MIRAMAR, Fla.  — William Ivins moved his family to South Florida ahead of his retirement from the United States Marine Corps and enrolled his children at Mother of Our Redeemer Catholic School, hoping they would reap the same rewards as he did from a faith-based education.

But, as William and his wife, Claudia, would soon learn, that was easier said than done.

A lawyer for much of his 20-year career in the Marines, William needed to pass the Florida Bar Exam before he could enter the private sector. It was a long process that left him unemployed for 19 months.

“It was a struggle,” he said. “My retirement income was not enough to pay for the cost of living and tuition for my children.”

The Ivins' faced a few choices: continue with the financial struggle, homeschool their children, send them to their district school, or move out of state. None were appealing to the Ivins, and fortunately, they didn’t have to act on any.

Florida's education choice scholarships managed by Step Up For Students allow his four children to attend Mother of Our Redeemer, a private K-8 Catholic school near the family’s Miramar home.

“It was a perfect storm of having to retire from the Marines and not really having a job lined up,” William said. “The transition was more difficult than I thought it would be. The income just was not available for us to continue our kids’ education in the way we wanted. Had the scholarship not been there, we would have been forced to move out of state or homeschool them or move them to (their district) school.”

In July 2020, the Ivins moved to South Florida from Jacksonville, N.C., where William had been stationed at Camp Lejeune. William contacted Denise Torres, the registrar and ESE coordinator at Mother of Redeemer, before making the move. She told William the school would hold spaces for his children. She later told him about the education choice scholarships managed by Step Up For Students.

“That was a big relief for him,” Torres said.

At his mother’s urging, William began attending Catholic school in high school.

“That was a life-changer for me,” he said.

He converted to Catholicism and vowed if he ever had children, he would send them to Catholic school for the religious and academic benefits.

Rebekah graduated in May from Mother of Our Redeemer. She had been an honor roll student since she stepped on campus three years ago.

“Rebekah likes to be challenged in school, and she was challenged here,” Claudia said.

Rebekah, who received the High Achieving Student Award in April 2022 at Step Up’s annual Rising Stars Awards event, is in the excelsior honors program as a sophomore at Archbishop McCarthy High School.

“She's an amazing, amazing student,” Torres said. “It’s incredible the way she takes care of her brothers. She's very nurturing. Every single teacher has something positive to say about her.”

Rebekah’s brothers, Joseph (seventh grade) and Lucas (fourth grade), do well academically and are active in Mother of Redeemer’s sports scene, running cross-country and track. Nicholas, the youngest of the Ivins children, is in second grade. He was allowed to run with the cross-country team while in kindergarten, which helped build his confidence.

William had been in the Marines for 20 years, eight months. He served as a Judge Advocate and was deployed to Kuwait in 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom, to Japan in 2004, and then to Afghanistan in 2012 for Operation Enduring Freedom.

He retired in May 2021 but didn’t find employment until December 2022. The Florida Bar Exam is considered one of the more challenging bar exams in the United States. He took the exam in July 2021 and didn’t learn he passed until September. It took William more than a year before he landed a position with a small law firm in Pembrook Pines.

Claudia, who has a background in finance, works in that department at Mother of Our Redeemer Catholic Church, located next to the school.

“They have really become part of our community,” Principal Ana Casariego said. “The parents are very involved and are big supporters of our school and church.”

In Mother of Our Redeemer Catholic School and Church, Willian and Claudia found the educational and faith setting they wanted for their children.

“It is a small community environment where you know all the teachers and staff by first name,” William said. “My kids have received a wonderful education in an environment where they don’t have to worry about bullying, and they can really strive to grow and do their best academically.

“The scholarship kept us in the state and kept our kids in the school system that we wanted them to be in. It’s been a great blessing to us.”

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The diagnosis was Entamoeba histolytica, which is an infection caused by ingesting an amoeba that produces fatigue, abdominal pain, weight loss, and a few more symptoms you don’t want to have when you are more than 9,000 miles from home.

That’s where Christopher Trinidad happened to be during a visit to his parents’ homeland in the Philippines the summer before the eighth grade.

Born and raised in Jacksonville, Christopher’s immune system was not accustomed to some of the pathogens found in the local food. He had not built up a resistance like residents have. Lying in a hospital bed in the city of Bacolod, while the antibiotics did their thing, Christopher had this thought: “This has to be my science fair project.”

And so it was.

 

After returning home, Christopher ordered microorganisms online. “Safer organisms,” he said, than the one that waylaid him a few weeks earlier. He experimented with various items found in the kitchen pantry – ginger and garlic – mixed them with water and other ingredients and developed a solution that killed the organisms.

“What if,” Christopher thought, “we use these solutions on the actual thing? This can help so many people.”

His project finished first at a regional science fair.

“Impressive, right? Wait until you hear what he did his freshman year,” said Carla Chin, director of marketing and communications at Bishop Kenny High School in Jacksonville.

Christopher, a sophomore, attends the parochial Catholic school on a Florida education choice scholarship managed by Step Up For Students.

He sat in a chair inside Chin’s office. His father, Greg, sat in another and proudly listened as his son, with a mixture of pride and modesty, described the project that earned first place at a regional science fair and then a bronze medal at the Genius Olympiad and a $15,000 scholarship to the Rochester Institute of Technology at a global competition held in Rochester, New York.

Using an electroencephalogram (EEG), which measures electrical activity in the brain, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and violin music, Christopher was able to predict the moods and emotions of stroke victims who are unable to speak, thus creating a line of communication with doctors.

“By using brain waves, doctors can know what their patients are feeling, which would lead to better decision-making,” he said.

