I.      Introduction

Good Morning.  I’d like to thank Pat Hardman and Robyn Reddick for coordinating and hosting this meeting and to each of you for allocating time from your busy schedules to be here.

And even though Senate President McKay had to return to the Capitol, I’d like to thank him for making this program a reality.  I say this as both as a  professional and parental advocate.  I am the Associate for Education at the Florida Catholic Conference and an Advocate for Florida Catholic Schools.  In addition, I am a parental advocate of five children, two of whom have disabilities.

Before the McKay program was established, parents of special needs children had very little recourse.  Parents who believed their public school children were not well served could pursue Due Process, which is very time consuming and costly.  And even in those instances in which an administrative law judge in a due process hearing would concur to with the parents’ grievance, the ruling would not be binding on the school district.

The McKay Program offers families real choices – other public schools within a school district, public schools outside the district and private school options.

  II.   History of McKay Program

The program began as a pilot in 1999.  A year later it became a statewide program in which approximately 1,000 children were enrolled on McKay Scholarships in private schools.  Although the number of scholarship recipients rose to approximately 5, 000 within the past year, there are projections that the number of children receiving McKay Scholarships will be upward to 10,000 before the completion of the 2002-2003 school year.

I recall reading an electronic mail from an organization, which opposed school choice, gleefully indicating that a bill establishing school options for special needs children was defeated. The organization was referring to the amendatory language on the bill that called for the McKay Program to become statewide. What that organization did not know is the McKay language was on at least 12 other legislative vehicles, one of which received favorable passage in the House and Senate and was enacted into law.

I also recall an official from the FDOE two years ago predicting that the McKay Program will never be successful.  When asked why, I was told that the private schools do not have the wherewithal to meet the needs of students with disabilities and it would only be a matter of time before parents discovered that and transferred their children back to the public schools system.  It is obvious that the more parents know about the McKay Scholarship Program, the more they support it and want their children to participate in it.

III.   Unity

I believe in the old adage-United We Stand And Divided We Fall.  Advocacy is all about building coalitions.  There have been some questionable initiatives from the FDOE this past summer that many of us perceive as problematic. Although some of these initiatives –the mandate of  re-evaluations, possible inspections on all private schools that participate in the McKay Scholarship Program, and the FDOE not consulting with representatives of private schools before initiating a policy that impacts the program and/or our schools. I believe we are on the right path to resolve some of these issues. However, there are other pressing issues, such as scholarship amount not reflecting the actual services that the child generated through his or her IEP in the public school system, and scholarship payments not received by the participating private school in timely fashion.  Although private schools participating in the McKay Scholarship program are attempting to serve children altruistically, operating a school is a business and schools need to make budget, which means that reimbursement checks must be mailed on time. 

There has been much discussion about the handful of private schools that are not meeting the needs of children on McKay Scholarships.  In these instances, we want to collaborate with the FDOE because we are the stakeholders in this program.

IV.   Building a Coalition

Building a coalition is critical to our advocacy.  We have representatives here today from religious schools, independent singles schools, nonpublic school associations that are either religious or non-sectarian, for profit and not-for-profit schools.  I believe that before we move forward, we need to ascertain if there is commonality on the issues.  And if there is, then we establish a consensus and move forward.  Thank you very much.  At this time I will answer any questions.

L. Keough was asked how to help existing families in private schools so they can be eligible to participate in school choice programs.
Answer:  That is an excellent question.  We’ve been advocating for existing families in the Corporate Tax Scholarship Program because a means tested program should be based on need, not what school system a child attends.  Why penalize a child because his/her parents did not wait for the government to tell them that a particular public school was not serving their child well?  And let’s remember parents of these children are taxpayers who support the public educational system and many of whom are middle income or lower middle income families forced to scrape and claw to make ends meet so they can afford tuition to send their children to a private school.  We hope that Florida will at some point in the not too distant future incorporate language in the Corporate Tax Scholarship Program that is consistent with the Arizona  and Pennsylvania Tax Scholarship Programs.  With that stated, we have to distinguish between what is in the best interest of children and political reality.  It was not political reality to include existing private school families when school choice was established in Florida in 1999.  For these programs to be enacted, there had to be sufficient support in the Legislature for these programs.  There was no way that school choice programs would have been enacted if they hade included existing private school families in the beginning.  However, we are in year five of the school choice movement in Florida and I have great hope that the time may be ripe for us to effectively advocate on behalf of existing families.  Moreover, through IDEA reauthorization, there have been recommendations through President Bush’s Commission on Special Needs Education for a McKay type program at the federal level in which parents could draw down federal dollars to send their special needs children to the school of their choice.  In addition, Senate Bill 2883 also establishes a McKay type program hopefully that will lead to openness and receptivity to expand school choice at the state level to include existing private school families.

How do we involve our McKay Scholarship parents in the effort to keep this program viable?
Answer:  The first priority is for those of us working in the public policy arena to  produce a list of legislators who have supported the McKay Scholarship Program. We then provide that list to our parent volunteers who would write letters to those legislators providing a testimonial on how this program has served their children well.  Then these legislators can utilize these letters when the program is under attack.

In addition, we need to identify our competent, articulate parents who can meet with editorial boards of newspapers to tell their story.  Thirdly, we need to identify parents who can articulately talk to their elected representatives, who may support or oppose the McKay Scholarship Program.  I mention those who oppose the program because we have to change hearts and souls in order for us to obtain broader support for the program to be expanded to private school families.

Do we, as schools want to develop a loose network or association to ensure the effectiveness of the McKay Scholarship Program?
Answer:  Before we would develop an association, I believe we need to identify the issues to determine if there is across the board support.  If there is not support, we simply work within our existing school communities.  If there is support across the board, we should discuss a mission statement and how the association would be represented.  What I would not want is for doors to be closed on those who support large non-public school associations.

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