Hope Program (formerly the Hope Scholarship)

Florida's Hope Program is not a scholarship and has no money of its own. The Hope Scholarship was repealed effective July 1, 2024². What remains is a referral: when a public-school student reports bullying, violence or another listed incident, the school district must offer a transfer to another public school and tell the parent that the child may apply for the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options (FES-EO) or the Florida Tax Credit (FTC) Scholarship. For 2026-27 the family then applies to a scholarship funding organization (SFO) like any other private-school applicant.

What replaced the Hope Scholarship

The 2024 law that ended the scholarship (HB 1403, ch. 2024-163) turned section 1002.40 into a referral duty and moved the Hope tax credits into the FTC program³. The section is still titled "The Hope Scholarship Program," but no scholarship exists under it⁴. There is no separate Hope account, award amount, statutory deadline or priority⁵⁶. A student who is funded after a Hope referral gets the ordinary FES-EO or FTC amount for their county and grade; see award amounts.

Which incidents lead to a referral

The law covers a K-12 public-school student who reports any of these at school: battery, harassment, hazing, bullying, kidnapping, physical attack, robbery, a sexual offense, threat or intimidation, or fighting¹. Within 15 days of the report, or at the end of the investigation if that comes first, the district must:

• offer a transfer to another public school that has capacity, and
• tell the parent the child is eligible to apply for FES-EO or FTC.

How a family proceeds

1. Report the incident to the school and keep a copy of what the district sends you.
2. Decide between the public-school transfer and a private school. A transfer is handled by the district; a scholarship is handled by an SFO.
3. Apply for the Private School Scholarship (FES-EO and FTC) with Step Up For Students, AAA Scholarship Foundation or Sunshine State Kids Foundation (which offers FES-EO). Step Up For Students' new-student deadline for 2026-27 is November 15, 2026⁷; AAA Scholarship Foundation's is November 15, 2026⁸. Check each SFO's own site for its process.
4. If the regular deadline has passed, ask your SFO about deadline exceptions. Step Up For Students treats a public-school bullying incident documented on FDOE's Hope Scholarship Notification Form as a deadline exception for the Private School Scholarship⁹, with applications accepted until April 15, 2027¹⁰. That is Step Up For Students' practice, not a rule in the statute, and it does not apply to PEP⁶.

A Hope referral does not move a student ahead of other applicants. New applicants are funded in the same income-priority order as everyone else; see FES-EO and FTC.

Students who held a Hope Scholarship in 2023-24

A student who had a Hope Scholarship in 2023-24 stays eligible for FES-EO and FTC under the current law¹¹¹². Those students now apply and renew through the Private School Scholarship like other students.

"Hope" names you may still see

• Hope Scholarship Notification Form. An FDOE form name that some SFOs still use for the deadline exception above. It is not an application for a separate scholarship.
• "Hope" tax-credit portals. Sunshine State Kids Foundation's "Hope" link is a portal for car dealers to send motor-vehicle sales-tax credit contributions that fund FTC¹³, not a family application.
• Older web pages may still describe the Hope Scholarship as open. Treat any page that offers a stand-alone Hope award as out of date.

Related

• All Florida K-12 scholarship programs
• FES-EO and FTC (the Private School Scholarship)
• How to apply for a Florida K-12 scholarship
• 2026-27 scholarship deadlines
• FAQ: eligibility and FAQ: private schools
• New Worlds Scholarship Accounts, another program that is no longer open
• Florida scholarship organizations