ABC (A Business Community School Program): A public school that offers instruction to students from K to 3rd grade at a business site. The school may offer instruction in any single grade level or for multiple grade levels. The school board provides the appropriate instructional support, and administrative staff and textbooks, materials, and supplies and the host business provides the appropriate types of space for operating the school.

Achievement Test: An examination designed to measure skills and knowledge in a particular subject area or set of subject areas.

AIG (Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Services): Offers more challenging and rigorous academic opportunities for those students identified as eligible.

Academic Achievement: The level of actual accomplishment or proficiency one has achieved in an academic area, as opposed to one's potential. For example: a student may have the tested potential to read on a 12th grade level, but may only be reading on a 4th grade level.

ACT – Also known as the American College Test: The ACT is a national college admission and placement examination sometimes required for college admission. It can be a replacement test for the SAT or a supplement to the SAT.

AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress): The accountability system mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 which requires each state to ensure that all schools and districts make Adequate Yearly Progress toward 100 percent student proficiency by 2013-14.

Career Academies: Schools that take a school-to-work approach to education by combining academic and occupational courses to prepare high school students for both college and careers.

Character Education: Traits such as citizenship, honesty and respect that are taught through integration into the curriculum.

Charter Schools: Innovative, independent public schools that provide parents additional school options. Charter schools are held accountable to the public for results through a performance-based contract or "charter." This means that the schools must demonstrate student achievement or the charter won't be renewed at the end of the contractual period. Since charter schools are public schools, they cannot charge tuition.

Child-Centered Funding: An education-financing plan where the money provided by the state and district to pay for K-12 education follows students to the school chosen by their parents.

Controlled Open Enrollment: This means that school districts may make student school assignments using parents' indicated preferential school choice as a significant factor. Controlled open enrollment emphasizes the rights of families to choose among existing public schools. Instead of being assigned to a public school by a district, students may choose a school from anywhere within the district or, if not geographically feasible, from within established zones or boundaries within the district. School districts that establish controlled open enrollment zones allow families to choose a public school within their zone as long as it maintains an ethnic and racial balance at that school. These new zones override preexisting neighborhood school assignments and give parents the choice of schools within their designated zone.

Corporate Income Tax Credit Scholarship: This statewide program provides scholarships for eligible students to attend a participating private school or another public school. Income tax credits are given to corporations that donate money to nonprofit scholarship-funding organizations (SFOs) that provide school scholarships. The scholarships are given strictly based on need to students with limited financial resources that qualify for the free or reduced lunch program. The scholarships can be used to pay for tuition to attend an eligible private school or to pay for transportation to attend another public school.

To qualify, students must be entering Kindergarten or must have attended a public school in Florida the previous year. Students must continue to qualify for the free or reduced lunch program in order to receive the scholarship from year to year. Students who are already enrolled in a private school are not eligible.

Cyber Charter Schools: These are public schools sponsored by the state or local school district, and like regular charter schools, they are free from much of the state regulations. These schools offer students a complete online curriculum, so they do all of their work from home.

District-wide: A term used to describe any policy or decision that affects the entire district. For example, reductions in the district-wide budget may affect all arts line items in the entire district's budget, even those that may not specifically identify the arts.

ECP (Exceptional Children's Program):  Provides specifically designed instruction and other services for students who are disabled or have special needs.

English Language Learners (ELL): This term refers to students whose first language is not English. Schools use different programs to teach ELL students.

Enrollment: The total number of students registered to attend a given school.

Enrollment Cap: A limit on the number of students who can attend a school in a given year. Connecticut is the only state in the country that has an enrollment cap on each of its charter schools.

ESE (Exception Student Education)

ESL or ESOL (English as a Second Language): Offers services to those students whose primary language is one other than English.

Extra-curricular: These are activities held outside the regular school day.

Feeder Patterns: Feeder patterns are the flow of schools that the students take as they progress through their education. The patterns are determined by the location of the students' residence and that location within the school boundary.

Feeder Programs: This term refers most commonly to programs for students in earlier grades that are designed to prepare them for higher level participation in a particular area of study.

