How to Find and Pay for Tutoring with Your Florida Scholarship

The short answer: Both PEP and FES-UA scholarships cover part-time tutoring, with no minimum hours required and no cap on how many students a tutor can serve. PEP additionally covers full-time tutoring, which can satisfy Florida's compulsory school attendance requirement. Tutors need a specific, verifiable credential, not just experience, and you can either pay them directly through EMA or pay out of pocket and get reimbursed.

Table of Contents

• Part-Time vs. Full-Time Tutoring
• What Credentials a Tutor Actually Needs
• Direct Pay or Reimbursement: How to Choose
• What Your Tutoring Invoice Needs to Include
• How Advance Payment Works
• Hour Limits You Should Know About
• FAQ

Part-Time vs. Full-Time Tutoring

Part-time tutoring has no minimum hour requirement and no cap on how many students a tutor can serve at one time. It's available across FES-UA, FES-EO, FTC, PEP, and NWSA. This is the option most families use for subject-specific help, math, reading, test prep, or any area where a student needs extra support alongside their regular schooling.

Full-time tutoring is a different category entirely. It's designed to satisfy Florida's compulsory school attendance requirement under Florida Statute 1002.43, and it comes with real structure: a minimum number of instructional hours by grade level, and a formal Participation Agreement the tutor has to complete before accepting scholarship funds this way. Full-time tutoring is only available to FES-UA and PEP students. It's not an allowable use of FTC or FES-EO funds, since those programs require full-time enrollment in an eligible private school instead.

One detail worth knowing if you're considering a tutoring center or co-op setting rather than one-on-one: a full-time private tutor receiving ESA funds can serve up to 5 students at once under normal conditions, but that cap rises to 25 students if instruction happens in a qualifying facility, think a commercial building with a valid certificate of occupancy, a library, a museum, a performing arts venue, or a church facility.

What Credentials a Tutor Actually Needs

This is the part families most often get wrong, assuming years of experience alone qualifies someone as an approved tutor. It doesn't. Step Up requires a specific, documented credential.

A part-time tutor must hold one of the following:

• A valid Florida educator's certificate, adjunct certificate, or a professional teaching certificate from another state
• Certification from a recognized research-based training program, common examples include the Barton Reading & Spelling System, the Orton-Gillingham Approach, the Wilson Reading System, or Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education (MACTE)
• A bachelor's or graduate degree in the specific subject area they're tutoring
• A passing FTCE score report (Florida Teacher Certification Exam) in the relevant subject, no more than 10 years old
• A National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) or ABCTE certificate

For elective and enrichment tutoring specifically (as opposed to core academic subjects), the bar is slightly different. A tutor can also qualify with a minimum of 3 years of experience in the subject, documented through a full LinkedIn profile or resume, current enrollment in a relevant postsecondary program, or a degree or national accreditation in that subject.

If you're evaluating a tutor for your child, this is exactly the kind of thing worth asking about directly before you commit: which credential do they hold, and can they provide documentation.

Direct Pay or Reimbursement: How to Choose

You can pay a tutor two ways, and the right choice usually comes down to how established the tutor's account already is.

Direct pay through EMA means the tutor sets up a provider account, in most cases both a personal account (tied to their individual credentials) and a business account, and gets paid directly from your scholarship funds once approved. This is generally the faster path going forward, since the tutor's credentials only need to be verified once with Step Up, not resubmitted with every single reimbursement request.

Reimbursement means you pay the tutor yourself, out of pocket, then submit the receipt for reimbursement afterward. This route requires you to provide the tutor's credentials each time you submit a request, which can slow things down if you're tutoring regularly. It's still a completely valid option, especially for a tutor who hasn't set up an EMA provider account yet, or for a one-off session.

What Your Tutoring Invoice Needs to Include

For full-time tutoring reimbursement, your invoice or receipt needs:

• Student's first and last name
• Tutor's first and last name
• Tutor's Florida Department of Education certification number
• Tutor's company name, if applicable
• Time period of service (date range, semester, or session)
• A clear statement that the service is full-time tutoring
• Tutor's hourly rate and total amount due
• Method of payment

Full-time tutors who haven't previously received scholarship payment will also need to submit a Step Up Full-Time Tutor Participation Agreement and a W-9 before their first payment goes through.

For part-time tutoring, the invoice needs the same core details, student name, tutor name, company name if applicable, service type, time period, rate, total, and payment method, but without the certification number requirement that full-time tutoring has.

How Advance Payment Works

If a tutor asks for payment up front, you can request reimbursement up to four months in advance of the service actually being provided. For example, if you pay a tutor in September for sessions running through December, that's within the standard four-month window.

Need to pay further out than that? You can go up to a full year in advance, but only if the tutor provides a signed, dated letter or their published policy confirming the payment is non-refundable. Without that documentation, requests beyond four months out won't be approved.

Hour Limits You Should Know About

Part-time tutoring isn't unlimited. Hours are capped annually per student: 720 hours for grades K-3, and 900 hours for grades 4-12. If a student's tutoring needs exceed those caps in a given year, those additional hours need to be submitted under the full-time tutoring category instead, which has its own separate approval and documentation process.

Find a tutor now: Browse PEP and FES-UA approved tutors on Florida Education Vendors at /vendors/tutoring

FAQ

Does PEP cover full-time tutoring? Yes. PEP covers both full-time and part-time tutoring. FTC and FES-EO scholarships do not cover full-time tutoring, since those programs require full-time private school enrollment instead.

Is there a minimum number of hours for part-time tutoring? No. Part-time tutoring has no minimum hour requirement and no cap on the number of students a tutor can serve at one time, though there are annual per-student hour limits (720 hours for K-3, 900 hours for grades 4-12).

Does a tutor need a teaching certificate to qualify? Not necessarily. A Florida educator's certificate is one path, but tutors can also qualify through a recognized reading/math training program certification, a relevant degree, a passing FTCE score, or (for enrichment tutoring specifically) 3+ years of documented experience.

Can I pay my tutor directly, or do I have to pay out of pocket first? Both options exist. You can pay a tutor directly through EMA once their provider account is approved, or pay out of pocket and submit a reimbursement request afterward.

How far in advance can I pay a tutor? You can request reimbursement up to four months in advance. For advance payments beyond four months, up to a full year, the tutor must provide written confirmation that the payment is non-refundable.

What happens if my child needs more tutoring hours than the annual limit? Once a student exceeds 720 hours (K-3) or 900 hours (grades 4-12) of part-time tutoring in a year, additional hours need to be submitted under the full-time tutoring category, which has its own separate requirements and Participation Agreement.