Marisel Salazar thought the hardest part would be getting her daughter through the pandemic. Instead, the fight that shaped her view of school choice began after Florida forced schools to reopen in 2021 and her child started kindergarten in August 2021.
Her daughter was 6 years old, and what should have been a routine start to school quickly turned into something else. Salazar says the child’s kindergarten teacher retired early after 28 years in the classroom, and the year ended with a substitute because no replacement could be found. In first grade, her daughter told her she had no friends and that nobody wanted to play with her. “That question changed her life,” Salazar said of the moment she pressed for help.
The family’s next step was an evaluation requested by the teacher and the administration. An independent assessment found that the girl is on the autism spectrum and has ADHD with impulsivity. After that, school officials recommended moving her into a modified classroom, and Salazar says the change transformed her experience. Once she moved, her daughter started excelling and found a best friend.
Salazar now points to that sequence as the reason she distrusts the idea that a voucher can substitute for the legal protections built into public education. Her daughter has an Individualized Education Plan, which Salazar says guarantees accommodations at no cost under federal law. Florida’s voucher programs, she says, do not require private schools to honor an IEP. “The moment I take that voucher, I stop being a parent with legal rights and become a customer hoping for the best,” she said.
That is why the state’s school choice push lands differently for families like hers. The appeal is easy to understand: more options, less bureaucracy, and a way out of schools that do not work. But Salazar says the public system is still the only one legally bound to serve every child, including the ones who need the most support. Private schools, she argues, can simply turn away students whose behavior becomes too difficult.
Her view is shaped not just by her daughter’s diagnosis but by what she has watched unfold around Florida schools more broadly. She links the current debate to Moms for Liberty protests, battles over masking, attacks on teachers and the state’s book bans, saying the climate helped drive away experienced educators. She says a veteran kindergarten teacher left early because the job had become toxic and the salary was no longer sustainable.
The result, in her telling, is a system where families are told they are being given freedom while schools lose the people and tools needed to serve children who do not fit neatly into a standard classroom. Her daughter’s story is her proof point: the public school system failed her at first, then helped her once the right evaluation and placement were finally in place.
For Salazar, that is the part of school choice that matters most today. The question is not whether families want options. It is whether a voucher can offer the same protection as a legal right, and on that point she says the answer is no.