Michael Broach is the Vice Principal at Bishop Kenny and the Director of Mission Integration, as well as the AP Capstone Department chair. He was responsible for approving Christopher’s science project.

“That was one of the most sophisticated projects, I think, that I've seen in my years of being here,” Broach said. “And just the way his mind works is well above his peers. Well above what you would expect of somebody of his age.”

Christopher is 15.

He wants to be a neurosurgeon.

“I’ve always been fascinated with the brain since I was little,” Christopher said. “It controls everything in our body. It’s really interesting, and going into surgery, fixing people's brains is really complex, and that's what I love about it.”

His parents – Greg and Shiela – are both nurses, so Christopher was raised around medical science. Their house is filled with textbooks related to their careers. Christopher has read them all.

The valedictorian of his middle school, Christopher has a 4.3 weighted GPA at Bishop Kenny. He chose to attend the Catholic high school because it aligns with his faith and has a high academic standard.

“It challenges me,” he said. “I know there are other people here I can talk to, and it gives me a greater experience.”

He’s not the only student at Bishop Kenny who knows what an electroencephalogram is and how it works.

While he spends a considerable amount of time working on his science fair projects (keep reading to learn about what his plans are for this year’s project), he’s very active at school. Christopher is a member of the Science Club, Medical Career Club, St. Vincent de Paul Society, campus ministry, and the Brain Brawl. He plays the piano at the monthly mass. He’s also first violin for the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestra.

 

Listening to his son talk, Greg had one feeling. “Blessed,” he said. “He has a humble heart. We try to remind him always what’s hard.”

Greg understands hard.

Raised in a small town an hour’s plane ride from Manila, Greg’s childhood was humble at best. He went through elementary school with only two pairs of shoes. He caught rides to school on trucks headed to the sugarcane fields on days when his mom couldn’t afford bus fare.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to join the Boy Scouts,” Greg said. “My mom didn’t have the money.”

Greg understood the power of an education and where it could lead him. He became a teacher until, at age 26, he immigrated to the United States in search of the American Dream.

He worked odd jobs and became a certified nursing assistant. From there, he attended nursing school in St. Augustine. He now works as a traveling nurse in the cardiac catheterization labs in hospitals around North Florida. He became a traveling nurse for the pay because he and Sheila support three family members in the Philippines.

That’s why Christopher traveled to the Philippines the summer before eighth grade, to see where his parents’ stories began.

“I wanted him to see and feel the difference of being here in this world compared to a third-world country,” Greg said.

The lesson wasn’t lost on his son.

“I just feel really lucky that I'm here in America and I have more opportunities than some kids have in the Philippines, and I’m not going to let this go to waste,” Christopher said.

Greg said he is grateful for the Florida education choice scholarship that helps pay Christopher’s tuition at Kenny.

“In the Philippines,” he said, “if you don’t have money, you don’t go to school.

“He has this opportunity of having this scholarship, and I'm telling him, you're way more blessed than what other people have in other states. We're so thankful that all these opportunities are coming for our son.”

Christopher’s next opportunity is this year’s science fair, where he will take last year’s project a step further.

“I'm planning to build a rehabilitative exoskeleton so it can help people with movement disabilities,” he said. “I can also use an EEG in that, so they can think about what they're going to do with their exoskeleton, which basically helps them move. It would correlate to their actual thoughts. So, if they wanted to walk, they would be able to think it, then the exoskeleton would help them walk.”

SAFETY HARBOR, Fla. – Edelweiss Szymanski turns 10 on a Friday in December. She will celebrate the milestone by running a 5-kilometer race in Daytona Beach. The next day, she’s scheduled to compete in a triathlon.

No pizza party. No theme park.

How many 10-year-olds want to run three miles on their birthday, then swim, bike, and run some more the day after?

“This one does,” Lacey Szymanski said, pointing to her daughter with both index fingers.

Meet Edelweiss, a young triathlete on the rise who’s as tough as the flower she’s named after. Meet her brother, Spartacus, too, 14 months younger and just as tenacious.

The SkiSibs, as they are known throughout Florida’s triathlon community.

Their bedrooms are filled with trophies, medals, and plaques – the spoils of reaching the podiums (finishing in the top three) at triathlons, road and bicycle races. The garage of their Safety Harbor home is packed with bicycles.

“We are an active family,” Lacey said.

Lacey and her husband, Jacek, have participated in triathlon relays.

Some mornings, Jacek and the kids can be found riding the bike trails around Pinellas County, waking as early as 3 a.m. so Jacek can get in a long ride before heading to his job as a sergeant with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

If they time it right, and they usually do, the trio will stop along the overlook on the Courtney Campbell Causeway and snack on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while they watch the sun rise over Tampa Bay.

“We really like watching the sunrise,” Edelweiss said.

She and Spartacus receive Florida education choice scholarships for students with unique abilities managed by Step Up For Students. Edelweiss is dyslexic. Spartacus has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). They are home educated by Lacey, who taught in a private school for 10 years before the family adopted this educational format.

Edelweiss benefits from one-on-one instruction with her mom, while Spartacus is not required to sit at a desk and complete his assignments, something that was an issue when he attended a brick-and-mortar school.

“The scholarship has been a game-changer. It’s awesome that Florida offers this,” Lacey said. “I have my doctorate in education, so I'm really happy that I'm able to help them in the ways that I can and create a curriculum that is specialized to their individual needs, as well.”

The scholarship covers Spartacus’s occupational therapy, as well as art class and piano lessons for Edelweiss. And learning at home allows for flexible schedules. It’s not unusual for Spartacus, an early riser, to complete his math assignments before the sun is up.

