A nonprofit organization that helps students with scholarships for private schools has been awarded the Scholarship Funding Organization by the Florida Board of Education.
Step Up For Students was renewed to handle scholarship funding by the Board to handle distribution of those scholarship funds for the 2026 to 2027 school year. The Board voted unanimously this month for the renewal.
“Step Up For Students is grateful for the confidence the Board of Education has shown in our ability to manage the state’s education choice programs,” said Step Up CEO Gretchen Schoenhaar. “There is no initiative of this size, scope and complexity in the country, and we are honored to serve the parents, students, schools, providers and vendors as well as to partner with the (Department of Education) and Legislature in Florida.”
Step Up For Students is based in Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and has awarded more than 2 million scholarships since it was founded in 2002 when it began administering Florida education choice scholarships. The nonprofit handles five programs for about 520,000 students.
In 2023, Florida made all Kindergarten through 12th grade students eligible for the program and gave parents more flexibility how parents could spend scholarship funds for their children by establishing education savings accounts. Step Up for Students established Education Market Assistance, which is a platform to help manage onboarding for parents and online applications. The platform also serves education service providers, vendors and private schools and helps them engage with parents.
Step Up has made 727,811 tuition payments to about 2,500 private schools in the past year and they’ve sped up the payment process to taking only 2.5 days, down from 4.6 days the previous year.
Step Up is also on track this school year to account for 2.75 million transactions through its online market place called MyScholarShop. The nonprofit is also on track to process about 4.5 million reimbursement requests. That’s about four times as many reimbursements Step Up handled only two years ago.
