Step Up For Students
Helping public education ensure the promise of equal opportunity
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Step Up For Students recognizes not all children learn in the same way and realizes many Florida families face challenges and cannot access the learning environment that best suits their child's unique needs. Step Up was founded in 2001 to help low-income students access educational opportunities. Financial or information barriers should not prevent a child from finding a thriving learning environment. Step Up believes all schoolchildren deserve a chance to succeed. Step Up helps Florida’s most marginalized schoolchildren access the opportunity for educational success by giving parents the ability to choose the best education for their children.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Need-based Scholarships for K-12 students
The Florida Tax Credit and Family Empowerment Scholarship Programs empower families of lower-income K-12 Florida students to pursue and engage in the most appropriate learning options for their children. These need-based scholarships provide underprivileged students the ability attend a private or out-of-district public school that best meets their unique needs. These programs served more than 118,000 K-12 Florida students during the 2019-20 school year.
ESAs for students with certain special needs
The Gardiner Scholarship Program offers Florida students with certain special needs, ages 3-20, an educational savings account (ESA) that allows them to customize a learning or development plan to assist in reaching their fullest potential. This program served more than 13,000 Florida students ages 3-20 during the 2019-20 school year.
ESAs for public school students behind in reading
The Reading Scholarship Accounts provide education savings accounts (ESAs) to Florida public school students who do not pass the Florida State Reading Assessment test in third and fourth grade. These accounts allow students to receive targeted intervention to assist them in reading proficiently. This program served more than 2,000 Florida public school students during the 2019-20 school year.
Scholarships for bullied or victimized public school students
The Hope Scholarship Program provides K-12 Florida students who have been victims of violence, harassment or bullying an option to pursue a safer environment at a private or out-of-district public school. This program served more than 200 K-12 Florida students during the 2019-20 school year.
Support and partnerships for private schools serving disadvantaged students
The Student Learning and Partner Success department exists to engage, equip and empower educational partners to support student success. Student Learning offers timely updates through its blog, The Bulletin Board, develops connections to available high-quality resources and networking opportunities, and connects schools to professional learning opportunities by other organizations who are subject area experts.
Where we work
Awards
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of students enrolled
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Need-based Scholarships for K-12 students
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
The number of students using the needs-based scholarship programs that include Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, Hope Scholarship and New Worlds Scholarship Accounts.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Education should not be one size fits all. Empowering parents to choose a learning environment that best suits their child's unique needs gives students the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Since 2001, Step Up For Students has provided educational opportunities to Florida's most vulnerable schoolchildren.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Step Up offers four scholarship programs which served more than 175,000 lower-income, special needs, bullied or victimized and reading-challenged students during this school year. These four scholarship programs help connect disadvantaged students to schools, therapists and intervention programs to prepare them for success in school and beyond.
The Florida Tax Credit and Family Empowerment Scholarship Programs are needs-based and provide underprivileged K-12 Florida students the ability attend a private or out-of-district public school that best meets their unique needs. The Family Empowerment Scholarship Unique Abilities (formerly Gardiner Scholarship) offers Florida students with certain special needs, ages 3-20, an educational savings account that allows them to customize a learning or development plan to assist in reaching their fullest potential. The Reading Scholarship Accounts provide education savings accounts to Florida public school students in grades three through five who did not pass the reading portion of the Florida Standards Assessment test . The Hope Scholarship Program provides K-12 Florida students who have been victims of violence, harassment or bullying an option to pursue a safer environment at a private or out-of-district public school.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Step Up For Students is dedicated to providing scholarships to disadvantaged Florida students to attend the school of their choice. We believe all children deserve the opportunity to attend a school that best fits their needs – especially our most vulnerable students who are lower-income, victims of bullying, have unique abilities, and those who identify as LGBTQ. Step Up For Students puts scholarships in parents’ hands to make the best decision for their children and is proud to have provided over 1,000,000 scholarships over the last 20 years.
Thanks to the support of our generous donors, both corporate and philanthropic, Step Up has the resources to administer five scholarship programs, helping more than 175,000 students, most of whom are minorities. Proudly, Step Up will distributed $1 billion in scholarships at a 3% administrative rate during the 2020-21 school year.
Step Up is a leader in the educational choice movement across the country. Other states look to Florida as a model state in delivering multiple educational choice options to parents of school-aged children. To that end, significant financial investments have been made to streamline the scholarship application process and make it an easier experience for parents. Utilization of scholarship or savings account funds is also very flexible and can be managed by parents using an online portal. These innovations inform leaders in other states as they develop legislation to help their own disadvantaged students.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Step Up has awarded more than one million scholarships across five unique scholarship programs. The largest and oldest of these programs is the Florida Tax Credit (FTC) Scholarship, funded through corporate tax credits. The corporate community has generously contributed more than $6 billion toward this initiative. The impact of the FTC scholarship opportunity is well-documented in research. For 13 consecutive years, annual studies conducted by an independent research team has shown that lower-income students who participate in the FTC Scholarship Program have made solid academic gains. An Urban Institute study also found FTC Scholarship students are up to 99% more likely to attend college and up to 45% more likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree than their public-school peers when on the scholarship for four or more years.
Step Up is committed to closing the achievement gap for Florida's schoolchildren. In recent years, the expansion of scholarship offerings to students with certain special needs, students behind in reading and students who have been victims of bullying or violence has demonstrated this commitment.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
-
How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
We don't actively use collected feedback
-
Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We act on the feedback we receive
-
What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback
Financials
Unlock nonprofit financial insights that will help you make more informed decisions. Try our monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights?
Learn more
about GuideStar Pro.
Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Step Up For Students
Board of directorsas of 10/23/2023
Mr. John Kirtley
KLH Capital
Term: 2010 - 2021
Terry Jove
Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits
John Kirtley
KLH Capital
Alfred Lawson
U.S. House of Representatives
John Legg
Dayspring Academy
Richard Outram
Cross Country Home Services
Curtis Stokes
VR Business Brokers
Karen Hobbs
Marsh & McLennan
Denisha Merriweather
American Federation for Children
Linh Lam
Enterprise Technology & Operations
Baron Concors
Ritchie Brothers
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
-
Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 10/02/2023GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.