- December 13, 2025
Flagler County School District School Choice Specialist Susan Kennedy had been working in a similar position in Volusia County Schools for about six months, when she thought, “I’m never going to understand this. It’s never going to make sense.”
Now, she’s an expert in a very complicated system, one that hasn’t received enough state scrutiny, according to a review.
A recent state audit of Florida’s Family Empowerment Scholarship found millions in overspending and a lack of oversight. The audit was presented to state lawmakers last week.
Sen. Don Gaetz said, “The amount of money we cannot account for as being in the right place at the right time exceeds $270 million on any given day.”
Earlier this month, the state released about $47 million to public school districts to address the shortfall from the 2024-25 year caused by paying funds to scholarship students who were actually enrolled in public school.
Amid this climate, Flagler Schools enhanced a vacant position in Student Services to hire Kennedy, who works alongside School Choice Coordinator Andrea McIntyre.
Student Services Director John Fanelli said some Flagler families who received a scholarship, still had their student a district school.
“We had to contact them and say you have (your student) coming to public school full time, but you're receiving the funding,” Fanelli said. “So we've got to reconcile that. Either you've got to pay us for educating your child, or you have to look at other educational options.”
The scholarships were rolled out before all of the procedures were put in place, Fanelli said.
Wading through the options, details, eligibility and allowable expenditures are cumbersome.
There are six different scholarship programs. The major ones are the Family Empowerment Scholarship Education Options (FES-EO), the Family Empowerment Scholarship Unique Abilities (FES-UA) and the Personalized Education Program (PEP).
There are also two scholarship funding organizations — Step Up For Students and AAA Scholarships — which are like banks that handle the families’ scholarship money. The audit found that the Florida Department of Education didn't cross check students receiving money from AAA to make sure students weren’t attending public school.
According to the audit summary, education funding for the 2024-25 school year “was met with a myriad of accountability challenges that left a statewide funding shortfall and a system where funding did not follow the child.”
Explaining procedures and options to families are part of Kennedy’s job description. She has been on the job since late August. Kennedy had previously been working with school choice and scholarship programs in Volusia County since 2020.
Every single year, the programs have grown.
It’s hard to keep up with all the changes. But that’s our job.
— SUSAN KENNEDY, School Choice Specialist
“It’s hard to keep up with all the changes,” she said. “But that’s our job.”
She said she and McIntyre spent a “good portion of the start of the school year,” calling parents to confirm that they applied for and received the PEP Scholarship, “so that we knew that we had to withdraw them from Flagler County Schools, that they couldn't be enrolled as a home education student with us and then directing them towards whoever their scholarship organization was.”
Flagler Schools has been working for the past two years to provide contracted services to provide specific courses, exams and extracurricular activities for students not enrolled in public schools. Kennedy has expanded the initiative, putting prices on individual courses and programs or an Advanced Placement exam and working with individual schools to make it happen.
Fanelli estimates that about 50 scholarship families are now taking at least one course or program with the district.
“I know Susan is working with families every day to help them with a partial schedule,” he said. “It’s really customized to what the needs of the family are. There are families that want to educate their child in the home, but when it comes to the higher level math and sciences, they say that's beyond their capacity to educate. Or it’s a special area like band. I think as the word gets out, the numbers will grow and grow.”
Fanelli said most districts are working on partial enrollment models. Flagler has already put its model into practice.
With the amount of tax dollars going to scholarships, providing different options is a necessity, Fanelli said.
The most expensive students to educate, Kennedy said, are in kindergarten to third grade because there is more curriculum instruction, learning foundations.
“If you applied for the FES-EO or the (Florida Tax Credit Scholarship) or the PEP and your child is in second grade, then you would receive $8,139 to educate your student,” she said.
Add an Individualized Education Program (IEP) at the highest level of need, Kennedy said, and you would receive $34,700.
“Our superintendent (LaShakia Moore) has been very forward thinking,” Fanelli said. “We started these conversations last year. How do we become and maintain being the best choice for our families in Flagler County, and some of that is by giving them the ability to choose how and where they want to be educated, because, at the end of the day, our job is to prepare our students for life beyond the classroom. It’s different than it was 10, 20, 50 years ago, so we need to continue to grow and change to better meet the needs of our future workforce.”
