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HB 1 / SB 202 is a major step forward for Florida parents. When passed, it will empower millions of families with new educational options. One of those new options is making high-quality virtual instruction available to private school scholarship students, which previously had been excluded. That is a great step.

High-quality virtual learning options includes courses and schools designed to be taught online. These programs are not the haphazard crisis emergency remote learning forced upon families during COVID. Most importantly, the families that enroll in these programs do so because they want to be in the online setting.

HB1/SB 202 as introduced is an important step forward for liberty and freedom in Florida. However, there are two small adjustments that have to made to HB 1/SB 202 so that parents that want religious offerings – and religious schools that want to offer online programming – are not discriminated against.  

The adjustments are simple:

• Remove “Non-Sectarian” Requirement for Approved Providers. The current version of HB 1/SB 202 requires all the online options to have been through a state process to become “approved providers.” However, step one of that approval process is to prove that all programming in non-sectarian. Obviously, in the public-school setting that makes perfect sense. But in a scholarship program, such as the Florida Empowerment Scholarship Program (FESP), requiring non-sectarian operation is actually discrimination against those who want a religious education. A simple clarification in the FESP that the “non-sectarian” requirement in the approved provider law does not apply in the FESP solves this issue.  
  
• Allow Religious Private Schools to Offer Virtual Programs. Currently, religious private schools are prohibited from offering virtual programming because of how “eligible private schools” are defined under existing law. Families seeking out a virtual school option very well may want to find that option with a community private school, quite possibly a religious school. Again, a simple adjustment making clear that private schools, including religious private schools, may offer virtual programming within the FESP addresses the problem.

Clearly, the Florida Legislature and Governor DeSantis would stand on the side of religious liberty in all aspects of the expanded FESP. It would seem inconsistent with the underlying values of both to offer virtual programming, but only with the huge caveat that only the non-religious schools or programs can participate. Religious bricks and mortar schools have always been allowed in the FESP.

This is something religious families want as well. In fact, according to Jason Bedrick of the Heritage Foundation, virtual learning was on the rise with Jewish families even before the pandemic hit.

We congratulate all those working on HB 1/SB 202 for the critical recognition that virtual options should be available in the FESP to families that want that avenue. We urge that the small adjustments necessary to HB1 to address the above issues be made so that virtual programming is available from private schools, including religious schools, and nobody be discriminated against the FESP due to seeking a religious option.

Help us spread awareness about the importance of this amendment. Click on the image to download a one pager to share with policymakers.

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