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Cassandra and Jonathan K. Galloway have one child participating in the Florida Opportunity Scholarship Program. Jonathan D. Galloway attends Sacred Heart Cathedral.
Cassandra shares this story of her son’s struggle for educational opportunities:
" My son attended Spencer Bibbs Public School. He was making As and Bs on his report card and when he got tested, he could not read. My son was on the honor roll and he could not read. He knew math but he couldn’t read."
"He would come home from Spencer Bibbs saying he didn’t like himself. He never had homework."
"I kept going to the school and I kept going for meetings with the teachers. When I was there asking a lot of questions, they were paying attention to his problems. But when I wasn’t around, he wasn’t getting what he needed to learn. So, I decided to look into the Opportunity Scholarships."
"Everybody at Sacred Heart knows Jonathan. He feels like he’s somebody. He feels like he’s important. He was a very shy child but now he comes home and he’s more outgoing and confident. He is secure of himself."
"Jonathan says he likes the way they talk to him at Sacred Heart. He says they are more polite. At the public school they were always yelling."
"The teacher sent a note home every day about how he was doing, whether he had a good day or a bad day. If he missed a day of school, the office and the teacher would call. I get two calls. They let me know right away. The teacher wants to know if he’s sick or how he’s feeling. I know that they really care about him."
"Towards the end of the school year they had a service and he begged me to come. So I took off of work and I went there to surprise him. I was the one who was surprised. He got up and sang a song. I could not believe it. He stood up in front of the whole school, all by himself."
"He plays basketball and won a trophy. Spencer Bibbs didn’t have any after-school activities – -- just going into the cafeteria after school to do homework and play board games."
"I see that he can read. He’s not excellent but he is better than when he was at Spencer Bibbs. He gets up in the morning ready to go to school."
"When I told him that if we lost the court case, he couldn’t go to Sacred Heart next year, he started to cry. I don’t know what I’m going to do if the scholarship program ends."
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