4,200 in Valley can get vouchers

About two dozen local
private schools accept voucher enrollments.

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATON WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — At least 4,200 children in the tri-county area are eligible to apply for state Education Choice Scholarships that would pay their tuition at private schools this fall.

That’s the number of pupils attending 11 academically troubled public schools in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties that are on the state’s EdChoice list for the 2008-09 school year.

EdChoice is more commonly referred to as the voucher program.

The Ohio Department of Education says that public schools that have been in state-designated academic watch or academic emergency on their state report card for two of the last three years are automatically placed on the list.

That means the children attending those buildings can seek money from the voucher program to attend a private school of their choosing, provided that the private school agrees to accept them and is registered in the voucher program as a recipient school.

There are 23 schools in the tri-county area on the recipient list.

The application period began Feb. 1 and ends April 18.

Pupils granted vouchers will receive up to $4,375 or actual tuition cost (whichever is lower) if they are in kindergarten through the eighth grade. The high school voucher is up to $5,150 or the actual tuition cost (whichever is lower).

Parents may still be required to pay any registration or other fees at the private school.

The voucher program may be a boon to some small, private schools that have been experiencing declining enrollments because it brings in state tuition money.

It’s been a significant help to Akiva Academy, said Susan Schonberger, executive director of the school. Akiva had only 43 children in kindergarten through the sixth grade a year ago but enrolled a large number of voucher pupils last fall.

Total enrollment is now up to 79 with about half of them using state vouchers, Schonberger said.

However, losing pupils to vouchers is costly for home districts.

Youngstown city schools, for example, had 180 children in kindergarten through 12th grade granted vouchers this year, and they are enrolled in 14 different schools, school officials have said. The result is a $928,000 loss in state subsidy funds, $5,155 per pupil, to the city schools, according to a report from the district treasurer’s office.

The application process, as outlined by ODE, requires the pupils to first apply for admission at the private school of their choice.

Once they are accepted for enrollment, that school will assist them in applying for the voucher. There are no income requirements for program eligibility.

The voucher can be renewed through the 12th grade (even if the child’s home public school is removed from the voucher list), provided that the child has good attendance, takes all required state achievement tests and doesn’t move from the district (unless the pupil’s new district would assign him or her to a voucher-designated school).

The state has 14,000 vouchers available and estimates there may be 90,000 children across the state eligible for the program, according to School Choice Ohio, an advocacy group promoting school choice and publicly-funded scholarship options.

Only 3,000 children were granted vouchers in the program’s first year in 2006-07 and about 7,000 were granted for the current school year, a School Choice Ohio report said.

It’s not only pupils currently enrolled in the 11 local low-performing schools that can apply.

Any child in a charter school who would otherwise be assigned by their public school district to one of the 11 schools on the list, as well as pupils who aren’t in one of those schools now but would be assigned to one of them next school year, can also apply.

Children enrolled in private schools and those who are home-schooled aren’t eligible for the program.

Voucher recipients may be eligible for transportation provided by their home school district if their new school is within a 30-minute drive from the public school they attended.

gwin@vindy.com