The Lee County Public School System Was All We Had… Until It Wasn’t

A private school told this Lee County mother her daughter belonged in a separate classroom. She chose Lee County public schools instead, where an evaluation, an IEP, a resource teacher, and a positive reinforcement plan were waiting. The child who was written off graduated with straight A’s and fours and fives. Ali Olivo, a co-founder of this site, on the families who do not get that choice. Our fact-check rides at the bottom.

By Ali Olivo · July 26, 2026

I wanted to share a little bit about my experience with Lee County public schools, and with my children in particular. My kids went to daycare at a Christian school in Fort Myers. They were there from the time they were three months old because I had to get back to work when my leave ended. When my daughter was in pre-K four, she started to have some behavioral challenges, including eloping, or running away, and meltdowns. She was reprimanded constantly and made to walk laps during recess. Reminder: she is in VPK. After a few months of this, we made the difficult decision to withdraw her in March. I knew that it was really important to get her not to hate school, and to set her up for success, so I drove her to Bonita every day so she could finish VPK with two familiar faces from the aforementioned Christian school. Public school did not just feel like a lifeline but also seemed like the environment best equipped to help my child succeed.

What the private school told us

I remember the headmaster of this private school saying that she belonged in an ESE classroom, and not in a kind, caring way, but rather in a judgmental, “she doesn’t belong in a general education setting” kind of way. We invested in expensive but thorough evaluations. My child got diagnosed, qualified for an IEP, and was going to start school at Edison Park. The principal at the time, Cherise Trent, who is now a Regional Associate Superintendent, not only attended the IEP meeting but also helped us plan ahead before the first day of school. I also got a phone call from her resource teacher, who had been at the school a long time and whose own kids went to school at Edison Park. She said she was going to be with Sophie, as her resource teacher, during Sophie’s whole time in elementary school. We were able to bring Sophie to school for a tour ahead of open house. We made a reinforcement gameplan. I created an All About Sophie page and handed it out to all the teachers at open house. ESE parents: those sheets are an incredibly helpful resource for teachers. Did she still have the behaviors? Of course. But was she welcomed and embraced and really nurtured in this place? Also, yes. That is why I feel so strongly, and advocate so much, for public schools.

What happened next

In 2025, Sophie graduated from Edison Park. This child, who was written off by the Christian school, thrived in public school, consistently getting A’s and fours and fives on FAST tests and having a wonderful group of friends. One of her most joyful moments was introducing her 4th grade teacher at the Golden Apple gala.

And she learned, through the supports she has been provided over the years and all the teachers who poured into her at Edison Park, to advocate for herself. When it came to choose a middle school, she said, “hey, I want to go to Canterbury.” And we went through the process of touring Cypress and Lexington, the public schools in our zone. She really was adamant that she did not want to be in portables, because Cypress was under construction. She wanted to have smaller class sizes and felt the environment would be more academically enriching outside of public school. She was 11 years old.

This year, I have heard of multiple families, former teachers and administrators among them, who similarly chose private school for their children. A sitting member of this school board sends their own children to private school too. If a person elected to serve on the governing body for the Lee County public school district chooses to send their children to private school, what does that say about their view of the quality of public education? Contrast this reality to the district’s forecast of increasing enrollment. I also have friends who have chosen to withdraw their children from public and private schools and homeschool instead. As a special needs parent, I am a big advocate for choice and that as parents, we know what environment is best suited for our children.

As an aside, several of the metrics our Governor touted at the press conference relate to school choice. Our Superintendent and Board tie themselves in knots supporting school choice because at the end of the day, every student enrolled in a private school or homeschooled means less funding for public schools. Last year, there was a postcard campaign that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars sent to retirees with no school-aged children marketing public schools. Maybe if the Superintendent and School Board invested those hundreds of thousands of dollars in the classrooms, people would not be leaving public schools.

The families who are not

But not everybody can afford private school tuition, especially as the private schools raise their tuition rates. For the families who are not able to choose private school, who need the supports and the legal protections provided by public schools, watching this administration spend all these dollars on stuff that I do not believe is students first, is so frustrating.

