After PEP's apply door shut: what late May still required

This was filed as a briefing on May 25, 2026. It is not a sent Tuesday issue and does not imply email history. Live program windows live on /now.

This is a look-back for the week of May 25, 2026. It is not a sent Tuesday issue, and it is not a live application calendar. The pages below were re-opened on August 19, 2026. A later July briefing on a Step Up parent story and the statute split is at What Step Up was saying about PEP the week of July 6. Live windows belong on This month in Florida homeschooling.

By that week the 2026–27 apply door was already shut. What was still on the clock was accept or decline by May 31, then the PEP jobs that are not 1002.41: terminate a district file if funded, file a student learning plan, and send a test to the scholarship-funding organization before renewal.

The apply window had already closed

Step Up For Students' live program page, re-read August 19, 2026, still says PEP Scholarship applications for the 2026–27 school year are closed. The deadline for renewing and new students was April 30, 2026. The same page now points families to an interest list for 2027–28. Treat that signup as an August snapshot, not as this briefing's calendar.

AAA Scholarship Foundation says the same close date: applications for 2026–27 closed Thursday, April 30, 2026, and later PEP applications will be declined. AAA also notes an exception — students in foster care or out-of-home care, and dependent children of active-duty members of the United States Armed Forces, may apply at any time — which is not a promise of funding. The 2026 display of 1002.395 tells an organization it must allow those same students to apply at any time. For everyone else, for 2025–26 and thereafter, new and renewal personalized-education applications run February 1 through April 30 of the prior school year.

May 31 was accept or decline — not a test date

If a family had been awarded, AAA's next 2026–27 date was Sunday, May 31, 2026: accept or decline.

That date is not AAA's invention. Section 1002.395, as displayed in 2026, tells a parent whose student will not be enrolled full time in a public or private school — the personalized-education path — to notify the organization by May 31 that the scholarship is being accepted, renewed, or declined. The organization's process for those students must require that confirmation by May 31.

What May 31 is not, on the pages we opened: an assessment deadline. The statute requires a nationally norm-referenced test identified by the Department of Education, or a statewide assessment under 1008.22, with results sent to the organization before the student's program renewal. Florida's PEP FAQs say the same. The Department's annual-assessment page lists the approved tests. For PEP students, the 2026 display tells the organization to receive scores and, beginning with 2027–28, to report them by August 15. None of those sentences put the family's test on May 31.

If funded: you are not still 1002.41

PEP is not a stipend stacked on a district home-education file.

Section 1002.01 defines two parent-directed programs. A home education program satisfies attendance under 1002.41, 1003.01(16), and 1003.21(1). A personalized education program satisfies 1003.01(16) and 1003.21(1) while registered with an eligible nonprofit scholarship-funding organization under 1002.395. The PEP student gets the flexibilities in 1002.41(3)–(12). The student is not, in that definition, a 1002.41 home-education student. Section 1002.395 makes the split operational: a student is not eligible for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship while participating in a home education program as defined in 1002.01(1).

Florida's PEP FAQs are blunt. Parents of PEP students are not required to register with the district as a home education program. If a home-education student receives PEP funds, the parent should file a written notice of termination and tell the district the student is in PEP. AAA says the same: if the student is still in a district home-education program, the family must disenroll before AAA will review the student learning plan.

The learning plan is the funding trigger, not a county portfolio. Statute: submit the plan and revise it at least annually before renewal; upon that annual submission, the organization is to fund a scholarship for a student determined eligible. AAA's 2026–27 process, after April 30, is Department review against the cap, notice of funding, then the online SLP, then the account. AAA says reimbursements through its portal begin after June 30, 2026, and that accounts are funded in four equal quarterly amounts — September 1, November 1, February 1, and April 1, subject to change. Those are AAA's mechanics, not Step Up's page. This briefing does not reprint award amounts.

Who said what about the cap and income

Do not flatten three sentences into one rule.

AAA, on the page opened August 19, says the law limits PEP to 140,000 students for 2026–27, and that once the limit is reached no additional PEP students may be funded. The 2026 statutes display does not print "140,000." It says an organization may fund no more than 20,000 scholarships for personalized-education students in 2023–24, that the number funded for those students may increase by 40,000 in each subsequent school year, and that this subparagraph is repealed July 1, 2027.

Florida's PEP FAQs still describe the 2025–26 year: up to 100,000 students, with the cap "removed altogether in future years," and income priority first at or below 185 percent of federal poverty (or foster / out-of-home care), then between 185 and 400 percent. The statute still lists those same household-income priority bands for Florida Tax Credit awards generally.

Step Up's live eligibility block says K–12 students not enrolled full time in a public or private school may qualify, "open to all families, regardless of household income," if the age and residency tests are met. That is Step Up's current eligibility language. It is not the statute's priority bands, and it is not AAA's 140,000-student statement.

A parent also may not apply for scholarships under 1002.395 and 1002.394 — Family Empowerment — for the same student at the same time.

One next step

If you were a 2026–27 PEP family in late May, the remaining dated job on the official pages was accept or decline by May 31 — then the SLP, the district termination if you had a 1002.41 file, and the test the statute ties to renewal. Do not copy a county evaluation checklist onto that year. If you are reading this later, do not treat April 30, 2026 or May 31, 2026 as live. Check This month in Florida homeschooling and the SFO page that holds your account.

This is informational, not legal advice. Confirm the live page before you act.

Official references

Opened August 19, 2026, for this look-back of the week of May 25, 2026.