Texas Comptroller speaks on Texas Education Freedom Accounts for school choice
WACO, Texas (KWTX) - When school choice passed last legislative session, lawmakers got to work to get the funding accounts ready for parents and students.
Last week, private schools across the state began to apply to be a part of the education savings account program.
Now, Acting Comptroller for Texas Public Accounts, Kelly Hancock, will establish and operate the program and the funding it handles.
Hancock and his team are finalizing the Education Freedom Accounts Program, which gives each student funding from taxpayers for their private education.
“For those with special needs there’s $30,000 dollars which is the allotment given for public schools as well for those with special needs, and then the ballpark range, and we’re waiting to hear specific numbers from the TEA, would be $10,800 per student for the private school and then $2,000 for homeschool or additional services someone might qualify for,” Hancock said.
Hundreds of private schools have already enlisted as education providers, and now Hancock says they are making sure the website is ready to go.
“We will, between now and February 4th, we will use the website and go through it and try to crash it, what we are going to try to do is make sure that everything that could possibly happen that we’ve tried it and make sure we’re addressing that,” Hancock said.
Public schools across Texas might see more homeschooled students who are interested in taking classes, but Salado ISD is still considering if they will opt in to open their classrooms.
“Really, it would be a question of the class sizes space available instructors available and any kind of extra burden that would put on our staff to do that, that’s the factors that we would consider to allow for other classes other than UIL activities,” Superintendent Dr. Novotny said.
A historic amount of funding was approved in the past legislative session, and Novotny notes while teachers will benefit the most; funding is still an issue for many public-school districts.
“Our teachers are underpaid and need more money, and I’m very supportive of teacher raises, but very little additional funding we received as school districts that was not tied to teacher raises or school safety,” Dr. Novotny said.
The portal for parents to apply for funding will be open on Wednesday February 4th.
Parents can head to educationfreedom.texas.gov to sign up for updates.
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