AAA Scholarship Foundation

We Make Academic Achievement Accessible

888.707.2465 | info@aaascholarships.org

Jenna and Michael English

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Jenna and Michael English
Miami, FL

A big believer in the importance of education, Karin Wilborn-English was grateful that she and her husband, Michael English, were able to afford to send their two children to the schools that would help them build a solid foundation for their futures.  But when the family encountered financial trouble a few years ago, it impacted all areas of their lives and put the children’s education in jeopardy.  However, through unwavering determination, and with the help from the AAA Scholarship Foundation, Karin and Michael were able to keep their family on a steady path.

Jenna, the oldest of the English children, has been academically gifted from a young age.  As an October baby, she was slated to start kindergarten later since she would not turn five years old until after the September cut-off date.  However, while only in pre-K, Jenna was already outperforming her peers and able to read from a young age.  As a result, the school and Jenna’s parents agreed that she was ready to start kindergarten early.  Over the years, Jenna continued to excel and the family was financially stable enough for her to attend a local private school that both engaged and challenged her.  Her younger brother, Michael, soon joined her in school and excelled as well.  By the time they reached middle school, both were doing very well academically and had found a love of sports – volleyball for Jenna and basketball for Michael.

However, the summer before Jenna was going to enter her freshman year of high school, the family hit a roadblock.  For years, Karin’s husband Michael had worked in a family business with his stepfather providing mechanical engineering services to hospitals.  His stepfather ran the business side, while he enjoyed providing the service work to their clients.  Unfortunately, his stepfather was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and had to step down from the company, leaving him with the responsibility of trying to keep the business afloat on his own.  The business dwindled down and the English family took a big financial loss.  This put a strain on every aspect of their lives as their everyday expenses snowballed and debts piled up.

With no immediate relief in sight, they had to re-evaluate their expenses to see where they could cut down on bills in order to keep the family afloat.  Through all of this, their primary goal was to keep the kids steady and on a straight path, which included their education.  However, affording to keep both children at their private schools was becoming more and more like an impossible dream.  Karin feared that with all that the family was going through, changing the children’s school environment – especially during the influential middle and high school years – would put them at risk for a downward spiral.

“I was scared,” says Karin.  “You know, sometimes when things become unstable at home, that is when trouble can start.  With everything we were going through as a family, I did not want my children to get off on the wrong path.”

Determined to explore every avenue possible to avoid disrupting her children’s education, Karin visited Jenna’s school to find out what options they had and even asked if she could work there to help pay for tuition.  Through her efforts, she learned about the AAA Scholarship Foundation.  She immediately applied and was overcome with emotion after learning that both Jenna and Michael would receive scholarships to attend their parent-selected schools.

That year, Jenna entered her ninth-grade year at St. Brendan High School in Miami.  Not only did she continue to shine academically, but she also became the youngest student to make the varsity volleyball team at the school that year.  Throughout high school she continued to maintain A’s and B’s, even taking on the challenge of college-level courses during her 10th-grade year while maintaining her spot on the varsity volleyball team.  Jenna was even able to join a travel volleyball team and would write essays to secure financial aid to assist with expenses.  In the spring of 2019, Jenna proudly received her high school diploma and is currently enrolled at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami working on a degree in forensic science.  In between her full load of classes, she also serves as a volleyball coach for a traveling team for middle school students.

Michael has also continued to excel in school over the past four years.  He is now a 10th-grade student at Columbus High School, an all-boys school in Miami that has provided him with not only a solid education but also a strong brotherhood of fellow students that support and motivate one another.  For Michael, learning has always come easy and he continues to maintain A’s and B’s while also playing on Columbus’ basketball team as well as a travel team.

Karin admits that the past few years have not been easy and that they are not out of the hole yet.  The family continues to make sacrifices – such as sharing one car for the whole family, which can become chaotic with work, school, and extracurricular activities.  And, although in college, Jenna remains at home for now to avoid additional living expenses and to help her parents out in whatever capacity she can.  However, Karin knows that every sacrifice they have made to ensure their children had a steady school environment during their plight has been well worth it.

