Florida House passes bill expanding school choice access, improving funding

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida House legislation by Rep. Josie Tomkow, R-Auburndale, passed on Thursday, expanding school choice access and improving funding for student scholarships.

The bill, HB 1403, passed 109-1, with Rep. Mike Beltran, R-Riverview, voting against it.

Tomkow credited the legislature’s previous work in providing the large school choice package lawmakers were able to deliver in the 2023 session.

“While hundreds of thousands of families have benefited from these scholarship programs, there have been issues with providing funds in the timeframe we would expect,” Tomkow said.

“To address these issues, HB 1403 establishes separate application and renewal deadlines for the scholarship program so that the renewals can be funded earlier,” she said.

“To address concerns about education options availability to students, the bill allows the Personal Education Program students, or PEP scholarship students, to use their funds for when instruction is provided away from the school under a student learning plan,” Tomkow added.

She said that the bill expands the number of Family Empowerment Scholarships from 3% to 5% of the student population in need of special education, with additional increases are available if needed.

Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, asked how the bill would help improve delays in reimbursements for families taking advantage of the state’s school choice program.

“We all, in this last year, have heard feedback for not only parents, teachers, schools, everyone, in terms of the rollout of this expansion and I would say that we have put into statute clear deadlines that parents have to apply by and the window for that money to be then dispersed to the families and […] think that this will be the best option in order to streamline that process,” Tomkow said.

Rep. Bruce Antone, D-Orlando, thanked Tomkow for her work on the legislation, emphasizing the need to continue school accountability measures.

“This is something I said on the floor last year, talking about accountability, measuring annual learning gains, we still have to address that situation,” Antone said.

“But this, you’ve got a good a bill and so I’m not beating up on your bill, this is, we’ve got to address measuring academic gains and make sure that these little black and hispanic kids that go to these raggedy schools are actually learning and we’re measuring whether they’re learning or not,” he said.

The Florida Senate must now approve the legislation before it heads to the governor for signature.