 

The family home borders a wetland, which is ideal for interactive science lessons. It also provided the sticks the kids used to carve their own forks, and the twigs Edelweiss used to create a bird’s nest.

“Her art style isn't cut and dry, like paint a picture of this penguin. It's more abstract,” Lacey said. “That’s the way her brain works. Music, art, and athletics are a lot easier for her. When dyslexia held her back from other things, she kind of poured herself into those things.”

Lacey was pregnant with her daughter, and she and Jacek had yet to settle on a name when she came across a music box she bought during a trip to Germany. It played the song “Edelweiss” from the movie “The Sound of Music.” An edelweiss is a stout flower that grows in the rugged high-altitude terrain of the Alps and the Carpathian mountain ranges in Europe and blooms in the winter.

“I thought, ‘That’s what I want to name my daughter,’” Lacey said.

She and her husband believe that people can become the personification of their names. That holds true with Edelweiss.

“She is very hearty, and it aligns with being a triathlete. She can endure a lot and has a high tolerance for the sport,” Lacey said. “And at the same time, it’s a very beautiful flower. It doesn't look like your normal flower. It's very different and unique, which is what she is.”

And Spartacus? Well, he was making a fist in his first ultrasound.

Jacek said he looked like Spartacus, the ex-slave who became a gladiator and led a rebellion against the Roman Republic in 71 BC.

“He said his name is going to be Spartacus, and I said, ‘Yeah, right. There's no way I would name my son Spartacus.’ And here we are,” Lacey said.

“We do get odd looks when we call his name at a triathlon,” Jacek said. “I’m not saying it’s like yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowd, but almost.”

Edelweiss competed in her first triathlon when she was 5. The family belonged to a local YMCA, and Lacey saw a post about the race on the morning of the event. So, she woke Edelweiss and asked her if she wanted to give it a try. Edelweiss said yes.

“It gave me something to do,” she said.

The race consisted of one lap in the 25-meter pool, a half-mile bike ride, and a quarter-mile run. Competing on a bike that had pom-poms and a basket on the handlebars, Edelweiss won her age group.

She had one question for her mom when she finished.

“When can we do this again?”

The answer? As often as possible.

She and Spartacus have moved up to sprint triathlons – 400-yard swim, 8.1-mile bike ride, and a 5K run.

The hardest leg for Edelweiss is the run. The best part, she said, is crossing the finish line.

“Because I don’t have to run anymore,” she said.

She’s been known to finish a race in her socks. Once, when she developed blisters and tossed her shoes halfway through the race, and another time when she was having trouble getting them on during the transition from the bike to the run and didn’t want to waste more time.

Jacek was born in Poland and immigrated to the United States at 19. He was an avid cycler in his native country and passed that love on to his children.

Edelweiss and Spartacus also compete in long-distance cycling races, where they are often the top finishers in their 7-11 age group.

 

“They goof around when they’re going for a ride with dad,” Jacek said. “But something switches when they are in the competitive world. They put on their game face.”

Before being immersed in the world of triathlons, Edelweiss was all about her ballet lessons.

“She was very into ballet, but now she doesn’t want to go back,” Lacey said. “It’s not the same adrenaline rush.”

Their weekends are loaded with triathlons across the state and cycling races as far north as Virginia. Lacey keeps track of the schedule.

“It’s our lifestyle now,” Lacey said. “We’re always in the water or on bikes, doing something like that. Edelweiss doesn’t feel like she’s actually competing. She’s doing what she loves. Spartacus is a ball of fire, too. Both of them together just constantly amazes me about what they're capable of and the grit that they have to compete.”

 

ARCHER, Fla. –  Archer is a crossroads community of 1,100 people 15 minutes from the college town of Gainesville, but far enough away to have its own quirky identity. It’s surrounded by live oak-studded ranch land but calling it a “farm town” doesn’t ring right. When railroads ruled the Earth, Archer was a whistle stop on the first line connecting the Atlantic to the Gulf. In the late 1800s, T. Gilbert Pearson, co-founder of the National Audubon Society, roamed the woods here as a kid, skipping school to hunt for bird eggs. A century later, rock ‘n roll icon Bo Diddley spent his golden years on the outskirts. 

So, let’s just say Archer is a neat little town. And maybe it’s fitting that for half a century, it has been home to a neat little private school that doesn’t fit into any boxes, either. 

Jordan Glen School got its start in 1974, when former public school teacher Jeff Davis moved down from Michigan. In the late 1960s, Davis became disillusioned with teaching in traditional schools. In his view, students were respected too little and labeled too much. 

“Back in the day, I would have been labeled ADHD. I hated school,” he said. “I never met a teacher that took a personal interest in me.” 

As a teacher, he saw a system that was “too constricting.” 

“There was just a general distrust of children, like they were going to do something bad,” he said. Education “doesn’t have to be rammed down your throat.” 

Davis migrated to what was, more or less, a “free school,” with 50 students on a farm near Detroit. Today we’d call it a microschool. 

In the 1960s, hundreds of these DIY schools emerged across America, propelled by an upbeat vision of education freedom inspired by the counterculture. Davis said the Upland Hills Farm School was a free school, more or less, because while its teachers were “long-haired” and “hippie-ish,” the school had more structure and rigor than free school stereotypes would suggest. 

Davis thought the Gainesville area would be a good place to start a similar school. It had a critical mass of like-minded folks. So, in 1973, he and his family bought 20 acres of woods off a dirt road in Archer. Not long afterward, they invited a little school called Lotus Land School, then operating out of a community center in Gainesville, to move to their patch in the country. Today we’d call Lotus Land a microschool, too. 

