Scholarship
I continue to receive questions from homeschool families concerning the legislation that was passed on March 27, 2023. It is known as House Bill 1 and expands the Family Empowerment Scholarship and the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship to making them available to any family with children who are eligible to attend Florida public schools (K-12). This includes children who are schooled in their homes by their parents.
There are many parents who are crying, “At last! We get some financial help with our homeschool expenses!” While this is true, it is prudent to understand the benefits as well as the costs of accepting funding from the government. To that end, I will give a brief summary of what I know about this change and what it could mean for your family.
This piece of legislation, basically, takes the funds that would be used to school a child in the public school system and puts it into an account for parents to use for approved educational expenses. My understanding is that any family is able to apply for the scholarship, but that priority is given to parents/kids in lower income households.
The original wording in the bill made lawyers at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association a little nervous. Their experience with legislation aimed at regulating homeschool families is such that they looked at this bill through a little bit different lens. In order to protect families that cherish the hard-won freedom to educated their children with minimal oversight from the government, lawyers at HSLDA challenged the language of the HB 1 that seemed to lump all home educated children into the same group. The fear was that those receiving scholarships and those choosing not to receive scholarships could, in the future, be regulated by the government regardless of whether they received this scholarship money or not. To this end, lawyers insisted that students who receive these state scholarship funds would fall into their own educational category known as a Personalized Educational Program (PEP). As a result, in order to access any scholarship funds that are awarded, parents must withdraw their child from public school or, if currently homeschooled, terminate their home education program with their county of residence.
There are other stipulations that you need to be aware of prior to making the decision to move your child into a Personalized Educational Program.
Submit application
Provide proof of residency and social security numbers - parents and children
Sign an agreement to use funds only for approved items and services
Submit a yearly learning plan that includes a list of items/curriculum you will need
Have students take a nationally normed test identified by the Florida Department of Education
What it ultimately comes down to is the amount of government oversight you are comfortable with in your home education program. As it stands, if you continue to educate your children in a home education program that is registered with your county of residence, the State laws continue to maintain your right to school your children as you see fit and you continue to foot the bill for their education. If you are fine with the stipulations imposed, then perhaps the funding could help you to pay for the costs associated with schooling your children within a Personalized Education Program.
The choice is still up to you! Go forth and make that choice as an informed parent and educator!
