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CHARLESTON - The Hope Scholarship, West Virginia's educational voucher program, had more than 6,300 families apply to use a portion of their tax dollars for their children's education for the next school year at a cost of more than $22 million.
The scholarship board, chaired by State Treasurer Riley Moore, met Monday afternoon in its first regular meeting since December.
The board was briefed by Amy Willard, deputy treasurer of savings programs, about the progress of the Hope Scholarship program since the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals lifted an injunction blocking the program in October.
Going into the 2023-2024 school year, the Hope Scholarship program received more than 6,300 applications. It approved 5,047 applications, including renewal applications. Fourteen families have already declined their award, 52 applications are in the eligible status awaiting to be awarded, 179 have been found ineligible, 34 applications were in review status, 595 are on hold due to missing documentation and 400 are in submitted status awaiting review.
Those families awarded Hope Scholarships for the upcoming school year should receive the first half of those funds by Aug. 15. The award also increased from $4,300 to $4,489 for the full school year, costing taxpayers more than $22 million next year.
The program received approximately 4,144 applications for the current school year with 2,379 applications awarded, 969 awards declined by families, five applications in eligible status, 603 applications considered ineligible, one application in review, 178 applications on hold, and 14 in submitted status awaiting review.
"We have funded 2,317 students and we anticipate that there will be one final batch of funding sent for the 22-23 school year later this month for applications recently approved or with ongoing issues," Willard said.
Willard said the court injunction lifted in October caused a number of issues for the program, including being able to see who was eligible for the scholarship by comparing applicants to student records in the Department of Education's West Virginia Education Information System.
"Each student awarded the Hope Scholarship for the 22-23 school year had to be compared with the WVEIS system to see if they were still enrolled in public school," Willard said. "Students who attended public school for part of the year during the injunction period could only be funded at a prorated amount, which required a custom calculation."
Willard said the confirmation process became time-consuming and resulted in scholarship funds being sent to parents throughout the Spring semester instead of by Jan. 15. It also caused a number of parents who were awarded the scholarships to keep their children in public school instead to avoid any disruption to their children's education. Another issue was late approvals by program officials during the spring semester for children who became newly eligible for the program. The scholarship gives parents the option to use a portion -- $4,300 -- of their per-pupil expenditure from the state School Aid Formula for educational expenses, such as private or religious school tuition, home school, tutoring, learning aids and other acceptable expenses. The program is only open at the moment for students enrolled full time in a public school for either the entire previous year or for 45 calendar days. The program opens up to all eligible public, private and homeschool students by 2026.
In a 3-2 decision in October, the state Supreme Court issued an order dissolving a permanent injunction issued by Kanawha County Circuit Court Judge Joanna Tabit in July 2022 blocking the Hope Scholarship after several parents filed a lawsuit earlier that year against the program.
(Adams can be contacted at sadams@newsandsentinel.com)