I have also heard about families who give private school a try, but because the private school is not legally obligated to meet the needs of an exceptional student, they find their way back into the public school system. It is devastating when the system could just meet their needs now instead of having them go through that negative experience of being “othered” in a private school. Speaking of being “othered,” I do not think the cluster model would have served my child.

Why Parents for Transparency was created

All of this to say, I care a whole lot about the public school system, in particular in Lee County, where I have lived for 18 years. I have been fortunate enough to serve on the Golden Apple Selection Committee and know how truly remarkable and dedicated the teachers in this county are. I believe it is important to recognize teachers and to give them the recognition and support that they deserve. And so when I went to Amber with the idea of raising awareness and starting Parents for Transparency, I felt the same helplessness and need for a lifeline that I felt before Sophie started kindergarten.

I want to be clear about Edison Park. That school is inside this district. The administrators and the staff there cared about my child, and they did the work, and they gave her what she needed. They did not make her who she is. They made room for who she already was. None of this is a knock on them. It is the opposite. Edison Park is proof that this district can do it.

What I want is for that to be the standard instead of the exception. Because right now it is not, and every family that can afford to go solve the problem somewhere else makes it a little easier for the district to leave it unsolved. My daughter needed an IEP and she scored fours and fives. She was written off by one school and thrived in another. Kids are not one thing or the other, and a system that can only hold one of those at a time is going to keep losing both. I want every classroom in Lee County to be what hers already was. Challenging, enriching, and empathetic, all at once. That is the gap we have to close. That is why I went to Amber.

Fact check

Accurate on the law. The central legal point, that private schools taking state scholarship money are not bound to provide the special-education services a public school must, is correct, and Florida law itself requires those schools to warn parents about it. The family's story is firsthand testimony we cannot verify either way, which is true of any parent account.

This op-ed is Ali Olivo's opinion, and the story of her family is her firsthand account. In the interest of disclosure, the author is a co-founder of Parents for Transparency, and her piece was checked to the same standard as every other submission we publish. We cannot independently verify a family's private experience, and we do not try to. What we can check is the law she describes, the public facts about the schools and programs she names, and whether her characterization of how vouchers interact with disability rights is accurate. That is what follows. Where our own check ran out, we say so plainly rather than leave it unmarked.

Checked The special-education law, the schools named, and the author's account

What an ESE classroom is, and what the author describes receiving.

Worth spelling out, because the phrase is easy to misread. ESE, Exceptional Student Education, is Florida's term for special education, and it describes a range of services rather than a single room. Federal law requires that a student be taught in the least restrictive environment in which their needs can actually be met, and it requires districts to maintain a continuum of options, from a regular classroom with added support, to a resource room, to a separate class, and beyond. Placement is decided student by student, not one size fits all. What the author describes at Edison Park, an evaluation, an IEP, an assigned resource teacher, and a positive reinforcement plan, is ESE working the way the law intends, delivered by ESE teachers and resource staff. Her account is a credit to that system rather than an argument against any part of it. Eloping, the term she uses, is the standard word for a student leaving a supervised area without permission.

Private schools are not legally obligated to meet the needs of a student with an exceptionality the way a public school is.

Correct, and this is the heart of the piece. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) places its obligations on public school districts, not on private schools. When a parent chooses to enroll a child in a private school, the child's individual entitlement to a free appropriate public education and to an IEP does not travel with them. A 2017 U.S. Government Accountability Office report specifically recommended better communication to parents about the loss of federal special-education rights when a student moves to a private school at the parents' discretion.

Florida requires private schools in the scholarship programs to tell parents that special-education services may change.

Accurate, and it corroborates the author's point rather than contradicting it. Participating private schools must inform parents, in writing or on the school's website, of the potential changes to special-education services when a student with a disability transfers from a public school. The state built that disclosure requirement precisely because the shift the author describes is real.

Edison Park is a Lee County public school.

