At the start of the 2023-24 school year, more than 7,000 teacher vacancies were in Florida. The state had another 5,000 support positions, such as teaching assistants, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and para-educators. That brings the total number of vacancies in Florida to more than 12,000. At the start of the school year, many of those vacancies remained open, and schools had to make do with whatever personnel they could find.
But now it appears that parents are using money that could have gone to those public schools for splurges like tickets to Walt Disney World, video game consoles, and big-screen TVs. According to the Tampa Bay Times, Step Up For Students, the scholarship funding organization that manages the bulk of Florida’s vouchers, has released a 13-page purchasing guide for parents, which includes Disney tickets on the list of items.
In March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature greatly expanded Florida’s school voucher program, which gives each family around $8,000. The new law, HB1, removed the income limit on families that received the vouchers, opening it to all families in Florida. The money is only available to students whose families choose to enroll them in private or religious schools or home-schooled children. Students who are enrolled in public schools are not eligible for the money.
This expanded program is expected to cost Florida around $4 billion, up from $1.5 billion last school year. Most of that money comes from educational funds that have gone to public schools in the past.
Abby Skipper, a longtime Polk County special education advocate and parent, told the Times:
Taxpayer dollars going to PlayStations when they could go to students with significant needs, that’s fleecing the taxpayer.
A Step Up spokesperson told the Times that the scholarship pays for the student’s admission only to Disney World and sets a limit of one per school year up to $299. A Busch Gardens silver Annual Pass with no blackout dates costs $213. Disney World annual passes start at $399. Florida resident tickets cost $109 per day.
The original intent of the voucher program was for students to be able to afford to attend private schools rather than their local public schools. But now that the money is being used for theme park tickets, taxpayers wonder why they are paying for those activities while public school teachers still have to purchase their own supplies.
Programs like HB1 have become more popular nationwide as states begin to use school vouchers to pay for private schools. Advocates say it allows parents to decide about their children’s schooling, while critics point out that it drains much-needed resources from public schools.
Either way, this program is here to stay in Florida, Disney World tickets or not, as it is a priority of Governor Ron DeSantis.
We will continue to update this story at Disney Fanatic.