It was also, more or less, a free school. Davis described the teachers and families as “love children” and “free spirits,” but in many ways, their approach to teaching and learning was mainstream. A decade later, he changed the name. “I thought people would think it was a hippie dippy school, and I knew it was more than that,” he said. 

Lotus Land became Jordan Glen. The school was named after the River Jordan, after some parents and teachers suggested it, and after basketball legend Michael Jordan, because Davis was a fan. 

Fast forward a few more decades, and Jordan Glen School is thriving more than ever. 

It now serves more than 100 students in grades PreK-8, some of whom are the second generation to attend. Nearly all use Florida’s education choice scholarships. Actor Joaquin Phoenix is among Jordan Glen’s alums. So is CNN reporter and anchor Sara Sidner. 

Jordan Glen is yet more proof that education freedom offers something for everyone and that its roots are deep and diverse. Ultimately, the expansion of learning options gives more people from all walks of life more opportunity to educate their children in line with their visions and values. 

“There is something about joy and happiness that makes people uneasy and a bit insecure,” Davis wrote in a 2005 column for the local newspaper, entitled “Joyful Learning is the Most Valuable Kind.” “If children are enjoying school so much, they must not be doing enough ‘work’ there.” 

“Children at our school,” he wrote, “love life.” 

The Jordan Glen campus includes a handful of modest buildings. It’s still graced by a dirt road and towering trees. It’s also home to two dozen, free-roaming peacocks. They’re the descendants of a pair Davis bought in 1975 because they were beautiful and would eat a lot of bugs. 

Given that backdrop, it’s not surprising that many families describe Jordan Glen as “magical.” 

Alexis Hamlin-Vogler prefers “whimsical.” She and her husband decided to enroll their children, Atticus, 14, and Ellie, 8, in the wake of the pandemic. 

“They’re definitely outside a lot,” she said of the students. “They’re climbing trees. They’re picking oranges.” When it rained the other day, her daughter and some of the other students, already outside for a sports class, got a green light to play in it and get muddy. 

Another parent, Ilia Morrows, called Jordan Glen a “little unicorn of a school.” 

Like Hamlin-Vogler, Morrows enrolled her kids, 11-year-old twins Breck and Lucas, following the Covid-connected school closures. She thought they’d stay a year, then return to public school. But after a year, they didn’t want to go back. “They had a taste of freedom,” she said. 

For many parents, Jordan Glen hits a sweet spot between traditional and alternative. 

On the traditional side, Jordan Glen students are immersed in core academics. They take tests, including standardized tests. They get grades and report cards. They play sports like soccer and tennis, and they’re good enough at the latter to win the county’s middle school championship. Many of them move on to the area’s top academic high schools.  

But Jordan Glen also does a lot differently. 

The students are grouped into multi-age and multi-grade classrooms. They choose from an ever-changing menu of electives. Many of those classes are taught by teachers, but some are taught by parents (like archery, gardening, and fishing), and some by the students themselves (like soccer, dance, and book club). The youngest students also do a “forest school” class once a week. 

The school also emphasizes character education. 

The older students serve as mentors for the younger students. They’re taught peer mediation so they can settle disputes. Every afternoon, they clean the school, working as crew leaders with teams of younger students. Their “Senior Class Guide” stresses nothing is more important than “caring about others.”  

“The way the older kids take care of the younger kids, it’s very noticeable. They are genuinely caring,” Morrows said. At Jordan Glen, “they teach community. They teach being a good human.” 

“My favorite thing is that most kids really get a good sense of self and self-confidence at this school,” Hamlin-Vogler said. “Some people say, ‘Oh, that’s the hippie school.’ But the students have a lot of expectations and personal accountability put on them.” 

Hamlin-Vogler said without the education choice scholarships, she and her husband wouldn’t be able to afford the school. Hamlin-Vogler is a hairdresser. Her husband is a music producer. Before Florida made every student eligible for scholarships in 2023, they missed the income eligibility threshold by $1,000. Her parents were able to assist with tuition in the short term, but that would not have been sustainable. 

Her family harbors no animus toward public schools. Atticus attended them prior to Jordan Glen, and he’s likely to be at a public high school next fall. Ellie, meanwhile, thinks she might want to try the neighborhood school even though she loves Jordan Glen in every way, and Hamlin-Vogler said that would be fine. 

After Ellie described how much fun she had playing in the rain, though, Hamlin-Vogler had to remind her, “You might not get to do that at another school.” 

If education freedom were a hockey game, Florida just scored a Texas hat trick.

For the fourth consecutive year, Florida was ranked the No. 1 state for education freedom for K-12 students and families in The Heritage Foundation’s annual Education Freedom Report Card. The 2025 Heritage rankings come after a landmark year of state legislative sessions that delivered wins for students and families.

Florida leaders credited the state’s ranking to policies that give parents control over their children’s education dollars, offering a plethora of choices, including a la carte courses provided by school districts and charter schools.

“In Florida, we are committed to ensuring parents have the power to make the education decisions that are best for their child,” said Gov. Ron DeSantis, who in 2023 signed legislation that offered universal eligibility for K-12 state education choice scholarship programs that allow families to direct their dollars toward the best options for their children.  “Florida offers a robust array of educational choices, which has solidified our state as a national leader in education freedom, parental power, and overall K-12 education.”

Commissioner of Education Anastasios Kamoutsas said earning the top ranking for four years affirms the state’s long-term commitment to families.

“Under Governor DeSantis’ leadership, Florida will continue honoring parents’ right to choose the best educational option for their child’s individualized needs. I am proud that Florida offers so many educational options that parents can have confidence in.”

