It was a curious finding that seemed to make no sense at all.
Last year, more than 41,000 Florida families applied for, and were awarded, school choice scholarships – that they then chose not to use.
Huh? What? Why would they do that?
As it turns out, these families didn’t have second thoughts about school choice generally. Nor did they rethink their pursuit of a particular alternative school for their children.
Instead, these families discovered that the supply of seats in private school classrooms paled in comparison to the demand for them. And these families found themselves without a seat when the enrollment period ended. Just like in a game of musical chairs.
Researchers Ron Matus and Dava Cherry dubbed these 41,000 families “Plan B” households. Because they had to resort to a sub-optimal “Plan B” after missing their preferred schooling option.
These Plan B stories are tied, in their own way, to some equally-tragic stories of K-12 entrepreneurs who sought to open – or expand – education enterprises, only to get tripped up by onerous zoning, land use, and fire code regulations.
A 2025 Teach Florida study found that zoning approval for a new private school “typically takes 12-18+ months of reviews and hearings and costs over $150,000 in legal, architect, and study fees.” And getting zoning approval for the modest expansion of an existing school can often be equally time-consuming – and expensive.
In a 2025 Forbes magazine piece, scholar Mike McShane recounted the story of a Sarasota microschool that has been prevented from growing beyond five students by particularly onerous regulations. “If states want their newly created or expanded school choice programs to thrive, they are going to have to look at the regulations restricting the creation of new schools,” he wrote.
Thankfully, a measure quietly making its way through both houses of the Florida Legislature aims to do just that. Sponsored by Rep. Hillary Cassel and Sen. Alexis Calatayud, the measure would allow small private schools to operate in non-residential zoning districts without requiring rezoning or land use changes.
Cassel and Calatayud’s legislation doesn’t have a catchy name like the one Gov. Jeb Bush gave to his original school choice bill (Florida’s A+ Plan for Education). Still, this new measure promises to address serious supply shortages in Florida’s private school market. And if that means that more Florida families will have the opportunity to send their child to the school they consider optimal, we can then think of Cassel and Calatayud’s legislation as “Florida’s A+ Plan to Help ‘Plan B’ Families.”
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William Mattox is the senior director of the Stanley Marshall Center for Education Freedom at The James Madison Institute.