“I am so grateful to the AAA Scholarship Foundation and its donors for giving my family a helping hand when we needed it the most,” says Karin.  “With your support, we were able to keep our kids on a steady path when everything else in our life was so uncertain.  You made it possible for them to be in a goal-driven and positive educational environment – the impact of which will last for years to come.”
About AAA Scholarship Foundation

The AAA Scholarship Foundation awards scholarships solely to qualifying low-income, disabled and displaced students. The typical AAA Scholarship student is an ethnic minority living with a struggling single parent/caregiver in a high crime community. More than 82.2 percent of AAA scholarships are distributed to children at or below 200 percent of poverty. Many children are either below grade level, failing at their previous school or both when they receive a scholarship. Parents, who find their children in these circumstances and are concerned about their future, look for viable options. They seek an atmosphere that challenges their child and will reverse inadequate learning, social patterns and the potential lifelong negative impact. They wish to change their child’s learning environment, acquaintances and the unfortunate predictable outcomes associated with school failure.

AAA Scholarships are funded in Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Nevada by corporations that redirect a portion of their state tax liability to the AAA Scholarship Foundation in exchange for a dollar-for-dollar tax credit. The AAA Scholarship Foundation is one of the only approved 501(c)(3) nonprofit scholarship organizations exclusively serving qualifying low-income, disabled and displaced students through these tax credit scholarship programs in multiple states. AAA Scholarship Foundation provides your company with the convenience and efficiency of a single solution for participating in multiple state tax credit scholarship programs. For more information, or to learn how your corporation can participate in the program, visit www.AAAScholarships.org, or contact Kerri Vaughan at kerri @ aaascholarships.org or 888 707-2465 ext. 730.

Click here for a pdf of this student spotlight.

New study finds that public school students benefit as choice programs scale-up

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A new study (link), by David N. Figlio, Cassandra M.D. Hart and Krzystof Karbonik, confirms that public school students benefit as choice programs around them scale-up.

This study specifically sought to find out what happened to the students who remained in public schools as others around them participated in scholarship programs that allowed them to attend private schools. It notes that, as of 2019, there were 29 states with either voucher (tuition & fees funded directly by the government) or scholarship (tuition & fee funded by private donations) programs in place.

The researchers focused on the Florida Tax Credit (FTC) Scholarship Program (disclosure: AAA is an administrator of the FTC program) as it is the largest of its kind in the United States and has a wealth of student-level data (identity-redacted) – both within the FTC program and the Public School system.

The results indicate that public school students living in households with economic-disadvantages and parents with lower education levels were the most positively affected by this exposure, showing lower levels of suspensions and absences, and higher standardized test scores in reading and math. Even those students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds were positively affected, just to a lesser degree.

The researchers find many reasons for the results – from higher competitive pressure levels to changes in resources received by the public schools. Ultimately, the fact remains that the benefits of school choice are wide-ranging and help many more students than just those directly participating in the program.

If you’d like to find out more about the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program or any of the other scholarships we administer, we welcome you to contact us!

AAA Scholarship Foundation Launches Private School Navigator

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Tampa, FL – AAA Scholarship Foundation today announced the launch of its first-generation Private School Navigator (www.privateschoolnavigator.org).

“We listened to our stakeholders who voiced a strong interest in making sure that families have the opportunity and information they need to make informed choices about the educational-settings that best fit their children’s learning needs. One way we knew we could meet their expectations was by creating a roadmap to help parents navigate the process of selecting and applying to schools,” said Kim Dyson, president and CEO of AAA Scholarship Foundation.

In order to make the Private School Navigator as effective as possible, AAA sought out subject-matter expert, Andrew Campanella, the author of the award-winning book, The School Choice Roadmap: 7 Steps to Finding the Right School for Your Child and president of National School Choice Week, to help develop the resources that will provide scholarship families with practical tools and information on evaluating schools that best meet the needs of their children. Andrew, a strong proponent of all types of school choice, is providing these efforts in his personal capacity and on a volunteer basis.

