Thank you for joining us for this special webinar for our Children First Education Fund homeschool families. My name is Ronnie Daniel and I serve as the Executive Director of Children First Education Fund. Before we begin, I want to acknowledge that many families are experiencing concern, frustration, disappointment, and uncertainty right now.
Over the past week, we have received emails, phone calls, social media messages, and direct feedback from parents throughout the state. We’ve read those messages carefully and appreciate the time that families have taken to share their concerns. Tonight’s webinar has four purposes.
First, we want to explain the scholarship changes approved for the 2026-27 school year. We want to provide transparency regarding how those decisions were made, and we want to address questions that have been submitted prior to this meeting. So please follow along as I address these questions since they were very common.
And finally, we want to receive additional feedback from you. You’ll have an opportunity to ask questions in the Q&A feature of the webinar at the conclusion of my comments. From the feedback that we’ve received, I know that many parents are concerned with the decision of the CFEF Board of Directors.
Some families are worried about therapies, tutoring, microschools, private school tuition, and education services that their children rely upon. Those concerns are legitimate and deserve to be heard. We’ll address these issues tonight.
I also want to make something very clear at the outset. The decision that was made was not based on the belief that homeschool students need less support, deserve less support, or are less important than private school students. Many homeschool students in our program have significant disabilities and highly individualized education needs.
Nothing in the Board’s decision changes our commitment to serve these students. Before I discuss the changes, I do want to briefly talk about the program itself. Carson Smith Opportunity Scholarship Program continues to grow and serve more Utah families every year.
We’ve seen increased participation from homeschool families, private schools, microschools, service providers, therapists, tutors, and educational organizations across the state. The program has grown from 85 students in 2020 to more than 1,400 students this year, 600 of which were homeschool students. Over $13.5 million has been awarded in scholarships.
We have over 750 service providers supporting children’s needs. We’re grateful for the generosity of our donors who provide the funds to make the scholarships available. Their impression of this program and appreciation of the impact on your children is what provides the fuel for this program to exist.
We’re extremely grateful for the support of our participating schools and service providers and the trust that families place in us. We also want to recognize the CFEF staff members. They work very hard every day to answer questions, review reimbursements, process scholarship requests, onboard providers, and help families navigate the program.
Our mission remains unchanged to help as many students with disabilities as possible access educational opportunities that best meet their unique needs. So what specifically did change in the 26-27 program? The Board of Directors approved the following scholarship award structure. For private school students in kindergarten through grade 12, the amount is $12,175.
For private school preschool students full-time, the amount is $4,800. For private school preschool part-time, the amount is $2,600. For homeschool students in grades K through 6, the award amount is $6,000.
And for homeschool students grades 7 through 12, the award is $8,000. I also want to emphasize what has not changed. Homeschool students remain eligible.
Therapies remain eligible. Tutors remain eligible. Approved educational service providers remain eligible.
Microschools and co-ops remain eligible. Parents remain in control of educational decisions for their children. And education choice remains constant through this program.
So I now want to address why the board made this decision. This is probably the most common question that we’ve received. The board conducted a lengthy review of scholarship utilization data, reimbursement trends, compliance requirements, audit findings, administrative workload, donor intent, future program growth, and long-term sustainability.
The board also reviewed how scholarship funds are administered across different education settings. Private school scholarships are generally tied to tuition and educational services delivered through approved schools. Homeschool scholarships support a much broader range of educational services.
Therapies, curriculum, tutoring, educational materials, enrichment opportunities, and individualized expenditures. The board also found that a substantial percentage of homeschool reimbursement requests required individualized review and interpretation regarding educational purposes and statutory eligibility. By comparison, private school expenditures are generally tied directly to tuition and educational services delivered through approved schools, creating a more objective and standardized funding structure.
