Category: Student Spotlights
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The Cherry Family
The Cherry Family By Sherri Ackerman When Demetrius Cherry’s commissions plummeted at his cell phone sales job two years ago, his family of six lost their house in Land O’ Lakes and moved in with friends. “We were literally homeless,’’ recalled his wife, Nina Cherry. Within a few months, her husband found another job at […]
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June Welcome and Ryan Tetoff
June Welcome and Ryan Tetoff Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory Hollywood By Sherri Ackerman June Welcome looked forward to sending her son, Ryan Tetoff, to his neighborhood school. By first grade, though, she worried he wasn’t being challenged academically. "Sometimes I would go to school and have lunch with him," Welcome recalled. "I would find him upset. […]
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Savannah Lang
Savannah Lang Rhonda Ford wanted more of a say in her only child’s education. But the divorced mom and self-employed massage therapist thought her options were limited to her neighborhood school. Then one day in 2002, Ford learned about Step Up For Students and the income-based Florida Tax Credit Scholarship. Once the family received approval, […]
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Denisha Merriweather
Denisha Merriweather The daughter of a teenaged mom and high school dropout, Denisha Merriweather thought she was destined for a similar path. Receiving a scholarship from Step Up For Students changed her life. Today, the 24-year-old college graduate is working toward her master’s degree. “I’m just so grateful," Denisha said. “This never would have been […]
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Layla and Jeremiah Cirino
Layla and Jeremiah Cirino Adrienne Cirino’s children started their formal education at their neighborhood school, but soon her son started shying away from kindergarten and her daughter had days where she was ducking desks thrown by angry peers. “I felt scared,” said Layla, who starts seventh grade in August. “Me and my friends would go […]
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Julie and Faith Kleffel
Julie and Faith Kleffel Seven-year-old Faith Kleffel giggles in the background as her tutor, Tammy Forte, talks on the telephone. They’re at Faith’s house in Longwood, near Orlando, where the first-grader with Down syndrome lives with her mom and is homeschooled. “We have a room,’’ explained Forte, a former local school district paraprofessional. “That’s her […]
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Hayden and Cambria Rogers
Hayden Hernandez and Cambria Rogers It didn’t take long for Jenna Rogers to realize her son’s neighborhood school wasn’t working for him. A kindergartner, Hayden wasn’t grasping basic reading and writing skills. And he didn’t like interacting with classmates. “He was really struggling there,’’ Jenna said of the Clearwater school, rated a D at the […]
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Sualba Alejandro
Sualba Alejandro Ten-year-old Sualba Alejandro planted her Size 3 feet on the Faith Christian Academy stage in Orlando and tried to stay calm. In the audience, dozens of parents, children and school administrators were on hand to recognize Step Up For Students' Scholars of Excellence. The event united Step Up families from throughout Central Florida […]
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