Edison Park Creative and Expressive Arts School, 2401 Euclid Ave, Fort Myers, is a public PreK through 5 school in the School District of Lee County, one of about 70 district elementary schools, serving roughly 432 students. On the most recent published figures, 64 percent of its students are proficient in math and 56 percent in reading, against Florida averages near 52 percent for both.

The Golden Apple Selection Committee is a real body that recognizes Lee County teachers.

The Golden Apple Teacher Recognition Program is run by the Foundation for Lee County Public Schools and is now in its 39th year, having honored 230 educators. The Selection Committee is made up of community and business leaders; it narrows public nominations to 30 finalists, interviews and observes them in their classrooms, and selects six recipients.

FAST scores of four and five are above grade level.

FAST is the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking, the state's progress-monitoring test. Results are reported on achievement levels 1 through 5, where level 3 represents on grade level. Levels 4 and 5 are above it.

Canterbury School does not take the vouchers.

The author states this firsthand, as an attorney and as a parent at the school. We are noting only that we did not find it documented in the public pages we reviewed, which is a statement about the limits of our check and not a doubt about hers. Canterbury is a private independent school in the Fort Myers area that offers its own need-based financial aid; schools are not required to publish their scholarship participation. She raises the point in fairness to the school she chose, and the legal argument she makes about schools that do participate does not depend on it.

The administration is spending dollars on things the author does not believe are students first.

The author states this as her belief, and that is how we are labeling it. It is opinion, not a factual finding. She cites no specific expenditure here, so there is no single claim to run against the record. Readers who want the underlying numbers can look at our district budget and board meeting pages and reach their own conclusion.

The author's account of her own family: the behaviors at the private school, the discipline she describes, the headmaster's remark, the resource teacher's phone call, and her daughter's later grades.

This is firsthand personal testimony and is not independently verifiable, which is true of most parent accounts. That includes her description of her daughter being reprimanded constantly and made to walk laps during recess. We publish it as a mother's account of her own child's experience, not as a finding about the school. The author does not name the private school or the headmaster and alleges no wrongdoing by either.

A sitting member of the Lee County school board sends their own children to private school.

This is the author's statement, and we are publishing it without naming the board member. Parents for Transparency has not independently verified where any board member's children attend school, and we do not report on the minor children of officials. Four of the seven board seats are on the August 18 ballot, so naming an individual here would put this site inside a live election on a matter about someone's family rather than their record. The argument the author is making, that people close to the district are choosing other options while the district projects enrollment growth, stands on its own.

Last year there was a postcard campaign that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, sent to retirees with no school-aged children, marketing public schools.

The author's characterization and her dollar estimate. The district did run enrollment marketing, and it has since expanded it: it launched a new enrollment marketing campaign in August 2026 after enrollment fell. Parents for Transparency has not obtained a contract or invoice for the earlier postcard mailing and cannot confirm the amount, who received it, or the vendor. We are publishing the claim as the author's, not as a verified figure, and we have asked the district for the records.

Cherise Trent, the Edison Park principal at the time, is now a Regional Associate Superintendent.

Confirmed on the district's own leadership page, which lists her as Regional Associate Superintendent, North, overseeing 22 schools and serving on the Superintendent's Executive Cabinet, and whose biography names Edison Park Elementary School. The reference in this piece is favorable: the author credits her with attending the IEP meeting and helping the family plan ahead.

The author does not think the district's cluster model would have served her child.

Her opinion, and it refers to a real and current program. The district is moving to an ESE cluster model in four phases over two years, with 216 students changing schools in the first phase beginning August 2026. Students were selected by the service delivery model written into their IEPs, transportation is district provided, and the district says clustering lets it concentrate therapists, equipment and trained paraprofessionals and helps it retain and recruit staff. The author's child is not among the students being moved; this is a judgment about the model, not a report on her own experience of it.

Fact-check sources

About the author

Ali Olivo Ali is a Fort Myers mom with two kids, 12 and 9. She has served on the Golden Apple Selection Committee for the Foundation for Lee County Public Schools and on the United Way Allocations Committee. She has more than 18 years of experience in corporate business, M&A, and law. She holds a B.A. from the University of Florida and a J.D. from Marquette University Law School.

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