These utilization patterns, administrative considerations, compliance requirements, audit concerns, donor expectations, and sustainability factors all weighed into the board’s decision-making process. Again, this was not a determination that homeschool students have lesser needs. Rather, it reflects the board’s assessment of how the program operates across different educational settings and how best to administer scholarship funds going forward.
It’s important to understand that the decision was driven by program administration, donor intent, utilization data, compliance requirement, and long-term sustainability considerations, not a belief that homeschool students deserve less support. Several parents have asked whether CFEF has the legal authority to establish different scholarships amounts. The authority for scholarship award amounts is found in Utah Code Section 53E-7-402 subsection 3. That statute provides that Children First Education Fund, as the appointed scholarship-granting organization, shall determine a full-year scholarship award amount subject to the maximum amount allowed by law.
For K-12 students, the statutory maximum is 2.5 times the weight of pupil unit. The law establishes a ceiling on scholarship awards. The law does not, however, require every student receive the same scholarship amount, nor does it require every student to receive the maximum amount.
The Carson-Smith Opportunity Scholarship Program has historically included scholarship stratifications based on factors such as family income, disability severity, grade level, and other programmatic considerations. Additionally, the contract that Children First Education Fund has with the Utah State Board of Education, or USBE, to administer the Carson-Smith Opportunity Scholarship Program specifically mandates that we consider proportionality and comparability across all participating scholarship awards, ensuring decisions are equitable, defensible, consistent, and aligned with the expectation of oversight and funding partners. Likewise, differentiated scholarship structure exists in Utah Fitzall and other education choice programs throughout the country.
The scholarship amounts approved by the board remain within the authority granted by Utah law. So now I would like to reply to some of the questions that were submitted prior to tonight’s meeting. The first question is, why was this not announced earlier? The board continued reviewing data and considering scholarship structures following the Utah State legislative session, which concluded on March 5th.
The board also wanted to include scholarship utilization information through the April 30th expense submission deadline. The final scholarship structure was first reviewed on May 4th at a board meeting and then approved on May 18th. Communication to families began on May 22nd.
We understand that many families had already begun making educational plans and would have preferred additional notice. That feedback regarding this concern has been heard clearly. The next question, was USBE involved in this decision? No, not directly.
USBE administers certain oversight and compliance functions related to this program. The USBE staff who oversee this program have been notified of these decisions. However, the authority to determine scholarship award amounts is delegated by statute to Children First Education Fund as the appointed scholarship granting organization and through our contract with USBE.
The scholarship award amounts were approved for 26-27 by the Student First Education Fund Board of Directors. The next question, why was the $10,000 previously listed and why did it change? Many families have asked about the $10,000 scholarship amount that appeared on the CFEF website and in program materials prior to the of the 26-27 scholarship amounts. The $10,000 figure was based on the average scholarship award distributed during the prior 25-26 school year and we had hoped that it would be at that level.
This early announcement was done to try to support the request for many families for planning purposes. At the time, the board had not yet completed its final review of scholarship utilization data, program expenditures, donor projections, compliance considerations, and the long-term sustainability factors for the upcoming year. As I shared earlier, the board continued to evaluate that program data and discussing various scholarship structures for the 26-27 school year.
The board specifically wanted to review expenditure information through April 30th through that April 30th deadline before making a final determination regarding scholarship amounts. As a result, no final scholarship amounts had been approved when the $10,000 figure was communicated. On May 18th, after completing its review and deliberations, the board approved the new scholarship structure for the upcoming school year.
Once that decision was made, CFEF staff began communicating the new scholarship amounts to families and other stakeholders. We understand that many families used the previous communication estimate as part of their planning process and that final scholarship amount awards differed from what some families anticipated. We recognize the challenges this has created for some families and understand why many would have preferred additional notice regarding the final structure of scholarships.
