Ashley’s grandmother got the call about a week after Ashley was born. She expected good news, that her granddaughter had arrived happy and healthy. Instead, it was a judge on the line, telling her the baby had been born with drugs in her system, and asking if she would take her in.
Born Into a Hard Start
She said yes, to Ashley and to her siblings. “Your granddaughter’s been born, but she’s been born with drugs in her system,” the judge told her. “We were wondering if you would care to adopt her.”
There’s a street in the middle of Lakeland, Florida, called Memorial Boulevard. Live on one side, and you’re zoned for a school with a decent shot at graduation. Live on the other, and you’re zoned for one of the worst graduation and literacy rates in the city.
“That’s the side I grew up on,” Ashley recalled.
“I didn’t get to choose where I started in life, but thanks to the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, I did get to choose where I ended up.”
Ashley’s grandmother believed a good education was the surest way to keep her grandchildren off the path their parents had gone down, so she looked for every alternative to the school Ashley was zoned for.
Two Miles to the Library
In middle school, that meant a well-rated technology school. It looked like the answer until the bill came due. The family couldn’t afford computers or Wi-Fi at home, and some weeks there wasn’t enough money to keep the lights on.
So Ashley and her brother found their own workaround. Before sunrise, they rode their bikes two miles to the library to get online and finish their schoolwork. In the afternoons, Ashley walked to a restaurant called Mr. Fish, where she sold bracelets for three or four years to help support her family.
Something had to give. It was school.
Written Off
Ashley fell behind and transferred to an alternative school meant to help kids catch up. What she found instead were teachers who had already decided what she’d become.
“Almost every single teacher at the school saw us as future dropouts, not someone to invest in or to care about,” Ashley said.
“When you treat children like they’re disappointments, like they’re not going to be anything, they’ll act like that.”
She started skipping class and smoking behind the portables, drifting toward the same path her grandmother had spent years trying to keep her off of.
More Than a Phone
Then, in ninth grade, a new teacher transferred in: Mrs. Perez.
Not long after, a boy stole Ashley’s phone, the one her mom had saved $100 to buy her. Ashley came apart. She went straight to Mrs. Perez’s classroom and told her what happened.
“I feel like this is about so much more than just a phone,” Mrs. Perez told her.
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Ashley broke down. Mrs. Perez didn’t know that the family couldn’t always keep the lights on, or that they sometimes showered in the rain because their water heater was broken. She just saw straight through to what was actually going on.
“Ashley told me much later that that was a real turning point for her,” Mrs. Perez said.
“She learned to be vulnerable, and she learned that there’s strength in vulnerability.”
From then on, Ashley stayed close to Mrs. Perez. As long as she was at that school, Ashley believed she could do anything.
The Scholarship That Followed a Teacher
In tenth grade, Mrs. Perez told Ashley she was transferring again, this time to Victory Christian Academy, a private school ten minutes away that Ashley had no way to afford. She wanted Ashley to come with her.
Mrs. Perez and Ashley’s principal, Mr. Thomas, found a way: the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship. It covered Victory almost entirely, and Ashley transferred right away.
What she found there was a school full of teachers like Mrs. Perez.
“Every teacher was invested in you personally,” Ashley said.
“For the first time ever, I was able to have a definition of myself that was not based off of the circumstances of where I was born.”
Ashley Today
Ashley came into Victory Christian Academy with less than a 2.0 GPA. She graduated with a 3.2, made honor roll, and set a varsity record. She went on to finish college.
Today, she works to bring that same scholarship opportunity to other kids still living on the wrong side of their own Memorial Boulevard.
“It not only provided me a way out of poverty, a way into academic success, but it provided me a sense of self,” Ashley reflected.
“And I never would have had it if it weren’t for the scholarship.”
What Ashley’s Story Makes Clear
Ashley’s family found their answer through the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, administered by Step Up For Students, one of the largest school choice programs in the country. But that kind of flexibility doesn’t exist everywhere, and not every student who needs a different school, or a different teacher, ever gets the chance to find one.
The Education Freedom Tax Credit (EFTC), launching in 2027, is designed to close that gap on a national scale. When eligible donors contribute to a qualifying Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO), like AFC Scholarship Fund, they receive a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit of up to $1,700. Any contribution above that amount is treated as a standard charitable deduction, and there is no cap on total giving.
A national scholarship infrastructure means a student’s zip code shouldn’t determine whether they ever meet their own Mrs. Perez, or get the chance to prove what a fair shot can do.
“School choice means a way out of the life you may have been born into,” Ashley said of her experience.
Countless families have a story like this one. See more stories of students and families whose lives changed through school choice.
