Private school choice bills get bipartisan support from Fla. Senate panel

Grimsley

A pair of bills that would strengthen Florida private school choice programs advanced through the Senate’s full appropriations committee this morning with bipartisan support.

The committee approved SB 1314 by Sen. Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring. It would increase the amount of funding students can receive through the state’s tax credit scholarship* program, with larger increases for students in high school, where tuition tends to be more expensive.

The bill would also allow military families to apply for the scholarships year-round. And it would increase per-student funding for transportation scholarships, which help low-income and working-class students cover for the cost of traveling to public schools across district lines.

The panel also gave overwhelming support to SB 902, by Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, which would broaden the categories of conditions that allow students to qualify for Gardiner scholarships*, Florida’s education savings account program for children with special needs.

The changes would open the program to children with traumatic brain injuries, as well as those with vision and hearing impairments or rare diseases.

In the House, the two measures are combined in HB 15, which has already passed on the floor unanimously. Lawmakers have until the end of the legislative session Friday to reconcile their proposals.

*Step Up For Students, which publishes this blog, helps administer both scholarship programs.


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BY Travis Pillow

Travis Pillow is Director of Thought Leadership at Step Up For Students and editor of NextSteps. He lives in Sanford, Fla. with his wife and two children. A former Tallahassee statehouse reporter, he most recently worked at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research organization at Arizona State University, where he studied community-led learning innovation and school systems' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. He can be reached at tpillow (at) sufs.org.