Despite DeSantis’ War with Disney, Florida’s New School Voucher Bill Will Pay for Disney Tickets for Students

AP Photo/John Raoux

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is infamously engaged in a bitter battle with the House of Mouse, but that didn’t stop him from signing a bill this year that expands the state’s school voucher program to reimburse some controversial expenditures, including big-screen TVs, exercise equipment — and tickets to Walt Disney World.

In March, DeSantis signed a bill after this year’s legislative session that significantly expanded eligibility for school vouchers and also added to the list of reimbursable purchases for voucher-eligible students to include televisions up to 55 inches, treadmills, kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, game consoles, and passes to Florida theme parks, including those owned by Disney, as reported Friday by the Tampa Bay Times.

Some of these items were previously on a list of enrichment activities available to disabled students on a pre-approval basis. The 2023 bill DeSantis signed expanded eligibility to any home school student or private school student who still has any funds remaining in the $8,000 voucher allowance. A newly-released purchasing guide from the state agency that administers the program “quickly raised eyebrows” over the expanded list of permitted reimbursements.

According to the Times, the previous version of Florida’s voucher law spent millions of dollars in 2021-2022 (the latest year for which data was available) in reimbursements for students with disabilities, including $1.2 million on televisions, $43,374 on treadmills, $30,436 on indoor trampolines, $226,584 on game consoles, $8 million on computers, and $3.4 million on iPads.

The president of the voucher agency, Doug Tuthill, explained the justification behind such expenditures as supporting “the unique learning needs of each child”:

For instance, large-screen televisions might aid students with visual impairments. Paddleboards, one of several items allowed for physical education, can offer balance training for students who have been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.

Step Up previously did not approve theme park passes, but reconsidered after hearing from parents about the potential benefits, Tuthill said. A student with severe developmental disabilities might better focus when stimulated by the sights and sounds, for example, or a home-school family may incorporate ‘all the different history and culture lessons available at Disney World,’ such as art and music festivals.

Still, the decision to expand the program so broadly drew critics who pointed out that the state government does not pay for public school students to take field trips to theme parks, instead having their families pay out of pocket or get help from community sponsors.

According to the Times report, the voucher program will pay for just the student’s admission to a theme park, not their parents, and has a maximum reimbursement of $299 per school year. Florida resident tickets to Disney World start at $109 per day. Disney annual passes start at $399 for a weekday-only Florida resident pass and $749 for one that includes the weekends.

Numerous Democrats in the state legislature had loudly opposed the bill before it passed, calling it too expensive and an unfair redistribution of tax dollars. State Rep. Robin Bartleman (D) expressed how she was “[s]o angry that our warnings fell on deaf ears,” seeing teachers “struggle” with housing expenses and paying for classroom supplies out of pocket but now school tax dollars were “paying for vacations in Disney (ironic)” — the parenthetical comment presumably referring to DeSantis’ ongoing spat with Disney.

State Sen. Lori Berman (D) expressed her frustration to Florida Politics, blasting her Republican colleagues for insisting that schools “shouldn’t be teaching anything having to do with social development, diversity, equity, inclusion and we should just be teaching the basics,” but “now we’re going to be giving them paddleboard lessons.”

“I just don’t understand the rationale and the hypocrisy is amazing,” she added.

Another Democrat, State Sen. Tina Polsky, called the expanded bill “voucher abuse” and “outrageous.”

“Public schools do not get money for theme parks. The voucher program is already way above the estimates,” she texted Florida Politics reporter Anne Geggis. “It’s going to cost the state a fortune and it’s being abused already.”

State Rep. Anna Eskamani (D), who represents an Orlando area district, had a scathing response to the news. “There is so much irony in DeSantis attacking Disney while he allows public money to be used to buy Disney tickets but it further demonstrates how everything he does is performative and not substantive,” she told Mediaite.

Even some parents who have supported other voucher reimbursements expressed concerns about the broad new permissions of this year’s bill. Lisa Miller, a Polk County School Board member, told the Times her family had used vouchers for educational items for her nonverbal son but still worried Florida’s program was too easily abused and allowed things that would never be acceptable for public schools to do. As one example, she commented that there were many funding requests around the winter holidays for things like Lego sets and Xbox game systems.

Holly Bullard, the chief strategy and development officer for the Florida Policy Institute, helped lead the organization’s efforts to lobby against the voucher expansion bill, and was unsurprisingly sharply critical of these newly-revealed developments.

“Florida public school teachers get paid 48th in the nation on average,” Bullard told Mediaite. “They have to dig into their own pockets to cover classroom materials. Meanwhile, taxpayer money is going towards video game consoles, TVs and most ironic of all, Disney passes, for voucher families. It’s not just unfair, it’s scandalous. Two billion in new state spending was set aside for this program this year— we need to hit pause and make sure our public schools are fully funded first.”

This article has been updated with additional information.