Preparing for classes to resume next fall, St. Paul Catholic School in St. Petersburg told its families not to expect much difference in its tuition charges.

That changed after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a measure making state-funded private school vouchers of about $8,000 available to all school-age children, regardless of income. That’s the approximate amount Florida will pay next year to educate most students in public schools.

After consulting the Diocese of St. Petersburg, parents and other area Catholic schools, “we decided that we need to take maximum advantage of this dramatically expanded funding source,” Monsignor Robert Gibbons, the St. Paul pastor, said in a YouTube video the school shared publicly.

“Otherwise,” he added, “we would be negligent.”

So instead of paying $6,000 per child, families at the school who are St. Paul parish members will now be charged $10,000 per child. Nonmembers will be charged $12,000 per child, instead of $7,000. Discounts for multiple-student families will be eliminated.

With $8,000 from the state covering most of that cost, families will owe far less than what they had been paying and the school will receive more.

“If we don’t take full advantage of this funding source, we will be leaving money on the table and it will revert back to the state,” Gibbons said in the video, listing teacher pay raises and capital improvement projects among the areas the school would bolster with the added revenue.