Since the Education Freedom Report Card began in 2022, Florida has earned the top ranking every year. The report card uses five categories: school choice, transparency, regulatory freedom, civic education, and spending to rank states.

In addition to Florida receiving the overall top spot for Education Freedom, it also earned high rankings in the following categories:

• No. 1 for Education Choice due to empowering parents across Florida to choose the best learning environment for their children.
• No.1 for Civics Education due to Florida’s requirement for students to take a course in civics and the use of the Classical Learning Test for admissions at state universities.
• No. 1 for Academic Transparency due to Florida’s expansive legislation allowing parents to access classroom materials and Florida’s Parental Bill of Rights.
• No. 1 for Teacher Freedom due to Florida’s alternative pathways to entering the teaching profession.

Earlier this year, the Sunshine State also earned national recognition for putting dollars behind its policies. In January, the national advocacy group EdChoice put Florida first on its list of each state’s spending on education choice programs proportional to total education spending.

According to the EdChoice report, Florida became the first state to spend more than 10% of its combined private choice and public-school expenditures on its choice programs, rising from an 8% spending share in 2024.

Florida also reached a historic milestone when, for the first time, more than half of all K-12 students were enrolled in an educational choice option. During the 2023–24 school year, 1,794,697 students, out of the state’s approximately 3.5 million K-12 population, used a learning option other than their assigned district school.

SARASOTA, Fla. – Duct taped to the wall of Eliah Hillebrand’s bedroom, next to the light switch, is the engine from one of his remote-controlled cars. Attached to that is a small, arm-like device. Using the remote, the 11-year-old can turn the ceiling light on or off from his bed.

“Genius,” said Eliah’s mom, Jennifer. “I don’t know how he even thought to do that, but I definitely would credit Fab Lab.”

Fab Lab is the Suncoast Science Center/Faulhaber Fab Lab in Sarasota. It is a haven for students engrossed in all things STEAM.

If you are stimulated by science, tickled by technology, energized by engineering, mad for mathematics, or if art is your jam, you are among your people at Fab Lab.

A Florida education choice scholarship can help get you there.

The place has everything one needs to create nearly anything one can imagine.

“Any technical skill you can think of you can probably do it here,” Jenn Sams Scott, Fab Lab’s marketing and communications director, said.

There are screws, nuts, bolts, nails, and electrical wire.

There are saws, grinders, sanders, and routers. Laser cutters, 3D printers, and a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) mill that’s as big as the chassis of a small car.

Students from grades K-12 attend after-school and Saturday workshops during the school year, and camps during the summer.

They build remote-controlled cars and participate in “car wars.” The RC cars race around a course filled with obstacles. The last race had a dinosaur theme, which meant the cars had to dodge a moving dinosaur tail and a volcano spewing lava. The winning car earns a place of honor on a wall of fame.

They construct robots for the equally popular LEGO RoboRumble. There, robots force each other out of the ring. The winner is the last robot standing.

Hanging from the ceiling are rockets built by the members of the Rocketry Club, including one that soared 6,400 feet.

There are STEMinars for leather artistry, timber and blade, and steel ideas.

There’s a Gardenpalooza and a Halloween workshop where participants laser-etch designs on pumpkins. There’s also a workshop to laser-etch designs on pumpkin pies.

“There are a lot of interesting things happening there,” said Elisa Rothbloom, whose two sons use their Personal Education Program (PEP) scholarships to attend Fab Lab’s Lego Robotic camp. PEP, which is funded by corporate donations through the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program and managed by Step Up For Students, is available for K-12 students who aren’t enrolled full-time in a public or private school.

PEP scholarships can now be used for STEAM Saturday classes, and Sams Scott is hopeful RoboRumble will soon be available under the scholarship. Both programs are scheduled to begin in October.

Sams Scott said enrollment has increased since the advent of the PEP scholarship for the 2023-24 school year.

“It’s been crazy,” she said. “At least 10% of the participants are on PEP, and it’s growing.”

Eliah and his younger sister, Ellah, 8, are among the growing group of PEP students who use the scholarship to pay for Fab Lab’s camps and classes.

Together, Eliah and Ellah built a LEGO robot they named Chungus, after the Minecraft character. They finished third in the RoboRumble’s fourth-to-sixth-grade division.

“We keep things pretty simple—mostly pen and paper, very little online. Even so, they worked so hard and came in third place, competing alongside kids with much more technology experience,” Jennifer said. “It was amazing to see how they took what they knew, learned from Fab Lab, and really ran with it. I’m so proud of them.”

Fab Lab opens a new world for students like Eliah, who, according to his mom, “likes to tinker.”

“I like how they teach me how to invent things,” Eliah said.

Like a remote control to turn off his bedroom lights.

“I just wanted to invent something fun,” he said.

While the word “fun” is not in Fab Lab’s name, it could be.

“They don’t realize they’re learning because they’re having so much fun,” Sams Scott said while giving a visitor a tour of the building on a recent morning, while camps were in session.

She had to raise her voice to be heard over the steady whack, whack, whack coming from a classroom, where the second- and third graders attending the Little Builders camp were learning how to pound nails into a piece of wood.

The campers were supervised by high school students, who volunteer their time and share their knowledge. That’s a unique setup that parents enjoy. It seems their children are eager to work with the high schoolers, who they see as role models.

“It’s incredible that high school students are creating and leading these programs,” said Holly Atkins, whose son Ethan, 11, and daughter Ella, 8, receive the PEP scholarship and have attended Fab Lab for the past two years. “They really connect with the younger kids.”

At home, Holly said her children complete their core classes — reading, math, and writing.