Going forward, we are evaluating ways to improve our communication processes so that we can notify families so they can receive timely information while also ensuring that scholarship amounts are not committed until the board has finalized those in the future. The next question, were Carson Smith legacy families affected? The answer, yes. The scholarship structure approved by the board applies across the program and is not limited only to new applicants nor students who transfer to the Carson Smith Opportunity Program from the legacy Carson Smith Program.
Next question, why do younger homeschool students receive less? The answer, the board reviewed historical utilization data and found that education expenditures generally increased as students moved into the middle school and high school time area. While every student is unique, the board concluded that a tiered structure better reflected the overall program utilization patterns. The next question, can the board reconsider the decision? Answer, the board has approved the scholarship structure for the upcoming year.
Parent feedback is being documented and shared with board members. I cannot make commitments regarding future board action. However, I can assure you that your concerns are being heard by our board.
Next question, is there a formal appeals process? At this time there is no formal appeals process regarding scholarship amounts established by the board. Families are encouraged to continue sharing concerns and feedback. This information is being shared with the board.
Next question, can exceptions be made? Answer, at this time there is no process that allows individual students to receive scholarship amounts beyond the board approved levels. If that changes in the future, families will be notified. Next question, are homeschool students being penalized because of purchases made by other families? Answer, families utilize the scholarship funds according to policies and approved spending categories that existed through last year.
The board has found that many homeschool expenditures fell into categories that required significant individual review by staff. In many cases, determining whether an item was qualified as an educational expense involved evaluating its educational purpose, how it would be used by the student, and whether it aligned with program requirements. While families generally acted in good faith and followed existing policies, the volume of expenses requiring subjective review created administrative and compliance challenges that the board considered as part of its overall evaluation of the program.
This decision was not intended to penalize homeschool families. The next question, can I switch from homeschool to private school? The answer is yes. Students may move between homeschool and private school placements.
The scholarship amounts will be adjusted and prorated based upon educational placement during the school year. Parents of homeschool children who wish to switch to an approved private school should contact our staff as soon as possible once their child has been accepted by an approved private school to have their scholarship amount adjusted. The best way to submit that request and switch should be sent to the info at cfe-fund.org email address.
The next question, can my homeschool indication on my application be changed to private school after the May 31st deadline? Answer, yes. Families should contact our staff as soon as possible if education plans change. Remember that your child must apply to and be accepted by an approved private school before the scholarship amount can be adjusted.
The best way to submit that request as I mentioned is to is to send it to the info at cfe-fund.org email address. The next question, what if my private school is not currently approved by USBE? The answer, any private schools may pursue approval through USBE. Once approved by USBE, they are eligible to participate in the Carson Smith Opportunity Scholarship Program as an approved private school and receive scholarship funding from the Carson Smith Opportunity Scholarship students.
Utah code defines a full-time private school as an education institution where the student receives the majority of their academic instruction. To qualify, the school must require in-person or direct instruction for a minimum of three days per week and charge a comprehensive tuition rate rather than per course fees. For full-time status at the K through 12 level, state education rules require generally for private schools to operate for the same duration as public schools, at least four hours per day for grades 1 through 12 and two hours per day for kindergarten.
Education organizations like micro schools or co-ops that do not want to be approved by USBE or may not qualify in some way may be approved by Children First Education Fund as service providers serving home school students and receive scholarship funding as long as the student is not participating in full-time programming. All approved private schools are listed on the CFEF website. Families with questions regarding specific schools should contact our staff.
Information about how to apply to USBE can be found on the CFEF website in the schools section on that website. Next question, what about micro schools? Answer, micro schools have always been allowed in the CSOS program. They may participate in two ways, one as an approved service provider serving home school students in a non-full-time setting or two as private schools if they become approved through USBE.
Next question, what about online schools? Private school participation is tied to schools that meet the USBE education or private school requirements including in-person attendance at a physical location in Utah. Online education programs even if they’re provided by approved schools may continue to participate as approved service providers serving home school students. What about hybrid programs? We recognize that many families utilize hybrid educational models that combine parent-directed home education with one or more structured educational services like micro schools, co-op programs, online education, or other service providers.
