Dear Chair Massullo, Chair Tomkow, and members of the Education & Employment Committee,
 
I am writing to urge you to keep the protections written within Hope Scholarship FS 1002.40. You will recall it was Speaker Corcoran’s HB 1. This is currently included in HB 1403 to be repealed. Please make an amendment to make sure the protections written within F.S. 1002.40 are maintained.

It is a victim’s law and is important for THREE reasons:

1. It provides an immediate out for a parent whose child is being bullied by other students or threatened or intimidated by a teacher, administrator, or anyone on school property. 
 
2. The Hope Scholarship is available immediately at the time of the incident. The parent doesn’t have to wait for Step Up’s current window of application for the Universal scholarship/voucher program.

3. It holds teachers and administrators accountable for their behavior. Commissioner Corcoran used to say frequently that every parent who pays attention can qualify their child for the Hope Scholarship daily. Examples include teaching or using Critical Race Theory (CRT), Social Emotional Learning (SEL), obscene materials, and sexual orientation despite Florida laws prohibiting them.
 
The two key arguments for repealing it: first, the low usage. This is true because school districts hide it. Before COVID, there were approximately 55,000 SESIR incident reports. In 2021-22, there were over 108,000 SESIR reports. Every one of these has at least one victim, some many more, and the districts have an affirmative duty to offer the parent of each victim the Hope Scholarship.

The second key argument is that any student can qualify for the universal scholarship/voucher program. That is true, but the program has an application window. This will leave students who have been bullied stuck until the application window is open.
 
Even when the School Choice HB 1 from last year becomes widely used over the next 3-5 years, there will still be 40-50% of our 3 million kids stuck in public schools, and parents will need and deserve a way to hold them accountable on a realtime basis for their threatening and intimidating behavior.

Thank you,

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