“Then we look for activities that spark their curiosity, that light them up,” she said. “Fab Lab checks that box.”

Ella gravitates toward hands-on experiments, food science, and crafts, while Ethan is drawn to science and engineering. Recently, he joined a four-member team that designed, built, and raced a remote-controlled car. The project required collaboration from start to finish: choosing a theme, designing the car, creating a presentation board, and fielding questions from a panel of judges.

The team ultimately placed second in design.

“They had to practice communication, teamwork, and leadership skills,” Holly said. “Ethan was learning all of that and having a blast at the same time.”

Sams Scott said one reason why Fab Lab is so popular is that it’s not a school.

Fab Lab is a learning center where students don’t have to worry about grades. Trial and error are great teachers. What might not have worked on one project might be just what’s needed for another.

There is success in every room, at every workstation.

A big win for some students came the day a local automation company visited Fab Lab with a robotic arm used in the assembly process. The students programmed it to hold a squeegee and clean a window. They were told that if they wanted to use the robot for its intended purpose, they would need to learn a certain computer-aided design (CAD) program.

“They have,” Sams Scott said. “It’s a program they learned here that they use here.”

Florida gives parents the ability to direct the education of their children. Today about half of all K-12 students in the state attend a school of choice, and 500,000 students participate in state educational choice scholarship programs.  

Gov. Ron DeSantis accelerated these trends in 2023, when he signed HB 1 and made every student eligible for a scholarship. No school can take any student for granted, and state funding follows students to the learning options they choose.  

Unfortunately, misleading claims amplified in the media have blamed this expansion of parental choice for school districts’ budget challenges. 

Sarasota County Schools, for example, recently estimated that scholarships “siphoned” $45 million from its budget, a figure cited in a WUSF article. In reality, most of the $45 million represents funding for students that Sarasota was never responsible for educating, such as those already in private schools, homeschooling or charter schools.  It also does not account for students who return to district schools after using a scholarship. Once those factors are considered, the actual impact is considerably smaller than the headline number suggests. 

For the 2024-25 school year, Sarasota County lost just 330 public school students to scholarship programs, but only 245 of those students came from district-run public schools. If those students had stayed, they would have brought the district about $2 million, not $45 million. That figure still does not account for the students who returned to district schools after using a scholarship the prior year, so the real impact would be smaller. 

Other districts have been vocal about their budget difficulties, often attributing them solely to growing scholarship demand, such as Leon County Public Schools, which in 2024-25 lost 240 students from district-run schools (0.8% of enrollment), and Duval County Public Schools, which lost 1,237 students (1.2% of enrollment). 

Statewide, 32,284 students left public schools in 2024-25 to use a scholarship. That is only 1.1% of all public-school students in Florida, and even that total includes those who previously attended charter schools, university-affiliated lab schools, virtual schools, and other public-school options. 

Looking at district-run schools alone, just 24,874 new scholarship students left for scholarship programs in 2024-25. Another 5,507 came from charters, and 1,897 came from virtual schools. In fact, as a percentage of their total enrollment, charter schools lost more students to scholarship programs (1.4%) than district-run schools did (1%). 

This means that the expanded scholarship program may be having a bigger impact on charter schools than districts. Charter schools, however, haven’t been as vocal about vouchers, and that is likely because charters continue to grow enrollment while district schools have started to shrink.  

Enrollment declines in some districts have been real, even if the blame on scholarships is misplaced.  

Declining enrollment is being driven by parent preferences – but also by shifting demographics and the ebb of the post-Covid population boom. Florida is one of the few states where overall K-12 population is expected to continue growing, but the growth will be uneven, and every school will have to compete for students. 

Even as they face intense competition and demographic headwinds, Florida’s charter schools have kept growing. Some innovative district leaders have signaled a willingness to hear the demand signals from parents and create new solutions to meet their needs. 

Understanding what parents seek in private and charter schools, and how new public-school models can better meet those demands, would be a good place for districts to start. 

Pre-K and Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten (VPK) have also been major feeders for Florida’s scholarship programs. In 2024-25, 53,825 new scholarship students came from pre-K — somewhere between one-third and nearly half of all VPK students statewide.  

Public schools have limited Pre-K offerings. Statewide, there are less than one-third as many Pre-K students as kindergartners enrolled in public schools. Private schools, by contrast, have used it as a key pipeline to recruit future students. 

Districts have other avenues to respond to changing parent demands. Since 2014, when the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities (FES-UA) was introduced as the Personal Learning Scholarship Accounts, districts have been allowed to offer classes and services to scholarship students.  

The passage of HB1 in 2023 transformed every state scholarship into an education savings account.  K-12 families now have more flexibility to use scholarships for “a la carte learning,” in which they pick and choose from a variety of educational options. By offering part-time instruction, tutoring, therapy, and other services, districts can win back students and the associated funding.  So far, 21 of Florida’s 67 districts have taken advantage of this opportunity, with 10 more in the pipeline. 

Florida’s enrollment shifts are real, but data shows the “voucher drain” narrative overstates the impact. The real challenge for districts is not money being “siphoned;” it is families choosing other options. Districts that adapt and compete for students will keep both enrollment and funding – leaving students, families and taxpayers better off.  

Last week, I had the opportunity to make a presentation about how lawmakers can support teachers who want to start their own schools. The four key features:

1. Universal eligibility: Everyone eligible to attend public schools should also be eligible to participate in a choice program.

2. Formula funding/demand-driven funding: Whoever applies for a choice program should receive funding if eligible.

3. Avoidance of anti-competitive accreditation requirements: Don’t ask your startup schools to operate without funding from the choice program while incumbent/accredited schools receive choice funding.