“Every child deserves an excellent education, and parents know their children best,” Campanella said. “I am grateful to partner with AAA Scholarship Foundation to provide practical, jargon-free school search information so that all families can find learning environments where their children will learn, succeed, feel welcomed, and be happy.”

Over the next few weeks and months, the Private School Navigator will grow and become even more effective with the addition of the following resources:

–an abridged and easily-digestible handbook based on Andrew’s the award-winning book, The School Choice Roadmap: 7 Steps to Finding the Right School for Your Child

–a “Quick Reference Guide” in English and Spanish that families can carry with them to school visits

–additional short and informative videos for families as they continue their school selection journey

–information about upcoming Private School Navigator information sessions and webinars

“We hope everyone is as excited as we are about this progress and we look forward to continuing to help underserved families who are seeking quality educational options for their children,” Dyson said.

Click here for a pdf of this statement.

AAA Scholarship Foundation Announces Continued Participation by Fifth Third

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Tampa, FL, February 7, 2020 – AAA Scholarship Foundation today announced it would implement
several changes that will enable continued participation by Fifth Third Bank in the Florida Tax
Credit Scholarship Program.

Following a series of in-depth discussions with bank representatives, AAA will adopt new guidelines
that will enhance the information provided to parents and help ensure full transparency as they make
these important educational decisions for their children. AAA also will meet annually with Fifth Third
to evaluate the program and review the impact that the bank’s investment is having on the lives of
scholarship recipients.

“We appreciate the partnership we have had with Fifth Third over the past few years and wanted to
explore ways we could continue to work together to support the educational aspirations of Florida’s
economically disadvantaged and displaced students,” said Kim Dyson, president and CEO of AAA
Scholarship Foundation. “We listened to their concerns and their strong interest in making sure that
parents have the opportunity and information they need to make informed choices about the
educational-settings that best fit their children’s learning needs. One way we can do that is by creating
a roadmap to help parents navigate the process of selecting and applying to schools.”

Dyson said this and other enhancements would start to be implemented immediately and would be
in effect for enrollment for the 2020-2021 school year, paving the way for Fifth Third’s continued
participation in the program.

“We look forward to once again partnering with Fifth Third through the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship
Program to help low-income and displaced students gain access to educational options,” Dyson said.

Click here for a pdf of this statement.

We Trust Florida Parents and You Should, Too

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According to the most recent study released by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN), most LGBTQ secondary school students do not feel safe in Florida’s Public Schools. If you have not had a chance to read it, the full report can be found at this link: School Climate Snap-Shot for Florida Public Schools

That study illustrates why the Florida Tax Credit (FTC) Scholarship Program is so critical. Since it passed in 2002, it has been one of the only options a low-income family may have to provide their k-12th grade child who identifies as LGBTQ with an educational setting that is safe and better fits them. In many cases, an FTC scholarship may be the only escape for a low-income LGBTQ child who feels unsafe in their residentially-assigned public school.

We have never spoken to a parent who decided to participate in the FTC Scholarship Program because their child was thriving at their assigned school. They choose this route because their child is suffering academically or experiencing some form of discrimination or bullying. The beauty of the FTC Scholarship program is that it genuinely empowers parents with limited means to remove their children from otherwise harmful environments and into supportive ones where they can thrive.

You can follow this link to our blog post about why We Trust Parents which seeks to remind everyone that this program is 100% voluntary. No one forces a parent to participate or to have their child remain in any school that ends up being a bad fit (unlike residentially-assigned public schools). Parents have to work hard to get an FTC scholarship for their children, and they don’t just turn off their brains once their children get an award. They know that the scholarships are theirs to control – not the schools. If their first choice of a school isn’t a good fit, they know they can take their child – and their scholarship – to a different one. This real market force helps weed-out “bad” schools because ultimately, no one will choose to use their FTC scholarships there.

