, are public or private.
In a 3-2 vote, the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved an application from the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa to open St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School of Seville, which would serve students across the state without access to a traditional Catholic school and expand course offerings for those who already attend Catholic schools.
Because the application said the charter school would be “Catholic in every way,” it sparked fierce controversy, with threats of lawsuits from opponents and supporters regardless of the decision. The board’s general counsel, Deputy Attorney General Niki Batt, reminded members before the vote that the state constitution and the charter school law included language requiring charter schools to be non-sectarian.
She said the courts would ultimately decide the issue and that the board’s role is to act in an “executive” capacity as opposed to one of advocacy.
“The heart of the matter comes down to whether these schools are public schools or private schools,” Batt said. “This is an issue making it up to the U.S. Supreme Court we speak. It’s not your job to make the law, and not your job to interpret the law. It is your job to enforce the law as it currently exists.”
Two of the three board members who voted for approval said they considered a no vote a violation of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings banning religious discrimination in education. You can watch the board meeting here. (The proceedings begin at minute 1:33.)
Opponents argued before the board Monday that granting the application violated the separation of church and state. Supporters, including former Oklahoma GOP Chairman A.J. Ferate, an attorney who has worked on national religious freedom cases, said anything other than approval would run afoul of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that ban discrimination against faith-based in schools in state education choice programs.
“Over the past six years, there have been three very clear statements from the U.S. Supreme Court,” he said, citing Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, Espinoza v. Montana, and Carson v. Makin, which all upheld the positions of religious groups. “There is no reason that this board needs to enforce or consider any protections under that state provision.”
He added that he would be “happy to protect and defend” the board in a lawsuit from groups opposing their decision.
Since the state’s Catholic leadership filed the application, the issue has caused division, even among the state’s Republicans. Former Attorney General John O’Connor issued an opinion in December as his final official act that came as the statewide virtual charter school authorizing board was set to decide on the application.
O’Connor said in his opinion that the state’s ban on publicly funded charter schools operated by sectarian and religious groups could violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment and should not be enforced.
His successor, Gentner Drummond, withdrew O’Connor’s opinion and argued that it was based on precedent for private schools. Drummond said that state law defines, and the attorney general has previously recognized, charter schools as public schools, and that allowing the state to sponsor a religious school would create “a slippery slope” to use religious liberty to justify state-sponsored religion.
The clash promoted Gov. Kevin Stitt to weigh in by releasing a letter disagreeing with Drummond’s withdrawal of his predecessor’s opinion. State Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters also supported the application.
On Monday, supporters praised the board’s decision.
"This is a win for religious liberty and education freedom in our great state, and I am encouraged by these efforts to give parents more options when it comes to their child’s education," Stitt said in a statement.
“We are elated that the board agreed with our argument and application for the nation’s first religious charter school,” Brett Farley, the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, said after the decision. “Parents continue to demand more options for their kids, and we are committed to help provide them.”
Others, however, provided immediate pushback, including the nation’s leading charter school advocacy group.
“This decision runs afoul of state law and the U.S. Constitution. All charter schools are public schools, and as such must be non-sectarian,” Nina Rees, president and chief executive officer of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools said in a statement shortly after the vote.
Rees continued that the application would undoubtedly face legal challenges from public school supporters.
“We stand ready to support charter school advocates on the ground in Oklahoma as they fight to preserve the public nature of these unique schools and protect the religious and civil rights of the students and teachers who choose them.”
The U.S. Supreme Court could decide the issue before any case involving St. Isidore of Seville reaches it. In a North Carolina dress code case, Peltier v. Charter Day School, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that charter schools are state actors under the state’s legal framework and therefore bound by the Equal Protection Clause when it comes to setting and enforcing educational policies.
The high court asked Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, for guidance.
The hard work and determination of two South Florida mothers, along with support from Teach Florida, led to the launch of JEMS Academy in North Miami Beach. The school serves children with special needs, many of whom attend using Florida’s Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities.
Like many worthy endeavors, it started with two determined moms.
Both Avigayil Shaffren and Shoshana Jablon had children with unique abilities. Shaffren’s son was born with cerebral palsy, which affected his left side. Jablon’s son was born with Down Syndrome and later was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Shaffren’s son attended a charter school for the first four years of his life. The program had its benefits, such as therapies and personal attention that she says he wouldn’t have received anywhere else. But when it came time to start kindergarten, she said, “it was awful.”
Despite her son being assigned a “shadow,” he made little progress. An evaluation turned up other diagnoses, which further complicated things. School officials gave Shaffren a choice: she could have her son repeat kindergarten or place him in a specialized school that would meet his educational needs.
JEMS students, whose unique abilities vary widely, frequently help each other with assignments.
The Shaffrens chose to have him repeat kindergarten, but Shaffren, who is Orthodox Jewish, was concerned about her son’s religious educational needs, especially as he got older. Shortly thereafter, she was laid off her job. Though three months of unemployment brought hardship, it also offered an opportunity.
Shaffren turned to her friend, Jablon, who is also Orthodox Jewish, and said, “That’s it; we’re done. We need to create this school, and we’re not done until we create it.”
