The option of an education choice scholarship will expand Joly's options for college and beyond

Jan 21 2025 • By Roger Mooney

TAMPA, Florida – It was the first day of freshman year and everyone at Tampa Catholic High School was a stranger to Joly Masoud. Classmates. Teachers. Administrators.

Scared? Yes, Joly admitted.

“I was just trying to find my way,” she said.

Joly found her way to a front-row desk in Hannah Taylor’s Eastern-Western Heritage history class.

“She was eager to learn,” Ms. Taylor said.

It’s been three years and not much has changed for Joly. Now a junior, she’s still a front-of-the-class student with top-of-the-class grades. She wants to score high on the SATs and build a high school resume that is attractive to colleges and universities.

Joly Masoud was 7 when her family moved from Cairo, Egypt to Tampa to maximize her education potential.

When deciding on where to continue her education after high school, Joly wants the most options.

That is one reason why her family moved to Florida from Cairo, Egypt in 2017, and how Joly arrived at a private school that is nearly an hour's drive south from the family’s home in Wesley Chapel.

Joly attends Tampa Catholic on a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship (FTC), funded by corporate donations to Step Up For Students, which manages the scholarship. Her sister, Lana, an eighth-grader at Villa Madonna Catholic School in Tampa, also receives a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship.

Milad Masoud and his wife, Amira, moved the family to the United States for two reasons: Egypt’s political landscape no longer favored Christians, and they wanted a better education for the girls.

“The education in Egypt is not like the education here,” Milad said. “When Joly was young, she was looking forward to being a value to society. So that’s why we moved – to feel safe and better education.”

Joly and Lana attended their district schools when the family settled in Wesley Chapel. But their parents wanted a faith-based education that would align with their Coptic Orthodox Church beliefs. They believed a private school was beyond their financial means. Then they learned about the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship in 2022, which can provide students an average of $8,000 that can help pay school tuition, fees and other related expenses, such as registration, books and testing.

“I like this scholarship,” Milad said. “It’s very helpful for newcomers to this country, especially people who don’t have the money to spend on a (private) school. It supports us. It supports families. When newcomers from outside the country ask me about (education), I always tell them about Step Up.”

The move to the United States was challenging for Joly, who could see the Great Pyramid from her home in Cairo. She learned to speak English while attending school in Egypt, but the American culture – food, music, and social mores of her peers – took some getting used to.

“I have strong values and boundaries that I set, and it was difficult for a lot of people to accept them and respect them,” Joly said. “But I just had to do it in order to stay true to who I am.”

Joly, who attended private school in Cairo, said she feels “privileged” to attend Tampa Catholic because the school allows her to stay true to herself. She can practice her faith with classmates. She is a member of the campus ministry and The Blessed Edmund Society of Tampa, which serves what the school describes as “marginalized” members of the community in Tampa Bay. Once a semester, Joly and a group of classmates put together meals for those staying at a Ronald McDonald House in Tampa.

“I love serving and I love helping others, and it has been a passion, and I've been able to expand that here as well,” she said.

She was class president as a sophomore and plans to run for school president as a senior.

Joly is also a school ambassador, answering questions and giving school tours to potential Tampa Catholic students who explore the campus with their parents as eighth-graders.

Next year, she will join SHAPE, a mentorship club that pairs a senior with a freshman.

“She’s always trying to look out for people,” Ms. Taylor said. “I remember her freshman year, if students were upset, she would stay after class to make sure they were okay.”

Joly has been a top-of-the-class student since her freshman year at Tampa Catholic High School.

And Ms. Taylor remembers Joly’s first day of freshman year, when she sat at the front of the class and absorbed every word of the lesson.

“That was so refreshing to see from a 15-year-old,” Ms. Taylor said.

That’s Joly. She loves to learn.

“I’ve always been one who strives the hardest,” she said. “I’m really not the smartest person, but I work really hard to learn as much as I can. I think I've always been this way, and I think I will probably continue to be this way. Education is important for my parents and for me.”

Joly credits Ms. Taylor for helping her navigate her way through Tampa Catholic’s demanding academic landscape. It was Ms. Taylor who encouraged Joly to take AP classes as a sophomore, and it was Ms. Taylor who suggested Joly not focus on what college to attend but on growing her options when the time comes to make that choice.

While some high school juniors are locked in on a college and a major, Joly keeps an open mind.

“It changes every single day,” she said when asked about a possible career choice. “I don’t know. The only thing that I'm really hoping for is to do a job that I'm really passionate about, and it's not just a job for money or for other people. I hope that the job chooses me, or I choose one where I help others and makes me want to do it for the rest of my life.

“Something that I would like to do is open my own business or have my own something that I created and produced for the world.”

Roger Mooney, manager, communications, can be reached at [email protected].

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