The Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities (FES-UA) program (formerly known as the Gardiner and McKay Scholarship Programs) is an annual scholarship that provides parents/guardians of children with specific disabilities the opportunity to better meet the individual needs of their eligible children.
2023-24 school year:
The final deadline to submit a 2023-24 school year AAA application was Friday, 6/30/2023. We are no longer accepting applications. Please check back with us next March for information about our 2024-25 school year applications.
If you submitted your application by 6/30/2023, it will be processed. You may check the status of your submitted Florida 2023-2024 disability-based scholarship application here.*
Applied with AAA using a paper application and not sure how to check your status? Here’s how to do it:
- Click on this link: check the status of your submitted Florida 2023-2024 disability-based scholarship application here.
- Enter the same address into the Email field that you listed for Parent A on your paper application.
- Click on the “Forgot your password?” link under the Password field.
- The system will send a temporary password to that same email address. Follow the instructions on the email to set a new one and then you can use it to sign back in whenever you’d like to check your application status.
*Cómo configurar la solicitud de beca en línea de AAA para que se muestre en español
If your email address has changed since you last applied with us, please go to the Contact Us page and provide us with your new email address or leave us a message at 888-707-2465.
Scholarship Management Platform (“SMP”)
After your eligibility has been determined, we will email you an award letter and onboarding invitation to create an account on our new Scholarship Management Platform.
Here is a link to log back into our online SMP after accepting our onboarding email invitation.
SMP makes it SiMPle and convenient to manage your child’s scholarship with AAA. Below are helpful tutorials to get you started:
1. Understanding your SMP email invitation – Part 1
2. Understanding your SMP email invitation – Part 2
3. Final step of the SMP email invitation process – Verification Code
Need more help? Check out our SMP FAQ page.
For families using your student’s FES-UA scholarship for private schools: If you are not able to find your child’s school on the SMP, please contact them to ask if they have responded to the AAA email invitation. The school must complete their onboarding process before parents can choose them on the SMP.
You will not lose your child’s scholarship for missing an SMP deadline, however, we do ask that you contact your child’s school to ask if they have completed the AAA onboarding process so that your child’s scholarship payments are not delayed.
Once the school has completed that process, they will be available for you to select. If they’re having trouble with that process, we ask that they please send an email with details of the problem to us at help@aaascholarships.org.
General Information and Forms:
FES-UA 2023-24 Scholarship Values
FES-UA Scholarship Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
FES-UA 2022-23 Scholarship Handbook
Email to submit Signed Handbook Acknowledgments: AAAGardiner@aaascholarships.org
FES-UA 2022-23 Scholarship Payment Forms
Email to submit Payment forms and support: plsa@aaascholarships.org
FES-UA 2022-23 Scholarship Values
FES-UA 2022-23 Private School Payment Schedule – See below
FES-UA 2022-23 Information about requesting an IEP for your child
FL DOE Private School Directory
Need help finding a school? GreatSchools.org and our new Private School Navigator may be able to help