Companies that choose to participate in the FTC Scholarship Program are funding a student’s scholarship and empowering a low-income parent. They are NOT funding schools. They do NOT approve or accept schools. The scholarship parents choose where to use the scholarships.

Not every school will be a good fit – for the parent, the student, or the school. We wish every first-choice school were a good one but that may not happen for some. Nearly 2,000 Florida schools participate in the FTC Scholarship Program. It may take some work to find the right one but FTC Scholarship parents are not afraid to work hard – they’ve already proven that.

What is not okay is to force a parent to keep their child trapped in an unsafe school because scholarship funding is lacking due to misinformation or bullying tactics. When a company chooses to no longer participate in the FTC Scholarship Program because they have been told repeatedly by the media or on social media or berated publicly by a state legislator that they are funding non-inclusive schools, then they have made a decision based on misinformation or bullying.

Contributions to Scholarship Funding Organizations (SFOs) do not fund schools; they fund scholarships. SFOs award scholarships to students, not to schools. Scholarship checks are made payable to the parents, not to schools. This loss of scholarship funding means a company will be harming the very students they may be trying to help by no longer participating in the FTC Scholarship Program. Those responsible for the misinformation and bullying will have successfully trapped students in unsafe schools.

The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program transforms the lives of low-income children by empowering parents to choose where their children can achieve their ultimate academic potential regardless of their sexual orientation, ethnicity, or socio-economic status. We trust Florida Tax Credit Scholarship parents to make the most informed decisions about their children’s education and you should, too.

Three Important Factors to Consider When Choosing a High School for Your Teen

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The recent article published on The74million.org, “Giving Parents Information Helps Them Choose the Best Schools for Their Kids. How 3 Data-Sharing Tools Are Working for NY Families” has great ideas about the information parents and guardians can use to help guide them in their search for the right high school for their teens.

In it, Peter Sloane, chairman, and CEO of the Heckscher Foundation for Children writes about his organization’s experience providing different data to parents in an effort to help them make an informed decision about different high schools in New York. But we believe the three types of information that he discusses are universally important for decision-makers everywhere:

  1. High school graduation rates
  2. Financial aid application completion
  3. College completion rates linked back to the high school level

Finding schools with strong graduation rates is critical. What is considered a strong graduation rate? Sloane recommends at least 70 percent. He goes on to explain that they also “… looked at financial aid application completion rates. Consider that 90 percent of high school seniors who complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — FAFSA — go on to college immediately after graduation, compared with just 55 percent who do not.” Obviously, FAFSA completion can be a strong indicator of potential college enrollment!

Although enrollment into college is important, we know the graduating from college is usually the ultimate goal. From multiple studies conducted by the Urban Institute, we know that a child participating in scholarship programs like the ones that AAA administers – for even as little as three years – has a positive correlation with them enrolling in, and ultimately graduating from, college.

We understand that it’s not easy for busy parents and guardians to choose the best educational fit for their children so we hope that this information is helpful to you. Please let us know some other data points that you’ve found to be helpful so that we can all become better at this tough but important work!

The Villarreal Family

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2018. The year that would change Gabriel Villarreal’s life forever; the year that would change his family’s life forever.

In July of 2018, Gabriel was diagnosed with Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Having this explained to you is one thing – having to explain this to your young children is an entirely different story. However, the love Gabriel and his family have for each other was undeniable. He knew this would be an obstacle, but an obstacle they would face together.

Before Gabriel was informed of his diagnosis, he worked in advertising while his wife worked as an office manager. When Gabriel was diagnosed, he was forced to file for disability to focus on his treatments and overall health. He received chemotherapy along with15 hours of surgery to remove the tumor and his right eye. The next step was to wait for the results of his test, and unfortunately, during that time, the family had to rely on one income instead of two. While they were forced to make some sacrifices, one sacrifice they didn’t have to make was their children’s education.

