My Son Is Bright, Bored, and Almost Gone

The students who finish first and then sit with nothing to do are a kind of special need too. They are also the ones Lee County is losing to private school and homeschool. This one is mine, and at thirteen he already sketched the fix. Our fact-check rides at the bottom.

By Amber Cebull · July 23, 2026

I hate to make this about me. But I am in this for a reason, and the reason is my kid.

My son goes to Cypress Lake Middle School. He is a very smart child who finishes his work fast, and then he is done, with time to spare and nothing to fill it. Talking in class has been a problem for him. He knows that, and he has worked on it. But think about what we are actually asking of a kid like him. We are asking him to sit with nothing to do while an overwhelmed teacher tries to get help to the students who learn at a different pace. Then we act surprised when the boredom comes out sideways.

This is more common than anyone lets on. A child who is bored out of his mind in a classroom has a real need, even if it is not the need we usually build programs around. And these are exactly the students who end up in private school and homeschool, one at a time, while everyone calls it a personal choice.

The day I was reduced to tears

At one point my frustration got the better of me and I called a meeting. Four of my son's teachers, the behavioral specialist, and the assistant principal all sat down with me. Every one of them was wonderful. And I still left in tears, because when I put it all together, what they were telling me was this. We are doing everything we can to challenge your son, and we are so overwhelmed we cannot do more.

I believed them. That is the part that breaks my heart. They were not failing him out of indifference. They were failing him out of exhaustion, because the system hands them more than any human being can carry and then asks them to find something extra for the kid who is already ahead.

This is not a struggling student

Let me be clear about who we are talking about. My son gets 4s and 5s on his FAST tests. He has gotten straight As almost since the day he started school. He loves to learn. He is the easiest possible child for a school to hold onto.

And last year the conversation in our house was about how to get him to go at all. He did not want to be there anymore. A kid who loves learning had started to dread the building we send him to for learning.

What turned it around was not a policy. It was people. His chorus teacher, his robotics teacher, the AV program, the arts at Cypress Lake. And it was not just that the programs existed. It was that specific teachers got creative and chose, on top of an already crushing workload, to actually challenge him. They found ways to give a fast, restless kid something worth doing when no system required them to lift a finger. Enrichment is not a frill, and neither is that kind of teaching. For my son it was the thread that kept him tied to public school. Teachers who reach for the bored kid while already carrying everyone else deserve far more than this system gives them.

My 13-year-old already sketched the fix

Here is the part that should stop the board cold. My son did not just sit in that boredom. He started writing papers, actual proposals, with ideas for how a school could hold a kid like him. Because I have always told him, if we have a problem, we do not complain about it, we find a solution. So I sat down with my son, KJ, on camera and asked him to walk me through them. He calls it an AI personalized curriculum. Here is what he told me, in his own words.

Watch the clip

Amber: Okay, so there's part of your paper. It says 'AI personalized curriculums.'
KJ: Right. So we were just talking about how I get bored in class because I finish my work so fast. Something like an AI personalized curriculum would tailor a curriculum to a person. And AI would help teach that student, make it easier on the teacher, and it would give them work. Instead of having a ton of free time that I can't really do anything with, I would be able to continue learning. I wouldn't need to finish my work so fast, because it would be tailored to my level of education.
Amber: Where you're at in your skill sets, in your brain.
KJ: Yeah.

Amber: What else could you do in AI personalized curriculums?
KJ: AI personalized curriculums can't just help with teaching. Since they have a bigger area of information, it could take that information and give it to the student. It wouldn't have to be based on what one teacher can remember. It would be what the internet as a whole can remember.
Amber: What if it's giving people the wrong information, though?
KJ: Well, that would probably be a big issue. One of the best ways to stop that would be creating an AI to just be in educational technology. Giving it certain parameters for what it's allowed to say and what it's not.
Amber: Kind of like your teachers, right? Because your teachers are only allowed to say certain things in class, or things they discuss in the curriculum.
KJ: Right.

That was the concept. Then I asked what else was in his paper, and he told me about the one part he got marked down on.

KJ: This was the only part of my paper I wasn't graded well on. In Global Perspectives there's very specific criteria you have to meet, especially for the plan of action. It's a SMART goal. Specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable, time-bound.
Amber: So your plan of action was a little lacking?
KJ: The main issue I had was the time-bound one. It's hard to implement a plan that you can't do by yourself as a 13-year-old in class, without any prior knowledge about it. When the teacher was grading it, she didn't see a sustainable way to do it in a measurable time period. Like, if I'm saying I want to implement these all by a certain amount of time, that's hard to say, because there's too many variables.
Amber: What would those variables be?
KJ: It could be money. There could not be enough money. It could just not work out. Some things could fail. There's too many variables, honestly.

