TAMPA, Fla. —  The Florida House and Senate are possibly on the cusp of expanding the states school voucher program and some parents are divided on the issue.

What You Need To Know

  • Some parents worry the voucher expansion will take money from neighborhood schools

  • Voucher program could take hundreds of millions of dollars away from public education

  • Some parents support the idea of having school choices

Teresa Potter is a mother of two and lives in South Tampa. She is also the president of the League of Women Voters of Hillsborough and Pasco counties. 

She said she worries public school funding will be greatly diminished by the voucher program. "If we can fully fund our neighborhood schools and pay our teachers and then there was money left over to fund vouchers or homeschoolers, that would be different. But pulling it right out of the neighborhood schools and causing them to fail does feel deliberate." 

Potter said that school funding is already a problem in that Florida has been climbing the ladder of poorly-funded education to be 48th in the United States. This is despite the fact that Florida is the fourth-largest economy in the country.

"Pulling funding from here to pay for the private schools doesn't do anything but hurt the students that are left in the neighborhood schools. 

Some parents like the idea of allowing options, including Megan Restaino, a mother of two who lives in south Tampa.

"My kids have been in public school since day one, but I guess it's good to have options if you need options."