GT (Gifted and Talented): This program is founded on the belief that all students possess gifts and talents that need to be identified, nurtured, and rewarded. It is the responsibility of educators and parents to identify these gifts and talents and to provide an educational program that develops them.

Home Education: This is the education of children under the supervision of parents instead of school teachers. Home Education is a parent-directed education alternative. State law generally requires parents to notify the state or local education agency of their intent to home school. The federal government does not regulate home schooling, instead, home schooling is regulated differently in each state or school district. Florida, like most states, has minimal requirements for home education, such as notification and evaluation.

IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act): Formerly known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, this piece of federal legislation is the heart of entitlements to special education. IDEA also empowers parents as partners in their special needs child's educational planning

IEP (Individualized Education Plan): A written plan for educational support services and their expected outcomes developed for students designated for special education

IEP Team: A team of individuals comprising school professionals, the child's parent(s), and any other individual(s) who have specialized knowledge of an exceptional child. The IEP team is responsible for developing the goals and objectives for the child, and writing the program (IEP) that will serve as a "road map" for the student's teachers and related service providers; they are also responsible for reviewing and revising the plan.

Inclusion: Assigning all students to regular classrooms, including those with severe disabilities.

K-12: Kindergarten through Grade Twelve

LD (Learning Disability or Learning Disorder): A disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations. The term includes, but is not limited to, conditions such as perceptual handicaps, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.

Magnet Programs: Programs within regular schools that offer learning environments focused around specific areas, such as technology, science or art. Enrollment is by application based solely on a student's interest in the school's program. Selection is by a computerized lottery process for available slots.

Magnet Schools: Public schools designed to draw together students interested in specific subjects such as science or the arts from surrounding school districts or neighborhoods within a district, often with the purpose of voluntarily promoting racial desegregation and/or alleviating overcrowding.

McKay Scholarship: Sponsored by State Senate President John McKay, this Florida scholarship was established to provide ESE students the option to attend a public school other than the one assigned, or to provide a scholarship to a participating school. The scholarship offers parents of children with disabilities who are dissatisfied with their child's progress an option to attend a school of their choice. Parents are responsible for selecting the participating school and applying for the student's admission. The McKay scholarship requires no additional cost to taxpayers and no or little additional cost to the families who use it. Students are eligible for the McKay Scholarship if they have been enrolled and reported in a Florida public school during the previous year and have an Individual Education Plan (IEP).

Montessori: An educational philosophy and method of learning through hands-on activities. Montessori offers a student-centered environment where teachers introduce new ideas as they see that the students are ready. Most Montessori programs begin in preschool and go through sixth grade, but there are also a few Montessori middle and high schools.

NAEP (The National Assessment of Educational Progress): This is often called the "Nation's Report Card" and is the only common measure of student achievement across all 50 states. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, the NAEP test has been conducted for over 30 years. The main NAEP test is given every two years and is designed to accurately represent the nation's 12 million students in grades 4, 8, and 12 in both public and private schools.

NCLB (No Child Left Behind Act): This was signed into law in January 2002 and intended to help close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers by improving public schools, this federal legislation is based on four basic principles: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents, and an emphasis on proven teaching methods. Key features include the alignment of
high state academic standards and statewide assessments, the use of qualified teachers, greater parent involvement, and, when schools do not perform up to par, the options of school choice, supplemental tutoring, or both, for eligible students.

Nonsectarian School: Nonsectarian schools are schools without any particular religious affiliation.  Modern government schools would be considered nonsectarian, whereas parochial schools may espouse the doctrine of a particular denomination or religion, making them sectarian.

Open Enrollment:  Open enrollment is a form of intra-district choice that allows parents to send their children to any grade-appropriate school within their resident district, subject to space availability.

There are three options for open enrollment: school choice, curriculum choice and choice based on hardship.

1. School choice: You may choose to transfer your child to another public school within the district if there is space available without giving a specific reason. If there are more applicants than spots available, a lottery determines who attends.