Gabriel and his wife wanted their three children to be in an academic setting that would be more challenging and disciplined than the one they were in currently. Gabriel’s eldest children, Andrea and Adriana, attended both public and private schools. Gabriel’s daughter, Andrea, was attending a public middle school and was experiencing a difficult time adapting due to bullying and other social issues. Even though he was aware this could happen at either a public or private school, Gabriel didn’t want to take the risk of keeping her at her current school and the issues progressing.

As much as Gabriel didn’t want his disability to affect his family’s financial standing, he didn’t have much of a choice. Medical bills continued to pile up, and he was desperate for a miracle. As Gabriel began exploring his options and weighing all of the pros and cons, he discovered the AAA Scholarship Foundation and was thrilled to find they provided scholarships to economically disadvantaged families in Florida. Gabriel applied on behalf of his family and anxiously waited for a response. Miracles come in all shapes and sizes, and that day Gabriel’s miracle was sealed in an envelope congratulating him and his family on their scholarship acceptance.

In the search for the right school, Gabriel’s main priority was for his children to be in an academic environment that was not only challenging but also reinforced their family’s values. Thankfully, he found that at Saint Brendan High School. Saint Brendan’s sole focus is to provide all of its students with a safe and diverse environment that also includes academic excellence, mutual respect, and the holistic development of the individual. Gabriel felt confident picking Saint Brendan. It had everything he thought his children would need to succeed.

As Gabriel continues to fight his battle day by day, he truly feels like the proudest father to be able to watch his daughters and son attend their parent-selected schools and, most importantly, thoroughly enjoying learning. Today, Andrea and her sister Adriana attend Saint Brendan, while their brother Alejandro is able to attend Belen Jesuit Prep, an all-male prep school. Andrea has raised her grades tremendously since transferring to Saint Brendan, and Adriana and Alejandro have consistently maintained A’s & B’s. They all enjoy different subjects – Andrea loves mathematics, Adriana loves science, and Alejandro loves history. They’re each fluent in Spanish and English, and in their spare time, they participate in tennis, cheerleading, gymnastics, and music. “Without the AAA Scholarship Foundation, it would be impossible to have my children attend these schools, especially more now than ever due to my illness,” says Gabriel Villarreal.

Why does AAA charge an application fee (in states that allow it)?

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Here are the three main reasons that AAA charges an application fee, where allowed:

First, processing scholarship applications is very time and labor-intensive due to the strict accountability demanded to properly administer these state-approved scholarships. AAA is a non-profit organization with a small staff and a limited budget. We rely on humans (rather than machines) to process applications. We pay a living wage plus benefits to our employees. The application fees we collect help offset the expenses incurred for processing tens of thousands of applications annually.

Second, we have learned from experience that charging a small, non-refundable, application fee discourages those people who ALREADY KNOW that they will not be awarded a scholarship from applying. How do they already know? Because we are completely transparent when it comes to the eligibility requirements. As noted above, our staff is small so our capacity to process applications timely is limited. Subsequently, spending our limited resources on applications that have zero chance of being approved is wasteful and slows down approvals for those who are actually eligible.

Third, because the application process is time-intensive, we have to encourage everyone who has applied with us to stick with it to the end. Studies have shown that when people have “skin-in-the-game” they show more perseverance toward reaching the goal. Our experience is that applicants are more likely to respond to additional requests for information and/or documentation when they have paid a fee for the chance to be part of that process.

What we hear time and again is that a small application fee for what is very likely to be thousands of dollars in annual k-12 scholarships is well worth the price!

We Trust Parents

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There have been recent newspaper reports about a perceived lack of accountability by the private schools participating in certain Scholarship Programs. This has created a lot of discussion about additional regulations that may be needed for these schools. We would like to take this time to discuss our view of this issue.

Let us start by reminding everyone that most scholarship families have already experienced what it is like to have their children in a well-regulated public school – many of which were also accredited.

Neither the regulations nor the accreditation made their zoned school a good fit for their children so these families sought out a different option – a scholarship to assist them in affording an educational setting that was a better fit for their children.

