'Dramatic! You can underline that and write it in bold' – A mom's take on the impact of a PEP scholarship

SARASOTA – There are sewing classes, a STEM lab, and what they call “farm school.”

Programs for music, acting, and art.

Tutors for math and science, reading and language arts.

“Totally à la carte,” Elisa Rothbloom described the home education program she and her husband, Dustin Snyder, created for their four children.

“And it’s totally because the PEP scholarship provides the funds,” she added.

PEP is the Personalized Education Program available through the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program managed by Step Up For Students. Enacted by the Florida Legislature in time for the 2023-24 school year, the program serves as an education savings account (ESA) that allows parents the flexibility to customize their children’s learning to meet their individual needs.

Elisa and Dustin, who live in Sarasota, have joined the growing number of parents who use ESAs to enhance their children’s education by sending them to classes and programs outside the home, turning the home education experience into hybrid learning.

The curriculum is adapted to the interests and needs of each child.

Champions of this way call it “à la carte learning.”

“We figure out what they’re passionate about and say, ‘OK, let’s go with that.’ That’s how we homeschool,” Elisa said.

The children are sons Liam, 12, and Avi, 11, and twin daughters Thea and August, 9. All receive tutoring in math, science, reading, and language arts. And all four attended Curious and Kind, a nature-based, hybrid school in Sarasota that they refer to as “farm school.”

“They go to school and get dirty,” Elisa said. “It’s a school without shoes.”

The boys learn about marine biology at the Mote Science Education Aquarium and robotics and other STEM-related activities at the Suncoast Science Center/Faulhaber Fab Lab. Both are located in Sarasota.

Liam also uses his ESA to learn jiu-jitsu and take photography classes.

Avi is into technology-related programs.

Thea and August both take sewing classes.

Thea is also enrolled in art and acting programs. August takes dance and gymnastics classes.

The children did not receive tutoring and participated in only some of these programs before receiving the PEP scholarship. Otherwise, Elisa said, it would have put a strain on the family’s budget. Dustin is a manager in a technology consulting company. Elisa, now a stay-at-home mom, was a yoga instructor before she and Dustin started their family.

“PEP is such a dramatic game changer. Dramatic! You can underline that and write it in bold,” she said. “It's given us an opportunity to do things that would have been out of our price range. Not having it, I think, would limit us a lot, and the kids wouldn’t be able to expand and grow and experience a lot of things.”

With four children less than four years apart in age, Elisa admitted there was a time when she looked forward to them attending a traditional school. But Elisa wasn’t enamored with the education her children were receiving. Some of her friends were homeschooling their children, so she and Dustin decided to give it a try.

“I felt there was an opportunity to not limit them to going to one place five days a week,” Elisa said. “I also really love the homeschool community in Sarasota. I've met so many incredible people that I felt like I grew so much from knowing them, and then my kids got so many benefits from me learning about all these different programs, and I learned other educational philosophies.

“My kids went to school for a short time, and it just wasn't as good. I'm not saying it was bad. I'm not against the schools at all. It just didn't fit their individual needs, and they couldn't grow and learn about themselves.”

Elisa likes the flexibility that comes with PEP. Tutors, for example, don’t have to be scheduled at the same time each week. She also likes how she and Dustin have control over what and how their children are learning.

“Parents play a very big role in any kid's life, whether you homeschool or you're not. But I also think there's a place where they end and somebody else has to begin. That’s where the hybrid comes in. Hybrid is my jam,” she said.

“I will never go back to straight homeschooling. I like having these programs that shape my kids and push them forward, because I'm just one person, and I have my own limitations. What if my son wants to learn about engineering? Well, I don't know about that, but I could outsource it for him.

“I think a lot of people are homeschooling this way. I think Florida is on the cutting edge. We are so progressive.”

Elisa, who attended traditional schools while growing up in New York City and Chicago, said her children could attend a brick-and-mortar high school if that’s what they want.

“I just don't know what the world's going to be like then and what they're going to need exactly,” she said.

What she wants most of all, and what she believes her children will receive through hybrid homeschool learning, is for them to be better prepared than she was to enter the real world as young adults.

“Coming out of school and going into the world was hard,” she said. “It’s nothing like school from what I experienced, so you really have to switch gears in a major way.”

Learning about nature by taking your shoes off and getting dirty, learning about technology by building robots, and learning about biology by studying a starfish is a start.

Roger Mooney, manadjè, kominikasyon, ou ka jwenn nan [email protected] .