IDEA-Funded Tutoring for Eligible Students With Special Needs
If your students are authorized, the support is already funded.
Participating Miami-Dade nonprofit private schools—faith-based and secular—can access IDEA-funded tutoring for eligible students with special needs at no direct cost, and the school chooses the provider.
Funding covers students with an IEP, a PSSP, or documented special-needs testing who are authorized through the District.
In 20 minutes, we will help you understand whether your school may qualify and how to request Jump Start as your provider.
MDCPS determines school participation, student eligibility, authorized services, schedules, and funding.
Funded through the Florida Department of Education. Authorized through Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Delivered by Jump Start at your school.
Jump Start Tutoring is an approved provider under MDCPS ITB-23-009-TA: Tutoring and Counseling Services for Eligible Students Enrolled in Non-Public Schools.
“A reliable, well-prepared, and student-focused tutoring partner.”
Written about Jump Start’s tutoring work with Miami-Dade students—the same tutors, preparation, and supervision your school would receive.
Who It’s For
This program may be relevant if your school:
MDCPS—not Jump Start—determines school participation, student eligibility, authorized services, and funding. Not every student with a learning difficulty, diagnosis, or support plan qualifies.
What It Is
Private schools often provide what families value most: smaller communities, trusted relationships, and adults who genuinely know their students.
But students with special needs may require more time, repetition, and consistent intervention than even a deeply committed classroom team can provide alone. The problem is not care. It is capacity.
Jump Start is done-for-you individualized reading and mathematics intervention for eligible students with special needs, delivered in person at your school by qualified, background-screened tutors.
We add accountable, individualized capacity while working within your school’s curriculum, schedule, and culture.
Final services depend on each student’s documented needs and MDCPS authorization. SAT/ACT preparation, college guidance, and general homework help sit outside this program.
How It Works
Step 1
Your school submits the District’s letter of intent to participate in tutoring, which is a Google form. If your school does not have the form, we can help you get it.
Step 2
Your school emails its Miami-Dade program contact naming Jump Start Tutoring as its first-choice provider. We provide the suggested wording and confirm the current contact.
Step 3
Your school submits confirmed information for students with special needs—IEPs, PSSPs, and similar documentation—through the District’s authorized channel. We confirm the exact documents before anything is sent.
Step 4
We meet with your team, set the start date and schedule, and can begin within 48 to 72 hours of notice—before school, during the school day, or after school.
From the Field
One Jump Start tutor noticed that a student was reaching correct answers but couldn’t explain his reasoning. Instead of moving on, she began asking him to narrate his choices.
12% → 74%
documented proficiency by Week 10.
The lesson: A correct answer can still hide a learning gap.
Students were exhausted after school. Instead of labeling them disengaged, the tutor adapted the delivery while preserving the academic objective.
The lesson: Adapting the approach is not lowering the standard.
We don’t stop at predicting who may be a strong tutor.
We watch what happens once they’re actually in the school.
What Happens After We Start
From the first week, every session is documented as it happens—arrival, what was taught, how the student responded—so you are never asked to take our word for it. Your named point of contact from day one is Dinukshi, our tutor coordinator, who oversees your tutors and reviews session notes weekly.
Records support service documentation and program quality; they do not diagnose students, determine IDEA eligibility, or replace District requirements.
Our Difference
Every tutor meets applicable credential and background-screening requirements. Jump Start goes further: Vero’s Lived Experience Assessment helps us understand how a tutor tends to adapt, build trust, and respond when a student needs something different from the lesson plan.
We look beyond credentials for judgment—how someone adapts an explanation, builds trust, and helps a student recover from frustration.
We connect academic progress with what we can observe: how the student responds to difficulty, what builds persistence, and whether the tutor adapts when needs change.
Assess → Support → Observe → Adjust → Measure. Patterns become practical responses—adjust the approach, support the tutor, or bring the school into the conversation.
Vero uses AI to organize behavioral observations and surface changes that deserve human attention. It does not diagnose students, determine eligibility, or replace educator judgment. Powered by Vero Learning’s human-capability framework.
Knowing the subject is necessary. Knowing how to reach the student is what makes that knowledge useful.
Want to see the framework we use? Map one student-support role in about five minutes—no email required.