That means that scholarship families have already:

  1. Proactively chosen to remove their children from their zoned schools,
  2. Successfully completed the application process for scholarships,
  3. Enrolled their children in eligible private schools of their choosing, and
  4. Understood that they have the option to exit those schools if they are not meeting their children’s learning needs and to take their children – and scholarship funding – with them to another school.

They are not doing these actions mindlessly. Please do not be deceived by the fallacy that you must “protect” scholarship families from their choices.

Whereas one of the stated purposes of creating the Scholarship Programs is to expand educational opportunities, it behooves the state regulators to resist the urge towards over-regulating participating schools. Studies have proven that over-regulating these schools has the opposite effect – it constricts quality educational opportunities and subsequently decreases program effectiveness.

Instead, we encourage the state regulators to show scholarship families respect. Assume that they are the experts of their own lives and provide support for them as they work towards the goals they have already set for themselves and their children.

Here are some ways that we have found to do that:

  • We provide parents with data on schools so that they can make informed decisions on selecting the best educational settings for their children. We provide access to licensed academic performance data on public, charter and private schools including ratings and reviews by parents, teachers, and students.
  • We inform parents that their children’s scholarships are portable. They have the power to decide whether the chosen schools are serving their children well. If not, they can take their scholarships to another eligible school. This is the mechanism that weeds-out low-quality schools.
  • We empower scholarship parents to demand to be treated like private-pay parents by private schools. Although they may learn about the scholarship from a school, the application process is between AAA and the parents. For us, the schools have no role in the process until the parents pro-actively select them – after being awarded a scholarship. We believe this helps underscore to the parents that they are not beholden to schools because they understand that the scholarships are not coming from the schools. Instead, parents are going into these schools with “money-in-hand” when they have a AAA scholarship.
  • We remind them of all of these facts repeatedly – during application meetings, on scholarship applications, flyers, handbooks, award letters, and school commitment forms. Many families who have not had prior experience with the private school world need to hear these things multiple times before the feeling of empowerment becomes internalized.

In Florida, we have administered both the Florida Tax Credit and Gardiner scholarships since 2014. Using our approach, more than 96 percent of FTC parents remain satisfied with the schools that they originally selected for their children. For those Gardiner students using their scholarship accounts for private school tuition that number is over 88 percent.

At AAA, we support the individual efforts of our scholarship families towards upward mobility. We do that by never assuming to know more about what their families need than they do. We encourage everyone to do the same.

**ARIZONA** Call to Action – Ask your Representative to vote AGAINST SB 1485 today!

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Arizona Hearing for Bill #SB 1485 scheduled for TODAY, May 7th!!

The Arizona House is set to hear bill #SB1485 on Tuesday, May 7th. As a reminder, this bill will ELIMINATE 80 PERCENT of the annual increase in SCHOLARSHIP FUNDING needed to keep the program growing.

We ask that you please contact your REPRESENTATIVE and ask them to vote AGAINST SB 1485!

WE NEED YOUR HELP TO STOP THIS BAD BILL WHICH WILL ELIMINATE 80 PERCENT OF THE ANNUAL FUNDING INCREASE IN THE SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

It takes just 4 easy steps to tell your Arizona Legislator to vote AGAINST #SB1485

1. Find your Legislative District Number by clicking here and entering your address: https://azredistricting.org/districtlocator/
2. Click on the link below and scroll until you find your Legislative District Number: https://www.azleg.gov/memberroster/
3. Click on your House Representative’s name and then click on the email button.
4. Complete the form and ask them to vote AGAINST SB1485.

BILL #SB 1485 HAS THE POTENTIAL TO DESTROY THIS INCREDIBLE LIFE-SAVING PROGRAM AND WE MUST MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD TO CHANGE YOUR LEGISLATOR’S HEARTS AND MINDS. WE NEED YOUR HELP TODAY!

Thank you again and we can win this fight if we all stand up for our children!