Shaffren spent the time she would have devoted to a paying job researching Jewish special education programs, such as OROT, which is the Hebrew word for light. Based in the Philadelphia suburb of Melrose Park, OROT (pronounced OR-oh) partners with four Jewish day schools to provide an integrated education for diverse learners.
Another was SINAI Schools in New York, which is based on a similar model as well as JEWELS, or Jewish Education Where Every Learner Succeeds, a Baltimore program that incorporates therapies into the school day.
Shaffren and Jablon developed a business plan, which Shaffren felt at the time was “a house of cards that was falling apart.”
But, through hard work, determination and support from Teach Florida, they opened JEMS Academy in a building across the street from its umbrella school, Toras Chaim Toras Emes in North Miami Beach.
“It was a miracle,” Shaffren said about the process, which the women said they completed right before the new school year was about to begin.
Though Shaffren’s son was able to start first grade and continue in the umbrella school, she continued to support JEMS, which stands for Jewish Education Made Special. This past year, JEMS opened its doors with five students.
Of those, four received the Florida Family Empowerment Scholarship for students with Unique Abilities. The fifth student had applied but was on the waitlist. The founders say they expect that student to be awarded due to the additional funding and higher growth rates that state lawmakers allowed this year in HB 1.
According to Jablon and Shaffren, the students’ unique abilities vary widely. Staff members, who have advanced degrees in special education, personalize education to best fit each students’ needs. JEMS also provides onsite therapies. Jablon’s 10-year-old son, Nesanel, receives occupational and speech therapies there. The founders are seeking to add a Hebrew reading specialist and build a sensory room.
You can see a video of a typical day at JEMS here.
“It’s mushrooming, really growing,” Jablon said. “We just keep adding things as we see what the needs are.”
The program also includes a music program, which Jablon said serves as a type of therapy for students, some of whom experience anxiety or have autism. A staff member also brings a therapy dog.
“They really act as a cheering squad for one another,” she said. “If someone does something inappropriate, the whole class stops.”
She said it’s a real opportunity to develop social skills because they see how to act with one another.
But one of the biggest benefits to the arrangement has been the opportunity for students at both schools to interact and bond. On Fridays, JEMS students join the Toras Chaim Toras Emes students at an assembly to end the week.
JEMS students join their umbrella school classmates from Toras Chaim Toras Emes, located across the street, for recess.
Girls from the umbrella school also visit and engage the JEMS girls in educational games and performances. Boys from Toras Chaim Toras Emes help put on Bible studies and play games and sports with the JEMS boys. JEMS students also participate in recess at the umbrella school’s playground.
Those interactions have enriched both groups, the JEMS founders say.
Jablon said she hopes getting the word out about what JEMS offers will encourage more parents to consider enrolling their children.
“In general, with parents of students of special needs, moving kids from one school to another creates a lot of instability. So, parents keep their children in programs even if they’re not that great.”
Jablon said the Miami-Dade County School District has been helpful by issuing timely individual education plans for students seeking to go JEMS so they can qualify for the Florida Family Empowerment Scholarship for students with Unique Abilities.
JEMS already has opened a second classroom. The founders hope to expand the program at other Jewish day schools as the original students get older and need to attend single-gender classes as Orthodox Judaism requires. The founders also hope to be able to teach general life skills so the students can be as independent as possible as adults.
Says Jablon: “We want our kids to exist in the larger scheme of people and activities and potential jobs in any capacity they can muster.”
Established in 2001 as a ministry of Grace Covenant Church, Grace Covenant Academy in Cornelius, North Carolina, one of 844 private schools in the state serving more than 123,000 students, prides itself on excellence in Christian education, serving 3-year-olds through Grade 8.
Editor’s note: This commentary from John Hood, a board member at the John Locke Foundation, appeared Wednesday on carolinajournal.com.
The North Carolina General Assembly is about to make all children eligible for the state’s Opportunity Scholarship program. They won’t all receive the same amounts — poor and middle-income families will be eligible for vouchers in the range of $6,500 to $7,200 per student, while upper-income households will receive much less.
Nevertheless, both proponents and opponents are quite properly using the term “universal” to describe the policy, which will go into effect for the 2024-25 academic year.
School-choice advocates are ecstatic. Critics are despondent. Although my sympathies here are evident and longstanding, I think it would behoove both sides to temper their expectations a bit. There won’t be a gigantic exodus of children from district-run public schools in the fall of 2024.
For one thing, North Carolina’s current private schools don’t have the capacity to absorb such an enrollment boom. One of the best arguments for choice programs is their potential to foster entrepreneurship in education.
Just as the creation of charters gave educators, parents, and reformers the capacity to develop new models for public education, voucher expansion will give existing providers the capacity to add new grades and campuses while creating opportunities for new entrants to the K-12 space.
It can’t all happen in a year, though. It takes time to assemble teams, build or rent facilities, hire faculty, and develop content.
Furthermore, while some families will immediately take advantage of scholarships for which they’ll be newly eligible, many others will be intrigued but cautious. They’ll do their homework about what private options are already available, where new schools will open, and when they calculate the benefits of transferring their children will exceed the costs (which aren’t purely monetary, of course).
Still other families will have little interest in taking advantage of opportunity scholarships at all, either because they’re satisfied with the education their children are receiving in public schools — district or charter — or because they don’t like the private options available.
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