Elizabeth Orlowski | Oppose HB1803

Dear Education Funding committee, As one of the first receipients of the ETC scholarship, as a previous private school teacher in NH, and as one who currently mentors families in their applications for and use of the EFA and ETC grants, I can attest to the importance of a student's ability to receive both scholarships. For most of my grade school years, my siblings and I were homeschooled. I loved learning and would spend hours beyond what was needed, making up my own math problems for fun, reading books, and writing stories. When family circumstances pushed us into the public school, we quickly found out that the public setting was too rigid for our variety of strengths and needs. Although we'd never had trouble making friends before, we suddenly couldn't connect with others. We were bullied, fell behind, and/or finished our assignments before, above, and beyond our peers. Many people commented on how bright we were, but our single mother couldn't afford to put us into a private school. Luckily, the ETC scholarship was created that same year. My family was able to enroll, and we finished out private school depending on both ETC and EFA. The outcome of our education speaks for itself. My sister is in grad school. My brother is studying to be an OBYN. Another brother taught himself to code, graduated early, and is well on in his career. I earned my BA and went into teaching. As a teacher, I had several students who were receiving both scholarships. These students were from poor families who struggled to afford things others took for granted, despite the parents both working multiple jobs. As a child, I had enough Christmases and birthdays without presents to know how important that small additional to tuition assistance is. While some kids came to school wearing the newest kicks and sharing stories of their over-seas vacations, the poorer kids would return in the same pair of dishevelled shoes, after spending most of Christmas break at their grandparents' house (because their parents had to work). The difference in these students was striking; they were eager to return to school, to take advantage of every opportunity offered them, and to make their parents proud. The ability to receive both scholarships was, for these students, the difference between success and returning to a system that was not meeting their individual needs. One student at my school had remained in the same grade for several years, and previous teachers had told her parents she would never make progress. But after coming to our small school where teachers and paraeducators spent more one-on-one time with her, while keeping her in class with her peers (which did much more for her than being surrounded by other students with special needs), she suprised everyone in the progress she made. I'll never forget the tears of joy in her parent's eyes or the look of pride and excitement she had on her face when she saw her progress report. As her classmates got younger, she had begun to clock out. But now, I saw her applying herself with more determination than even her parents knew she had. Another one of the students came from a hispanic family and spent his weekends helping at his parent's small business and taking care of his baby sister. He struggled to keep up with his classmates, not because he wasn't smart enough, but because he put 100% into every assignment. In a larger school, he may not have reached his full potential, overlooked as lazy or unintelligent, or placed in a lower class that did not challenge him. Not only did he blossom in private school, but demonstrated a growing skill in criticial thinking that made me think, "This kid is going to change the world some day." Outside of private schools, how else is the ETC being used? I'm on the phone with parents all the time who have students with mental and learning disabilities whose needs just couldn't be met in a public school setting. "My son is getting bullied. He's not meeting his full potential at school. So I tried homeschooling him, but I just can't do it on my own. We're barely making ends meet, and I just don't know what to do." The individual therapy and tutoring these students require exceeds the grant available through the EFA, so having the ETC makes a huge difference for them. I wish you could hear the same sighs of relief I do when these parents finally get the help they need. One last note. Sometimes there is an idea that because so many private schools are christian schools, that the EFA and ETC programs are partial to this religion. But this could not be further from the truth -- the EFA and ETC programs are open to people of all religious and political affiliations. The program supports Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, transgender students, same-sex parents, e.t.c. with the same care and desire for success. If the American ideal for education is equal opportunity for success, isn't it only fair that poverty-stricken minority groups be granted the same opportunity through the use of both scholarships? Thank you, Elizabeth Orlowski