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WHEELING -- West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore said his office has received plenty of calls about the new Hope Scholarship program, so many that he wants to make sure everyone has the necessary information to see if the program works for them.
Moore was in Wheeling earlier this week talking with Wheeling Country Day administrators about the program, an educational savings account that gives parents the choice to use part of their per-pupil expenditure from the state School Aid Formula for educational expenses like private school tuition, home tutoring, learning aids or other acceptable expenses. This year, that would be worth $4,600.
"It's been really interesting to see how popular this has been so far," Moore said. "We're getting a lot of questions from people all around the state that certainly have intense interest in this opportunity out there. We'll see what size this program ends up being. Maybe it's just some curiosity, but most of it seems to be serious intent by the parents to want to utilize it."
Moore's office, which will administer the program, now has a website at www.wvtreasury.com/hopescholarship. It includes both answers to frequently asked questions and the ability for parents to register their names and email addresses to get periodic reports on the program's progress.
The scholarship is not yet available. The deadline to offer the applications is March 2022 and the program begins in July 2022.
"We're going to work to get those applications available as soon as possible," Moore said, "so we're not scrambling and we have enough time to see how big a program this is going to be. We can guess at it conceptually, see how other states what size of their student population took advantage of these. But there are some nuances here in the program in West Virginia."
Currently, eligible students are West Virginia residents who are entering kindergarten for the first time, were enrolled full time in a public elementary or secondary school program in the state the previous year, or enrolled full time and attending a public elementary or secondary school program in this state for at least 45 days during an instructional term at the time of application. Right now, current homeschooled or private school students are not eligible. Yet if, by 2024, the participation rate of the combined number of students in the program and students eligible who have applied to participate in the program is less than 5% of net public school enrollment adjusted for state aid purposes for the previous school year, all students will be eligible in 2026. No state with an ESA program has gone over that 5% threshold, Moore said.
Parents aren't the only people curious about the Hope Scholarship, Moore said. Private school administrators also want to know how the program will affect their institutions. Moore said those schools are excited, but are seeking clarification on how the program will work.
Those schools want to guard against negative impacts, but Moore doesn't believe they will deal with any.
"There's uncertainty out there," he said, "and that's why we're working to provide certainty through the rule-making process and going and talking to schools like Wheeling Country Day to make sure they understand how this program is going to work. It's the most expansive ESA program in the country, so we're going to see how it works out."