IDEA-Funded Tutoring for Eligible Students With Special Needs
Funded through the Florida Department of Education. Authorized through Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Delivered by Jump Start at your school. Miami-Dade nonprofit private schools—faith-based and secular
Participating Miami-Dade nonprofit private schools can access IDEA-funded tutoring for eligible students at no direct cost—and the school chooses the provider.
If your students are District-authorized, the support is already funded. We would like to be the provider you name.
Jump Start is an approved provider under MDCPS ITB-23-009-TA: Tutoring and Counseling Services for Eligible Students Enrolled in Non-Public Schools.
Give Students With Special Needs More Individualized Support—Without Adding Another Program to Your Team
Some students need more time, repetition, and individualized instruction than even a committed classroom team can provide alone.
Jump Start becomes an extension of your team—qualified tutors, personalized reading and mathematics intervention, scheduling, supervision, progress monitoring, and District-required reporting.
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.
- Eight Years Serving South Florida
- District Contracts Across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach
- Personalized In-Person Student Support
- Minority- and Woman-Owned Florida Company
“A reliable, well-prepared, and student-focused tutoring partner.”
Who It’s For
For Miami-Dade Private Schools Serving Students With Disabilities and Special Learning Needs
This program may be relevant if your school:
- Is a nonprofit private school in Miami-Dade County—faith-based or secular
- Serves students with disabilities or special learning needs
- Has students eligible under the applicable IDEA/PSSP process
- Needs added reading or mathematics intervention capacity without new payroll or another program to operate
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.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Your School May Already Provide Extraordinary Support. For Some Students With Special Needs, It Still May Not Be Enough.
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 adds the individualized capacity your students need—inside the school day you already run.
What It Is
More Support. Not More Work.
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.
What Jump Start handles
- Tutor recruitment, assignment, and credential and background screening
- Instructional planning aligned to each authorized student’s documented needs
- Scheduling before school, during the school day, or after school
- Tutor supervision and quality oversight
- Attendance records, progress monitoring, and documentation
- Required reporting to your school and to MDCPS
What your school handles
- Designating one point of contact
- Sharing curriculum and instructional priorities
- Providing suitable space and scheduling access
- Staying connected to student progress
What we deliver
Reading and Language Arts Tutoring
Personalized instruction based on each eligible student’s documented needs and school curriculum.
Mathematics Tutoring
Focused support that strengthens foundations, addresses gaps, and builds confidence.
Pre-K Intervention
Developmentally appropriate intervention when authorized, delivered by credentialed professionals.
Progress Monitoring and Reporting
Attendance, observations, and required reporting maintained with the school and MDCPS.
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.
What We’re Not
Support Without Disrupting What Your School Already Does Well
- We are not replacing your teachers.
- We are not asking your school to build or operate another program.
- We are not adding tutors to your payroll.
- We are not bringing in generic homework help disconnected from each student’s authorized needs.
- We are not asking technology to replace educators, diagnose students, or determine IDEA eligibility.
We add accountable, individualized capacity while working within your school’s curriculum, schedule, culture, and existing student-support system.
How It Works
Four Steps to Name Jump Start as Your Provider of Choice
Step 1
Submit the Letter of Intent Google Form
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
Email the District Naming Jump Start First
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
Submit Confirmed Student Information
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
Schedule the Implementation Meeting
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.
If Services Have Not Started Yet
Services Were Scheduled to Begin the Week of August 31. Has Your School’s Tutoring Started?
Some schools selected a provider, but their students are still waiting. Every additional week without service is another week of authorized support students cannot recover.
If your assigned provider has not started, your school may request a provider change through Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Jump Start has screened, credentialed tutors available now.
- Tutors already screened, credentialed, and available in Miami-Dade
- We help your team submit the provider-change request the way the District requires
Why Schools Choose Jump Start
A Local Partner That Knows the Difference Between Assigning a Tutor and Supporting a Student
- Local, founder-led responsiveness—and a start within 48 to 72 hours of notice
- Qualified professionals selected for instructional ability, reliability, adaptability, patience, and trust-building
- School-aligned scheduling, curriculum consultation, and disciplined reporting
Our Difference
We Do Not Only Record That Tutoring Happened. We Learn What Makes the Support Work.
Every tutor must meet applicable credential and background-screening requirements. Jump Start goes further: we use Vero’s Lived Experience Assessment to identify tutors whose judgment, adaptability, patience, and trust-building ability match the realities of supporting students with special needs.
01
We Identify and Prepare More Than Credentials
Degrees and screening establish whether someone is qualified to tutor. They do not reveal whether that person can build trust, adapt an explanation, or help a student recover from frustration. We look for that judgment, then prepare each tutor around their own decision patterns.