2. Curriculum choice: You can request a transfer if your child's assigned school does not offer a special program that your child is interested.

3. Choices based on hardship: You may request to transfer your child to a school outside your district or county if you work in that attendance zone or plan to move to that zone. It is also permitted if your child has a before or after school caretaker in that zone.

Parochial School: A type of private school that teaches religious ideas in its educational program and usually operates as part of a religious institution, such as a church.

PE (Physical Education)

Private Scholarships:  Funds provided by private organizations or the government to help families pay for tuition and related educational costs.

Private School: A school not administered by the local, state, or national government that has the right to choose which students it will enroll. Private schools charge tuition and some offer or accept scholarships to help families pay tuition.

PTA (Parent Teacher Association): The PTA is a voluntary organization bringing together parents and teachers from a particular school, usually for fund-raising, building parental involvement at school, and other activities relating to the welfare of the school. Schools also may have PTSO (Parent Teacher Student Organization) groups that are not affiliated with the state and national PTA.

Public School: A school funded by taxpayer dollars that does not charge tuition. There are many different kinds of public schools to choose from, including charter schools, magnet schools, virtual schools, and neighborhood schools.

Public School Choice: A public education system that allows parents to choose from among different public schools either within their school district or across school districts.

SAT (Standardized Achievement Test): Nearly every college in America accepts the SAT as a part of the admissions process. More than two million students take the SAT every year. Also see: ACT

Satellite Schools: Satellite learning centers are business and education partnerships in which the schools are located on business work sites. A business can either provide educational services to an existing public school or it can pay the school for permission to advertise their product on school property. The corporation shares the school's liability insurance costs with the district and donates utilities, security and maintenance. The district provides the school's faculty, staff and curriculum. The satellite center program helps cut costs for the school district and helps the parents because it is usually near their workplace.

School Board: Often used as another term for a school district Board of Education and may also refer to a group of people who oversee the administration of a private school or charter school.

School Choice:  School choice is a fundamental education reform that proposes removing some or all of the government-erected barriers to families' ability to choose for their children the schools that best meet their educational needs.  School choice can be divided into two categories: limited educational choice, which removes barriers only to parental choice of government schools, and full educational choice, which affords parents a full range of options among government and private schools.

School District: An education agency at the local level created to operate public schools within a community or group of communities.

Sectarian School: Sectarian schools are schools affiliated with a specific religious denomination.  "Sectarian" derives from the fact that early American schools were commonly established under the control of particular church groups or sects.

Special Education: A school program designed for children who are exceptional - that is, either gifted or below-normal in ability.

Special Needs: A term used to describe students who have learning difficulties that require extra support, including visual or hearing impairment, physical or mental handicap, serious emotional difficulties, autism, and attention deficit disorder.

Tax Credit: Tax credits are designed to provide parents with tax relief to offset expenses incurred in selecting an alternative government or private school for their children.  A tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction in taxes owed.  For the purposes of school choice, tax credits may be granted for any or all out-of-pocket educational expenses incurred by an individual, from tuition to textbooks to transportation to extracurricular fees - though tuition is the most common expense allowed in practice. 

Teacher Certification: A license granted by states to teachers that makes them eligible to teach specific subjects or grade levels.

Universal Education Credit: Universal education credits are tax credits with broader applicability than traditional tuition tax credits. Universal education credits can be claimed by a broad range of individual or corporate taxpayers who pay tuition or other educational expenses for any child, directly or through a scholarship organization. "Universal" aspects include the broad range of taxpayers who can claim the credit, the many types of tax liabilities the credit may be applied against, and the flexibility to direct educational assistance to any child even if the parents have little tax liability.

Virtual Schools: Virtual schools provide classes via the Internet for students, regardless of the school district they are enrolled. A statewide virtual high school is typically state-approved and accredited. Home-schooled, public or private students are allowed to take courses through Florida Virtual School.

Vouchers: Usually refers to a program that allows parents to direct a specified amount of government-collected funds to send their children to a participating public or private school of their choice. The term is also used by private organizations to mean a scholarship provided to low-income families to help with private school tuition payments.