Bullied Students Could Get Private School Vouchers In Florida

Students Classroom — A bill put forth by the Florida Senate would allow bullied students to transfer to a private school. Here, students appear at the Saint Hillary School in Fairlawn, Ohio, May 24, 2017. Getty Images/Duane Prokop

Bullied students in Florida could get taxpayer funded vouchers to attend private school. A Senate panel voted Monday on legislation SB 1172, which would allow students who have been bullied, robbed or victims of other types of violence to get a voucher for private school or transfer to a different school, according to WESH-TV.

Dubbed the “Hope Scholarship Program,” the bill would “authorize certain persons to elect to direct certain state sales and use tax revenue to be transferred to a nonprofit scholarship funding organization,” according to the Florida Senate. The bill was sponsored by Republican Sen. Bill Galvano of District 21 and encompasses 10 categories of incidents that include bullying and sexual assault.

The bill would ideally help students and families who feel they are “trapped” in a bad situation, Galvano said.

“You want to stop the behavior,” Galvano said, according to the Sun-Sentinel. “But you also want to empower the victim.”

There has, however, been opposition to the proposed legislation. Opponents criticized the grounds of the bill, saying it expanded the voucher system while failing to address the causes of bullying and other violent incidents in schools.

“Frankly, we’re just not falling for this one,” said Marie-Claire Leman, a mother who is a part of a grassroots group called Common Ground, according to the Tampa Bay Times. “We don’t believe that it’s about bullying. We believe that it’s a thinly veiled attempt to expand the source of funding for vouchers and to further privatize education.”

Galvano has fought back against such arguments.

“As so often happens in the legislative process, you address one side of the equation and everybody piles onto the other side of the equation,” he said, according to the Tampa Bay Times. “To put all the emphasis on one side, saying you don’t want to give restitution to the victims, instead, we want to give stiffer penalties to the offender, it doesn’t work that way. You have to have both sides.”

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