![]() Truth be told, he didn’t need glitzy marketing. “It was just me walking around to churches and housing projects talking about the program.” “We hardly did any advertising at all,” Kirtley said. ![]() Kirtley connected with that group, which was seeking to match funds raised by partners in different states for economically disadvantaged families to send their children to private schools of their choice. ![]() Soon after, he learned of a new national non-profit, the Children’s Scholarship Fund, started by John Walton of the famous retail family and Ted Forstmann, chairman and CEO of a Wall Street firm. Kirtley started a private, nonprofit forerunner to Step Up For Students in 1998 and since then has experienced all the milestones and challenges leading up to the millionth scholarship.Īt the beginning, “It was just me, and I had enough money to fund 350 scholarships,” recalled Kirtley, who can recite statistics about the scholarship program the way a baseball fan quotes facts and figures about a favorite player. Kirtley, founder of Step Up for Students, the state’s largest K-12 scholarship funding organization and host of this blog. “I’ve said from the very beginning my goal was that someday every low-income and working-class family could choose the learning environment that is best for their children just like families with money already do,” said John F. There’s even a scholarship for public school students who need help with reading skills. Today, students can choose from a variety of offerings ranging from the original tax credit scholarship to a flexible spending account for students with special needs to scholarships for victims of bullying. Over the years, as the concept of education choice has evolved, the scholarship offerings managed by Step Up For Students have changed to fit families’ needs. Nearly two decades after Step Up For Students began awarding tax credit scholarships for lower-income students to fulfill their school choice dreams, the organization is marking another milestone: the funding of its 1-millionth scholarship. Most -7,000- received Florida Tax Credit Scholarships, followed by 375 with Family Empowerment Scholarships and 172 with Gardiner scholarships.Martin Luther King III led a rally in January 2016 that drew more than 10,000 people to Tallahassee in support of education choice in response to a lawsuit brought by the Florida Education Association demanding that the courts shut down scholarship programs in the state.Įditor’s note: You can view a timeline of Step Up For Students’ historical milestones at. The Reading Scholarship allows parents with children in public school to access services for their children in grades three through five who are having trouble reading.ĭuring the 2019-2020 school year, 52 of the 66 Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Miami participated in a Step Up scholarship program, with a total of 7,547 of their 33,320 students receiving aid.The Hope Scholarship allows parents of children in public school to find a new learning environment for their child who is being bullied or a victim of violence.The Gardiner Scholarship allows parents to personalize the education of their pre-K-12 children with certain special needs by directing money toward a combination of approved programs and providers.Step Up also offers three other scholarships that are not income-based: Step Up will continue to accept applications after June 1 but cannot assure those received after that date will be processed in time to receive a full award. ![]() In order to assure timely processing for a full scholarship, Step Up needs to receive the application and all required documents by June 1, 2021. Information.) The best way to determine eligibility is to start the application Step Up for Students determines if a family is eligible, and for whichĪ family of four can have an income of nearly $80,000 annually. The application is the same for both scholarships. ADOM :: Step Up: Scholarships for private school ![]()
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