Pasco County's superintendent wants Florida public schools in on §25F, through Step Up For Students' new fund

Florida has been in §25F since Gov. Ron DeSantis opted in on January 28, and the state's largest scholarship administrator, Step Up For Students, set up a dedicated federal fund, the Step Up, Step Further Scholarship Fund, the same day. Most of the attention has been on private school tuition. In the Tampa Bay area, a public school district is planning to use the same fund for its own students.

Pasco County Schools superintendent John Legg presented the idea to his school board, the Tampa Bay Times reported on September 30. The district plans to work with the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Step Up For Students on the Step Further fund, and district officials said the money could support district-provided tutoring, summer learning, STEM enrichment, and career and technical education certifications. "I think this is a statewide transformational program," Legg told the board. According to the Times, he wants the district to move early and to seek some degree of "exclusivity" for its programs within the partnership, rather than see the scholarship dollars go to outside providers. He also said he is "still learning the details" and has "assigned a top-level team that has been exploring the options for months." No board vote has been reported.

The Chamber is thinking bigger. Its president, Mark Wilson, described a goal of a $3,000 "prosperity account" for every public school student who qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, and said: "$50 million in a county like Pasco is not unrealistic at all." That is a fundraising ambition, not a projection; §25F scholarships depend entirely on how much individual donors choose to give, up to $1,700 each in credit (Treasury's proposed rules allow up to $3,400 for a married couple when each spouse gives).

Why this matters. Pasco joins a growing list of public school systems treating §25F as a source of money for their own students rather than a threat: Denver and Clark County, Nevada, and in Kentucky, Logan and Russell counties signing on with a statewide fund. Treasury's October 1 rules confirmed that public school students can receive scholarships; the qualified expenses come from the education savings account list in section 530, which includes tutoring and special needs services. Treasury's detailed guidance on exactly which expenses qualify is still to come, and the plan's tutoring and summer programs will need to fit it.

What the rules require of a plan like this. The scholarship organization, not the district, awards the scholarships, and it must verify each student's eligibility and expenses, fund at least ten students who do not all attend the same school, and never earmark a gift for a particular student. Donors can give through after-tax payroll deduction, which Treasury's rules count as cash; the Times noted paycheck deductions as one way to give. How much "exclusivity" a single district can get inside a statewide fund is a design question the federal rules do not answer directly.

Opponents of §25F, including the national teachers unions, have asked Congress to repeal it (who opposes §25F). For districts and their education foundations weighing a similar move, our free SGO Builder covers the federal requirements, and the Florida page tracks the state.