4. Exempt private schools from municipal zoning: Old hat for charter schools, needed for private schools as well.

Florida is the only state your humble author is aware of that has taken all four of these steps. This makes Ron Matus’ new study "Going With Plan B” all the more important. Despite a statewide increase of 705 private schools, 41,000 Florida families applied for, received, and ultimately did not use an ESA. Matus surveyed thousands of these parents to learn why.

The lack of school space was the No. 1 reason Florida families found themselves as non-participants. Reasons two and three were related to costs, which can also be thought of as a supply issue.

The “Going with Plan B” study is very interesting and should be studied carefully by Florida policymakers. For now, however, let us focus on the other states with choice programs that lack the four critical elements listed above. If FLORIDA has a supply issue, your state, sitting at one out of four, or two out of four, should take note: It is likely to be even worse in a state near you.

WINTER PARK, Fla.  – The piano stood silent in the corner of the empty gymnasium until Riccardo Cerutti sat on the bench, lifted the key lid, and played the opening notes of Billy Joel’s signature song, “Piano Man.”

“That’s me,” Riccardo said, “Piano Man.”

He moved on to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the 1975 rock ‘n’ roll anthem by the band Queen, and Riccardo’s favorite song.

The impromptu concert ended abruptly when the students of Highlands Latin School, a PreK-8 private school that shares the building with Chesterton Academy of Orlando, Riccardo’s high school, filed into the gym for afternoon dismissal. The piano couldn’t compete with the chorus of excited voices waiting for their ride to arrive in the pickup line.

Besides, Riccardo had to get ready for basketball practice.

Piano and basketball are just two of Riccardo’s many interests. There’s also poetry, songwriting, origami, karate (he’s a black belt), reading (science fiction, philosophy, and the classics), and learning.

Especially learning.

Riccardo, a junior, has been a top student since arriving in the middle of his freshman year at Chesterton Academy, a small private high school north of Orlando that is rooted in Catholic values. He’s earned a 4.0 GPA each semester while acing regional and national tests. Riccardo was recognized as a “National Scholar” because of his score on the CLT10, an online college preparatory exam, which made him one of the top 50 students in the nation

“He is the kind of student you dream of teaching,” said Michael DeSalvo, who teaches theology and philosophy. “You can't hyperbolize enough here.”

Riccardo, 16, and his sister Sara, a freshman, attend Chesterton Academy with the help of the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options managed by Step Up For Students.

Born in the Netherlands to parents who are from Italy, Riccardo moved to central Florida with his family when he was 7. He attended his district school for two years before his parents, Stefano and Serena, decided on homeschooling. But when it was time for high school, they wanted their son to experience a more traditional learning environment.

“We believe that homeschooling is great for all grades, except in high school,” Stefano said. “You really need to have a group of other students with whom you are actually studying together, because at that stage, the education really demands intensive discussion on the materials that they're studying.

“Literature is not just reading. It’s discussing what you just read.”

Riccardo’s parents also wanted him to attend a school that would help grow his faith.

“We read about the aim of Chesterton Academy. We share their goals,” Serena said. “And we know one of the founders of this particular school. We felt it was the best option for our kids.”

The scholarship helps pay for the tuition at Chesterton Academy.

“Well, obviously, it's a very good thing and not only for us, but for anyone who wants to actively be engaged in the education of their kids … So, it's good for everybody to have this possibility,” Stefano said.

He said he wasn’t unhappy with the district school his children first attended; it just didn’t meet his standard for education.

“And that’s why we started homeschooling,” he said.

Although Riccardo initially hesitated to leave the homeschool setting, which is why he didn’t enroll until mid-freshman year, he is glad he made the move.

“I've made the best friends that I've ever had in my life here,” he said. “I really feel like I found the right people here, and I feel like I've – maybe this will sound selfish – but I've really gotten the chance to be appreciated.”

At Chesterton, Riccardo found a group of classmates who shared his values and interests. He is the co-captain of the basketball team. He formed a rock band with five other students. He plays the piano, co-writes the songs, and provides backup vocals.

“It's fun to play, compose, improvise, interpret, just listen to,” he said. “You know, play with friends, compose with friends.”

Riccardo has been taking piano lessons for six years. He recently received the highest-scorer award for piano performance level 7 in the Florida/Georgia area. Influenced by Queen, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and classical music, he’s composed more than 50 pieces, some instrumental, some with vocals. His song, “The Loser,” about a teenager who constantly makes excuses for his shortcomings, brought down the house last year at Chesterton Academy’s annual talent show.

“Board games, card games

every type of game

It’s just the same

You pour your heart and soul in it

You get all fired up

Then the timer’s up

And your anger flares

‘Cause it’s so unfair

And you act like it’s the end of the world.”

“I wrote 'The Loser' based on my personal experience of being a sore loser,” Riccardo said. “I was frustrated with myself, ruining fun games with friends by getting so upset. The song was my way of expressing that. Even though it's in second person, it's really about me.”

Listen to a demo of "The Loser" as well as other demos written and performed by Riccardo.

Chesterton is divided into four houses, each named after a saint. Riccardo is the prefect of House Augustine. He composed the music to the house’s alma mater and co-wrote the lyrics with another student.

DeSalvo is the house mentor, and Riccardo said the alma mater captured DeSalvo’s vision for the house.

“Set the example. Do things first. Be innovative. Think of new things to do and be the reason why everybody's doing it,” Riccardo said.

That is in sync with Stefano’s goal for his children: Exceed expectations.

“Don't settle for the minimum that’s required,” Stefano said. “Aim for the best you are capable of.”

