Parents with special-needs kids decry school voucher funding woes

Orlando Sentinel | By Leslie Postal | November 2, 2023

Florida’s historic expansion of voucher programs this spring delighted many school choice supporters, but some parents of children with disabilities haven’t received the scholarships, some have struggled with funding delays and others are upset they got a limited-use payroll card instead of direct deposit.

“There are just so many layers of hassle. This is one population that really needs the hassle taken away,” said Barbara Beasley, a Longwood mother whose daughter has complex medical and educational needs and uses a voucher to cover homeschooling supplies, tutoring and therapies.

Beasley, an advocate for other special needs parents, says many are fed up with this year’s problems, even as they back Florida’s effort to provide scholarships to students who wouldn’t thrive in public school.

“We all support school choice 150% because we’ve seen the benefits for our children,” Beasley said. “There should be no reason the children in this state can’t be served appropriately and individually.”

The state scholarship for children with disabilities is meant to provide at least $10,000 to students not in public school. Their parents can use the money for private school tuition but also for therapy, homeschooling services and technology, among other options.

More than 85,400 students have been awarded a Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students With Unique Abilities for the current school year, up from about 70,000 a year ago, according to Step Up For Students, a non-profit agency that administers most of Florida’s school voucher programs.

House Speaker Paul Renner said in January that the scholarship expansion legislation (HB 1) approved this past spring aimed to “completely clear the waitlist,” so children with disabilities who wanted a voucher could get one. While the bill eliminated income requirements on the state’s two biggest voucher programs making every school-age child in Florida eligible, it kept in place a complicated cap on the number of scholarships for youngsters with disabilities.

So as demand for scholarships increased this year, some students with disabilities are again waiting, even as more scholarships have been awarded. That has frustrated and angered some parents and disability advocates.

The Legislature, which meets in a special session starting Monday, plans to address the greater-than-anticipated demand, looking to “provide a mechanism to increase the number of students served,” according to the proclamation calling the special session.

Bills don’t provide numbers

The bills filed Thursday do not specify how many students with disabilities are still waiting for scholarships. But it says that all students determined eligible by scholarship funding organizations — Step Up is the largest of the two that work in Florida — and the Florida Department of Education should be able to receive one.

Senate staff said the new bill would not require additional money as more scholarships could be “absorbed” by education funds earmarked in the budget approved in the spring. The House analysis says the cost is “indeterminate.”

A slide presented by Step Up during a training for private school employees in late September — one shared with the Orlando Sentinel by a school employee — showed nearly 11,000 children with disabilities on a waitlist.

But Scott Kent, a Step Up spokesman, declined via email to confirm that number, deferring questions to the education department. Cailey Myers, a spokeswoman for the education department, did not respond to requests for the waitlist number.

In late September, Myers said via email that the department knew Step Up had “a large number of outstanding applications” due to “unprecedented demand for school choice in Florida” and that it was working with the organization to determine how many could still be awarded.

The Legislature next week likely will not deal with parents and private school owners’ other frustrations, but a group plans to be in Tallahassee to share their views nonetheless, Beasley said.

They are upset that scholarship accounts have not been funded as quickly this year, temporarily leaving families to pay for services on their own and making schools miss out on tuition payments. And they are annoyed Step Up has sent them pay cards from USBank to handle scholarship money.

“I’m very grateful for the scholarship, but it feels scary not knowing what we can expect,” said a Volusia County mother, who paid $2,000 out of pocket for therapy and tutoring while waiting for scholarship funds.

That mother, who asked not to be named to protect her family’s privacy, said she was issued a USBank card to receive scholarship money for her teenager with autism. But she doesn’t think her bank will accept it, and she is uncomfortable that so much money is on a payroll card.

“I don’t feel comfortable walking into 7-Eleven getting cash,” she added.

USBank does not have branches in Florida and online directs its customers to 7-Eleven ATMs for withdrawals.

“This isn’t working. It’s a very broken system,” agreed Marie Preston, who runs a small private school for students with autism in South Florida.

Preston, who has accepted Florida scholarships for 20 years, said payments that typically came by Sept. 1, if not earlier, came in mid- to late September this year. Because most of her students rely on state scholarships to cover tuition, she was forced to take out a loan to temporarily pay her school’s rent and payroll.

Other school owners face similar problems, she said, adding that a Zoom call in September included nearly 100 school owners, all with similar frustrations.

State law changed the funding requirements for the scholarships this year, adding steps to the process and leading to money getting to families later than in past years, Scott Kent, a Step Up spokesman, wrote in an email. Step Up met its deadlines, he added, and tried to explain to families and schools that the changes would mean later-than-usual payments this fall.

But it also realizes the change posed challenges, Kent said. “We understand that UA families and the schools that serve them need the money much sooner,” he wrote, using an acronym for “unique abilities.”

Step Up hopes that in its regular 2024 regular session the Legislature revisits the legislation, making changes to speed up the payment process, he added.

Why switch to pay cards?

Step Up opted for the pay cards over direct deposit — which it used previously for the scholarships for disabled children  — because it decided it was “not fiscally responsible” to have the banking information for the families of more than 350,000 students who are now using one of Florida’s scholarships, he said.

The cards also were more convenient for families who did not have bank accounts, Kent wrote, and Step Up used them for the past two years without problems for families whose children received a state reading scholarship.

But, he added, “we have heard the concerns of the families, and we will be rolling out an alternative in the next few weeks.”

Parents also questioned whether Step Up gave the card business to USBank because one of its advisory board members is a manager with the bank’s commercial division.

But Kent said there was no conflict because Gary Andresen joined its advisory board after Step Up decided to use the cards.

Preston, owner of Diverse Abilities in Davie, said she and others are also upset that some children with disabilities, including seven at her school, are still waiting for scholarships when every “typical” child has been guaranteed one under the new law.

“That’s not fair,” she said. “It’s clearly, clearly discrimination.”