02
We Observe the Learning Relationship and Turn Patterns Into Action
During service, we connect academic progress with what we can observe:
- How the student responds to difficulty and communicates confusion
- What builds trust, persistence, and engagement
- Whether the tutor adapts when the student’s needs change
03
We Learn Over Time
Assess → Support → Observe → Adjust → Measure. When a pattern changes, we translate it into a practical response—adjust the approach, support the tutor, address an engagement barrier, or bring the school into the conversation.
97%
Across our behavioral research, 97% of the decision patterns we observed mapped into 12 recurring capability categories.
These patterns give us a consistent way to examine how people adapt, build trust, use feedback, and make decisions when conditions change.
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.
Knowing the subject is necessary. Knowing how to reach the student is what makes that knowledge useful.
Insight and reporting access for authorized school leaders is confirmed with each school during onboarding.
A Five-Minute Working Exercise
Want to see the framework we use?
Map one student-support role in about five minutes—no email required—and see the judgment beneath effective tutoring.
Map a Student-Support RoleThe Contrast
What Makes Jump Start Different
Many providers can supply tutoring hours. Jump Start helps your school understand whether the support is working—and what should change when it is not.
| Traditional Tutoring Model | Jump Start |
|---|---|
| Assigns an available qualified tutor | Assesses credentials and the judgment required to reach students |
| Tracks attendance and completed sessions | Connects service consistency, academic progress, and learning behavior |
| Reports what happened | Helps explain why support is—or is not—working |
| Delivers an external service | Operates as an extension of the school’s team |
Evidence
Built Through Real Work With South Florida Students
8 years
Serving South Florida students, families, and schools
3 districts
Contracts with Florida’s three largest school districts
7,000+
Students supported since Jump Start was founded in 2018
180+ points
Average improvement through Jump Start’s flagship SAT program
Recognition and Coverage
- Certified education vendor nationally and across South Florida school districts
- Founder named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for education
- Featured in Florida Trend, the South Florida Business Journal, and Refresh Miami
- Minority- and woman-owned Florida company, founded in 2018
Across eight Miami-Dade public schools where Jump Start programming launched in March 2026, every participating school moved from a D/F school grade to an A/B school grade within the following ten weeks, alongside broader school-improvement efforts.
Founder
Why This Work Is Personal to Me
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.
That experience changed how I understood education. 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
This Is Part of Something Larger
The Florida Human Capability Initiative
Jump Start is the first operating environment for the Florida Human Capability Initiative—an effort to make Florida the first place where human capability is identified early, developed intentionally, connected to opportunity, and validated through real outcomes.
We want the reading gap to close and the mathematics grade to improve. But while that happens, we do not want to miss the person becoming visible underneath the performance.
FAQ
Questions School Leaders Ask
What is the official program?
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.
Which schools and students may qualify?
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.
Is there a direct cost to the school or family?
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.
What services may be authorized, and when can they happen?
In-person reading and language arts tutoring, mathematics tutoring, and applicable Pre-K intervention, with instructional planning and progress reporting—before school, during the school day, or after school. Individual and small-group support are both possible. Final services depend on each student’s documented needs and MDCPS authorization, and IDEA-funded instruction is nonsectarian.
How are tutors selected, screened, and supervised?
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. Our team supervises tutors, and if a match is not working we reassign quickly.
Can we request Jump Start or change providers?
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. Provider preference does not replace District eligibility, authorization, credentialing, documentation, or funding requirements.
How does Jump Start respect faith-based school communities?
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—Catholic, Christian, Jewish, other faith-based, or secular—with respect for its culture and relationships.
What happens after we contact Jump Start?
Sybil or a team member reviews your school’s information, schedules a short conversation, and helps identify the appropriate next step with MDCPS. Please do not send student names, records, or IEP/PSSP documents through this website—student information goes through the District’s authorized channels.
School Interest Form
Explore Jump Start for Your School
Tell us about your school and the students who may need support. This takes about a minute. Sybil reviews school inquiries personally, and our team will follow up to help clarify the next step.
What Happens Next
- Sybil or the Jump Start team reviews your inquiry.
- We schedule a short school-readiness conversation.
- We help clarify the appropriate MDCPS and provider-selection next step.
Eligible Students Should Not Miss Support Because the Path Was Too Difficult to Navigate
Let’s determine whether your school has a path to MDCPS-authorized support—and whether Jump Start is the right partner to deliver it.
In 20 minutes, we will help you understand whether your school may qualify and how to request Jump Start as your provider.