The John M. McKay Scholarships for Students with Disabilities program was created by the Florida legislature in 2001. It is named for former Senate President John McKay, a longtime proponent of school choice and programs to help disabled children.
The program gives parents of students with disabilities, who are not satisfied with their child’s progress in the assigned public school, the option to enroll their child in a different public school or to obtain a scholarship to a private school of choice. According to the law:
Students with disabilities include K-12 students who are documented as having a mental handicap, including trainable, profound, or educable; a speech or language impairment; a hearing impairment, including deafness; a visual impairment, including blindness; a dual sensory impairment; a physical impairment; a serious emotional disturbance, including an emotional handicap; a specific learning disability, including, but not limited to, dyslexia, dyscalculia, or developmental aphasia; a traumatic brain injury; or autism.
The McKay Scholarships are tuition vouchers that can be used at any participating eligible private school chosen by the family. FloridaChild regards the McKay Scholarships as the best K-12 scholarships in the nation. We worked for their passage and are working for the day when a similar scholarship will be made available to all children.
The amount of the scholarship is the amount spent on the student in the assigned public school, or the tuition at the private school, whichever is less. Families or others may add to the scholarship if the cost of the services at the private school is greater than the scholarship.
The scholarship remains in force until the student returns to a public school or graduates from high school. The parents are free to remove the student from one private school and place the student in another that is eligible for the program.
To be eligible the student:
- 1. must have a disability that is recognized in the statute.
- 2. must have been counted as a full-time Florida public school student during the previous school year
- 3. must have an Individual Education Plan (IEP).
The second requirement (only) is waived for the children of members of the United States Armed Forces who transfer to a Florida school from out of state or from a foreign country pursuant to a parent’s permanent change of station orders.
An IEP is a special plan for teaching the student. Normally parents will know if the child has an IEP because they must have met with school officials and formally agreed to the special teaching plan before it was implemented.
Click on Learn More below for links to additional information on McKay Scholarships.
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