Sit with that. In Global Perspectives, the plan of action is one of the most important parts of the grade, and it is the one place my son lost points. He is thirteen. He does not control a budget, a staffing chart, or whether the arts survive the next round of cuts. He got marked down for not solving the implementation problem, the money and the systems and the follow-through, that the adults running a nearly three billion dollar district have not solved either. We are grading a child on the exact thing we refuse to fix for him.

So I asked him how he would even begin, and what the single most important change would be.

KJ: I think one of the best ways to implement this would be going one at a time. Ranking what would be the most important thing to have in the classroom, and implementing them one by one.
Amber: What do you think is the most cost-effective and easily implemented thing on your list right now?
KJ: Cost-effective-wise, it'd probably be gamification. But if I had to go most important, the thing that would make the biggest change in a classroom, I would do AI personalized curriculums. Because that is definitely one of the biggest things I've struggled with. Boredom, not having enough work to do. And it's not just me. A lot of my friends who are also gifted have the same issue. Because they're smart, too.

A thirteen-year-old just gave a more serious answer to the boredom problem than anything I have heard from the dais. He is not asking for less school. He is asking for school that meets him where he is, so his teachers do not have to invent that from scratch for one kid while they are drowning. And he named the thing no one on that board will. It is not just him. It is the gifted kids sitting next to him, doing the same math about whether to stay.

KJ, in his own words. KJ Cebull, 13, on his AI personalized curriculum idea, the plan-of-action grade, and the one change he says matters most. The class-size math is edited out; the full transcript is above.

By the numbers: who a school like this actually loses

I want to widen the lens, because this is not only about one bright, bored kid. It is about who a school loses when it cannot hold kids like him, and what that costs. The numbers below are Florida's own.

A Florida school's A-through-F grade is built almost entirely from how its enrolled students score on the state FAST and end-of-course tests, plus their learning gains. An A takes at least 62 percent of the available points, and 64 percent for a middle or high school like the one my son attends. The children who post 4s and 5s are the ones carrying those points.
Since 2023, when Florida made its school-choice scholarships available to every family, the state funded more than 460,000 voucher scholarships in a single year, at a cost of roughly $3.9 billion. The largest program pays about $8,000 per child.
That money follows the child. Florida pays for those vouchers through the same finance program that funds public schools, so when a student leaves, the per-student dollars leave with them.
Home education is climbing too. Florida reported 155,532 home-educated students in 2023-24, up about 46 percent over the prior five years.
And the private schools those vouchers pay for do not play by the same rules. They are not under the state education department's authority, they can set their own admissions, and they are not required to give the state test or earn a grade. Researchers warn this lets them select the students who are easiest, and highest-performing, to serve.

Put those together and you get the math no one on the board says out loud. A public school is graded on its high performers. A voucher hands roughly $8,000 to families who leave. And the private schools collecting that money get to choose and keep the very students who hold a public school's grade up. A school like Cypress Lake can lose its A students and the funding attached to them in the same motion, and then be blamed for the drop.

What the A rating actually costs

Here is what I need the board to hear. We are not far from the edge. If nothing changes, Cypress Lake will not lose one high-performing student. It will lose two, because his sibling is coming up right behind him. Those are the kids whose scores help hold that school at an A. The rating you are proud of is built in part on children who are, right now, deciding whether to stay.

So I am asking. Not only for me. For my kids. For their teachers, and their peace of mind, and their mental health. And for every parent whose child has a different kind of need, the kind that looks like boredom instead of a diagnosis, and who is watching a bright kid check out. Why can we not change this?

Why is my thirteen-year-old writing papers and drafting ideas just to figure out how to exist inside your system? He should be spending that mind on something other than surviving the place that is supposed to grow it.

So how can I sit there and tell him his hands are tied? I am not willing to tell him that. Are you?

You saw the facts. You did not see me.

I sat in that board meeting and chose not to speak. I did not need to say anything to feel it. A few of you found me in the room, and I caught the glares. You know exactly who I am. But the person on the other side of this movement is more than a keyboard warrior. She is a mom with two kids, navigating the same broken system you are in charge of fixing. You see someone who posts the numbers and calls things out. You do not see the single mom behind the posts, with her own story, her own kids, and their own needs, here because she has run out of other options. This is not a policy abstraction to me. It is my dinner table.

It is personal to me. It is personal to every parent who has ever sat where I sat. And part of the reason that room is so empty? It is because you are still not getting that.

And I do not care how long it takes for you to see that. I will keep posting. If I lose every client and end up living in a box on food stamps, I will find internet somewhere and keep posting, because our kids deserve more.

