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The
Daily Signal
This Little
Girl With Down Syndrome Was Stuck in a Horrible School Situation. How a
New Policy Changed Her Life Completely.
Lindsey Burke
October 19, 2014
“When I would pick her up almost every evening, she would wait until
she got into the car and she would just start weeping.”
That’s what Veronica, mother of Salima, who has Down syndrome, says in
a powerful video about her daughter’s experience at her assigned public
school.
But thanks to a fairly new school choice policy, Salima’s life is now
totally different. And starting this year, it won’t just be Arizonans
like Salima who are affected: Florida children will also have access to
this innovative school choice program.Starting this year, Florida
students with Down syndrome have new education options that could
enhance their ability to reach their full potential, thanks to the
Sunshine State’s recent adoption of innovative education savings
accounts (ESAs), known in Florida as Personal Learning Scholarship
Accounts.
Eligible students in Florida, which include, in addition to children
with Down syndrome, children in kindergarten through grade 12 with
Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Prader-Willi Syndrome, intellectual
disabilities, Spina bifida and Williams Syndrome, can use 90 percent of
what the state would have spent on them in their assigned public school
to finance multiple education-related services and products. Students
remain eligible to continue using their education savings account until
they graduate high school, or reach 22 years of age, whichever comes
first.
Modeled after Arizona’s first-in-the-nation ESA program, which was
established in 2011, parents are able to direct dollars (which are
loaded onto a parent-controlled, restricted-use debit card) to multiple
education services, products and providers. Parents can pay for private
school tuition, online learning, special education services and
therapies, curricula, textbooks and a host of other education-related
services and products. Parents can even rollover unused funds from
year-to-year, in anticipation of future education-related expenses.
The experiences of children like Salima, an Arizona third grader born
with Down syndrome, show that being able to access education options
that meet her unique learning needs is critical to ensuring her future
success, health, and lifelong learning. Thanks to the ESA option, which
has empowered Salima’s family to choose a school that is responsive to
her unique needs, the change in Salima has been “night and day,” her
father, Joe, says.
Salima’s teacher Amber Mieras explains that, “it’s all about what’s
best for the kids. And that needs to be at the forefront. Not about
what’s best for the funding, or the public or private schools, it’s
what’s best for the kids.”
Not only is Mieras Salima’s third grade teacher, she is also mom to
six-month-old Jax, who was born with Down syndrome.
“When my son was born with Down syndrome, I felt very lucky, but very
scared, because I didn’t know what that meant for him,” Mieras recalls
in the video.
“And I knew how to handle him as an infant, [but] I didn’t know what to
imagine him as a one-year-old, or a two-year-old. And the biggest
question I had, which seems so ridiculous, is ‘would he have friends?’
…Salima makes it ok. What she can do, he can do, and she’s paving the
way,” she says.
Although eligibility to participate in Florida’s ESA option is limited
to students with special needs, any child from an underperforming
school in Arizona can participate, as can any child in foster care,
children from active-duty military families, children with special
needs and entering kindergarten students who meet the aforementioned
eligibility criteria.
Florida’s ESA option, which has only been in operation since this
beginning of this school year, is already changing the lives of
children–and their families–with special needs.
Faith was born with Down syndrome, and her mom, Julie, is now able to
use self-directed funds to provide specialized services for her
daughter, including speech and physical therapy along with private
tutoring.
Education savings accounts are the next generation of school choice,
and are increasingly being adopted by states across the country. They
allow for self-directed education and customized learning, and most
importantly, are changing the lives of children in states like Arizona
and Florida.
See the video at The Daily Signal
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