That’s not hard for Riccardo. His appetite for learning is insatiable.

“I would say it's not just love of learning and knowledge, although that certainly plays into it. It’s just wanting to know more about the world,” Riccardo said. “I would say it's just a desire to do things well.

“Even if there's a class that I don't particularly like that I’m personally not too attracted to, I still try to do well because that's the right thing to do. It's just a matter of principle.”

Riccardo, who is dual enrolled at Seminole State College of Florida, plans to attend the University of Central Florida and major in math, with a goal of earning a PhD in physics or engineering. He hasn’t decided on a career path but thinks it might be something in research.

Chesterton Academy employs the Socratic method of instruction, where desks are arranged to form a square around the class. Teachers lead discussions from inside the square instead of from the front of the room, using open-ended questions to encourage critical thinking. It is the exact learning environment that Riccardo’s parents sought for his high school education. And, DeSalvo said, it is a setting that allows Riccardo to reveal his thought process as he arrives at his answer.

“For him, he not only understands what he's learning, but he also understands how he’s learning,” DeSalvo said. “He just has a very deep kind of penetrating mind. There’s nothing you can teach him that he's not going to understand eventually.

“This is what makes teaching fun. You almost learn more when you're teaching, and it's students like Riccardo that make that obvious. You're learning just as much as they are.”

 

 

Tiovanni Johnson squirms in his chair and lowers his head. His grandmother is telling a story about his kindness toward strangers, and he wishes she would stop. In fact, he asked her to stop.

“This is embarrassing,” he said.

She continued.

The previous day, Angela brought two Slim Jims with her when she picked up Tiovanni from school.

“I love Slim Jims,” he said.

They stopped at a light on the ride home. Tiovanni noticed a man panhandling at the intersection. He appeared hungry, so Tiovanni leaned out the window and gave the man his favorite snack.

“He does this all the time no matter where he is,” Angela said. “He’s so thoughtful.”

At a skatepark a few days earlier, Tiovanni spent most of his time helping younger kids who had trouble staying on their skateboards.

Tiovanni appeared as if he would rather be anywhere else than in the conference room at his school, Academy Prep Center of St. Petersburg, listening to his grandmother brag about him.

But there are some things a boy can’t stop.

And when asked about the praise, Tiovanni reluctantly admitted, “It makes me feel good.”

Tiovanni, 12, is in the seventh grade at Academy Prep. This is his second year attending the grades 5-8 private school located three miles from the Gulfport home he shares with his aunt and uncle, Tricia and Ralph Huckeba. They became Tiovanni’s legal guardians after his mom, Deborah, died unexpectedly when he was 6.

Tiovanni attends Academy Prep on a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, made possible by corporate donations to Step Up For Students.

Year 1 was a feel-good story for Tiovanni. He made the honor roll, joined Academy Prep’s swim team and began the 2024-25 school year with a 4.0 GPA for his work over the summer.

Tricia and Ralph, along with Angela, wanted Tiovanni to attend a school that would challenge him academically and help guide him through the tricky middle school years.

“Everybody here is so caring, truly caring,” Tricia said. “This school is very accommodating for the students, very loving, God-fearing people.”

Tiovanni tells his teachers that when he grows up, he wants to do something “magnificent.” He’s not quite sure what that means other than it will include a college education.

“I’m going to make sure I get straight A’s so I can go to college,” he said.

He’d like to study music, he said. He’d also like to learn to play the drums.

“They speak to me,” he said.

He wants to fly in a plane.

And learn to do an “ollie” with his skateboard. That’s the move where the rider jumps in the air with his feet still on the board but without using his hands. Tiovanni is working on it.

And he wants to travel.

Tiovanni wants to take Angela back to her birthplace, Cairano, a dot-on-the-map city in the mountains of Italy.

His life will be epic. Tiovanni is sure of that.

“I want to do something wonderful so my aunt and uncle don't have to work, so they can go on vacation somewhere,” he said.

He writes poetry.

I'm cool, but sometimes I act like a fool.

He described himself as “short” and “fast” and “energetic.”

“I can be a little annoying sometimes,” he added.

Tiovanni likes to be challenged academically, as evident by this year’s class schedule filled with honors courses. He’s in the right academic setting for that since Academy Prep is designed so students get the most of their educational opportunity.

He can also be more of a deep thinker than someone his age.

The family attends BridgePoint Church in St. Petersburg. Tiovanni often takes notes during the service and shares them with everyone at lunch afterwards. Tiovanni said he’s writing down “wisdom.”

“It’s just amazing some of the things that he thought about, because it would be his interpretation of what the pastor said,” Tricia said.

Tiovanni is reluctant to talk about his mom.

“That’s a sensitive topic,” he said.

It’s a sensitive topic for Angela, as well. She gets emotional when talking about her youngest daughter, who passed in 2019.

“She’s gone, but she left a special gift,” Angela said, nodding toward Tiovanni.

Brittany Dillard, Academy Prep’s Assistant Head of School, has known Tiovanni and his family since her son and Tiovanni were first-grade classmates. That was the year Tiovanni’s mom died and Tiovanni, whose father is not in his life, went to live with Angela. Dillard had the first-graders make cards for Tiovanni.

“Tiovanni has always just been spontaneous and optimistic and just a joy to be around,” Dillard said. “He's inquisitive. He asks a lot of questions, and he is just, honestly, a person that you want to have around if you're having a bad day, because he's going to find some way to cheer you up and just bring some sort of joy into your life.”

Like handing his afterschool snack to someone who looked hungry.

“I felt in my heart that that's what I needed to do,” Tiovanni said, “and that’s what I did.”