Map a Student-Support RoleThe Contrast
Schools typically close the tutoring-capacity gap one of three ways: running it in-house, hiring a vendor, or naming an approved provider. Here is how they compare.
| Capability | School-Run Tutoring | Traditional Tutoring Vendor | Jump Start |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adds tutoring capacity | Yes—within your existing staff, space, and schedules | Yes, as an external service delivered on site | In-person reading and mathematics intervention without new payroll or another program for your team to operate |
| Provider manages staffing and coverage | Your team recruits, screens, schedules, and covers absences | Yes, though a tutor absence can simply mean a lost session | We recruit, credential, and background-screen tutors, and arrange substitute coverage so a scheduled session is not lost |
| Assesses tutor judgment before placement | Rarely—credentials and availability are usually the screen | Credentials vary by provider; judgment is seldom assessed | Credentials plus Vero’s Lived Experience Assessment of judgment, adaptability, patience, and trust-building |
| Captures what worked with each student | Often limited to grades and attendance records | Often attendance and completed sessions only | Session notes and individual student progress logs after every session |
| Carries learning into the next session | Depends on staff time and continuity | Often a standard plan each session—no record of what worked for that student last time | Weekly review of tutor notes and student trends turns each session’s observations into the next session’s plan |
| Gives the school actionable visibility | Visibility lives with your staff, if capacity allows | Often a periodic attendance or invoice report | A short weekly summary to your designated leader—the record is in your hands, not just ours |
| Learns from real tutor decisions over time | Rarely systematic across tutors and students | Tutor decisions usually stay with the individual tutor; delivery is not systematically reviewed | Assess → Support → Observe → Adjust → Measure: patterns become adjustments to the approach, tutor support, or the school conversation |
Swipe the table sideways to see all three columns.
Evidence
8 years
Serving South Florida students, families, and schools
3 districts
Contracts with Florida’s three largest school districts
10,000+
Students served since Jump Start was founded in 2018
180+ points
Average improvement through Jump Start’s flagship SAT program
Across eight Miami-Dade public schools where Jump Start programming launched in March 2026, seven moved from D/F school grades to A/B grades within approximately ten weeks. The eighth reached a C+, only a few points shy of a B. School grades reflect many factors, and Jump Start was one part of broader school-improvement efforts.
Founder
I was a high-school senior with a 4.8 GPA, president of three clubs, and a dream of attending Duke. I believed that if I worked hard enough, my ability would speak for itself. Then I was waitlisted.
My mother was a Haitian immigrant raising me on her own. She had not inherited an understanding of the SAT system, and private test preparation was not something our family could afford. I had done everything I knew to do—but I did not have access to everything the system expected me to know.
A grade, test score, diagnosis, or school record can tell us something important about a student. But it cannot tell us everything about that student’s intelligence, determination, judgment, or what they might become with the right support.
I eventually went from Florida State to Emory and then the University of Cambridge. But I never forgot how easily my trajectory could have been decided before my full capability became visible.
I started Jump Start with $500, no cofounder, and no prior business experience because I wanted students to receive the individualized support I once needed. Eight years later, we have worked with thousands of students and earned contracts with Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach County Public Schools. Forbes named me to its 30 Under 30 list for education.
— Chrissybil “Sybil” Boulin
Founder, Jump Start Tutoring
FAQ
IDEA-funded tutoring and counseling services for eligible students enrolled in participating nonprofit private schools. Federal IDEA funding is administered through the Florida Department of Education and implemented locally by Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Jump Start is an approved provider under MDCPS ITB-23-009-TA.
MDCPS determines school participation and student eligibility—generally a nonprofit private school in Miami-Dade County, faith-based or secular, with students authorized through the applicable IDEA/PSSP process. Not every student with a diagnosis or support plan qualifies, and Jump Start cannot determine eligibility.
Eligible, District-authorized services are provided at no direct cost to the school or the family, and are not paid from your school’s operating budget—subject to District eligibility, authorization, available funding, and program requirements.
In-person reading and language arts tutoring, mathematics tutoring, and applicable Pre-K intervention—before school, during the school day, or after school. Final services depend on each student’s documented needs and MDCPS authorization, and IDEA-funded instruction is nonsectarian.
Assigned professionals must meet applicable credential and background-screening requirements before delivering services. Beyond credentials, we use Vero’s Lived Experience Assessment to understand how a tutor adapts, builds trust, and responds when a student needs something different from the lesson plan. If a match is not working, we reassign quickly.
Yes. Schools identify a preferred approved provider through the District’s process, and a school still waiting on an assigned provider may request a change through MDCPS—we provide suggested wording and confirm the current program contact. Every additional week without service is authorized support students cannot recover. Provider preference does not replace District eligibility, authorization, credentialing, documentation, or funding requirements.
We take time to understand your school’s schedule, curriculum, communication norms, and community expectations. Funded instructional services remain nonsectarian, and our team enters every school with respect for its culture and relationships.
School Interest Form
Tell us where your school is in the process. This takes about one minute. Sybil reviews school inquiries personally, and our team will help you determine the appropriate next step—including how to name or request Jump Start as your provider.
We onboard a limited number of new schools at a time so each student keeps the same tutor and the same schedule. Schools that complete the District steps earlier are scheduled first.
No direct cost to participating schools or families. Funding applies only to eligible students with special needs, and final eligibility, services, and funding are determined through MDCPS.
Let’s determine whether your school has a path to MDCPS-authorized support—and whether Jump Start is the right partner to deliver it. If your students are authorized, we would like to be the provider you name.
In 20 minutes, we will help you understand whether your school may qualify and how to request Jump Start as your provider.