More infrastructure. More systems. More equipment. More enrichment in the classroom. More support for the teachers already doing this work on their own time. More ways to make a public school a place a bright, bored kid actually wants to be. Or, in the words you use at every single board meeting, deliver a world-class education.

Deliver it. My son already drew you a start. He is thirteen, he is waiting, and he is almost out of patience. So am I.

What Would It Actually Take to Break the Chain: what a parent can do about it on August 18

Fact check

The Florida figures hold up: the school-grade formula and the 62 percent threshold for an A, the scale and cost of the state's universal school-choice scholarships, the fact that voucher money is drawn from the same finance program that funds public schools, the growth of home education, and the fact that voucher-accepting private schools set their own admissions and are not held to the state test. The author's son's record and the interview are firsthand and presented as such. The argument tying it all together is her opinion.

This op-ed carries its author's name, so its factual claims were checked by an independent third party rather than by us. The account of the author's own son, his test scores and grades, the meeting with his teachers, and the video interview, are her firsthand experience and are presented as such. The Florida education figures were run against state records and cited sources. The conclusion drawn from the facts is the author's opinion.

Checked July 23, 2026

A Florida school's A-F grade is calculated from student achievement and learning gains on the statewide FAST and end-of-course tests, and an A requires at least 62 percent of the available points, or 64 percent for middle and high schools.

Accurate. Florida's school-grade formula sums points across achievement, learning gains, the gains of the lowest-performing 25 percent, and acceleration and graduation components, and the letter grade is the percentage of possible points earned. For elementary schools an A is 62 percent or above; for middle, high, and combination schools an A is 64 percent or above. Source: FLDOE's 2024-25 Guide to Calculating School Grades and Fla. Stat. 1008.34. The point that departing high scorers erode the metrics is the author's reasonable inference, not a state finding.

FAST reports student performance on a 1-to-5 scale, where a 5 is the highest achievement level.

Accurate. The Florida Assessment of Student Thinking reports achievement levels 1 through 5, with 5 the highest.

Since Florida made school-choice scholarships universally available in 2023, the state funded more than 460,000 voucher scholarships in a single year at a cost of about $3.9 billion, with the largest program paying roughly $8,000 per child.

Accurate as stated. HB 1 (2023) removed income eligibility caps. Step Up For Students reported more than 460,000 scholarships awarded for 2024-25, and Florida budgeted about $3.9 billion for the programs; the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Opportunities averages about $8,000 per student. Sources: Florida Policy Institute FY2024-25 budget summary and EdChoice program profile.

Voucher scholarships are funded through the same Florida Education Finance Program that funds public schools, so a student who leaves takes the per-student funding with them.

Accurate. The Family Empowerment Scholarship is funded through the Florida Education Finance Program, the same mechanism that funds district students, so a departure is a direct per-pupil funding loss to the district. Sources: EdChoice program profile; Florida Policy Institute.

Florida reported 155,532 home-educated students in 2023-24, up about 46 percent over the prior five years.

Accurate per FLDOE's 2023-24 Home Education Annual Report, which reports 114,239 families and 155,532 home-educated students, about a 46 percent increase over five years. Most of that growth came in the first pandemic year; year-over-year growth has since flattened.

Private schools that accept Florida vouchers are not under the state education department's authority, may set their own admissions, and are not required to administer the state test or receive a school grade.

The structural facts are accurate and documented: Florida law states the Department of Education does not have jurisdiction over private schools, voucher-accepting private schools may set admissions requirements, and they are not required to give the statewide assessment. Sources: ProPublica's 2026 investigation and Brookings analysis. The further claim that this causes selection, or cream-skimming, of the highest performers is a concern raised by researchers and by the program's design, not a measured outcome for Florida, which the op-ed reflects by saying researchers warn of it.

The author's son attends Cypress Lake Middle School, scores 4s and 5s on FAST, earns straight As, and nearly left public school before arts and enrichment teachers kept him engaged; the AI-curriculum interview is with her son KJ.

This is the author's firsthand account of her own child, including a meeting she convened with his teachers and a recorded interview published on this site's videos page. It is presented as her experience and is not independently verified here. The interview quotes are transcribed from that video.

Fact-check sources

About the author

Amber Cebull Amber is a Fort Myers native. Her two kids, 13 and 12, go to Cypress Lake Middle School. She grew up in Lee County schools herself: Tanglewood Elementary, Allen Park Elementary, Paul Laurence Dunbar Middle School's Gifted Program, Fort Myers High School's IB Program. She graduated from the University of Central Florida with a B.A. in English Literature and a minor in Psychology. An entrepreneur for 15 years, she has owned multiple businesses in the Fort Myers area, including a marketing and business strategy consulting practice and a brewery in Downtown Fort Myers.

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