Rather than fitting neatly into a traditional home school or a traditional private school model, hybrid programs offer a blend of elements of home school and part-time organized school programs. All of these options are allowed and would fall under the home school classification and award amount. To receive the private school award amount, a student must be enrolled in an approved private school.
Next question, can a private school student use scholarship funds beyond tuition? The answer is yes. If the tuition is less than the scholarship amount awarded, remaining funds may be used for other approved education expenses consistent with program policies. Next question, will the 20 percent P.E. and extracurricular caps be reviewed? Several families have asked this question.
The answer is recent legislation stipulates that physical education and extracurricular expenditures be limited to 20 percent of the scholarship amount. CEF and all scholarship students are required to comply with this law. The next question in more detail about physical education and extracurricular spending cap.
The answer is part of CFEF’s ongoing effort to ensure scholarship funds are used primarily for direct educational purposes. Expenditures related to physical education, athletics, extracurricular activities, and enrichment opportunities will generally be subject to the 20 percent spending cap of a student’s annual scholarship award. The purpose of this limitation is not to diminish the value of extracurricular activities.
We recognize that such activities play an important role in a student’s educational development, confidence, social growth, and overall well-being. However, the primary purpose of the Carson Smith Opportunity Scholarship Program is to provide funding for educational instruction, specialized services, therapies, curriculum, tutoring, and other core educational support for students with disabilities. The cap helps ensure that scholarship funds remain focused on those primary educational objectives while still allowing families some flexibility to incorporate enrichment activities into their students’ educational experience.
CFEF staff is currently reviewing all past expenditures to create a new reimbursement guide. A final version of this guide will be available on our website on June 30, 2026. The next question, how can families provide feedback regarding these scholarship changes? The answer is families may attend future webinars that we will hold, submit questions and comments at the questions at cf-fund.org website or email address, contact our staff directly, or submit written feedback.
All feedback is being documented and shared with our leadership. The next question, will there be a will there be parent representation moving forward? The answer is several parents have suggested a parent advisory committee or stakeholder group. We believe that this is a constructive suggestion and one that deserves further discussion.
While no formal structure currently exists, we are evaluating ways to increase parent involvement in future discussions. The next question, what is CFEF doing to improve communication? The answer, we have heard concerns regarding communication because every parent is required to use a verified email address to apply for a scholarship for their child. This is our primary means of communications with families.
As such, we request that families please give attention to emails when sent so they can receive communications in a timely fashion. Some families reported not receiving emails related to scholarship changes and webinars. We’re reviewing our communication systems, distribution lists and outreach processes to improve future communications and ensure that all families receive our emails.
While we acknowledge that there are social media forums that exist with scholarship parents, please note that these are not official CFEF entities, so please contact our staff directly with any specific questions. The next section, I just want to reiterate what has not changed and then I’ll talk about some future improvements that we are planning to do. I just want to reinforce that homeschool students remain eligible, therapies, tutoring, educational choice and parents remain in control of their education decisions.
While the scholarship structure has changed, our mission is not. We remain committed to help as many students as possible access educational opportunities that best meet their needs. I want to talk just briefly now about the scholarship acceptance process.
Our first wave of approvals for next school year was just processed today, which included more than 1,200 students. The state law now mandates that a parent must formally accept the scholarship. If you were included in this first wave, you will have received an email notification explaining to log into your portal to accept the award.
Parents must formally accept the award within 30 days of being notified before funds can be awarded. The process is simply that the application has been approved. Parents will then log in to accept the scholarship.
The private school, if they attend private school, will verify tuition and fees or if they’re homeschooled then CFEF will verify those tuition or there’s those scholarship amounts. The scholarship award will then be posted to your portal and then the student can participate in the program. Just note though and tell that the scholarship awards have been formally done after you’ve accepted the scholarship.
You won’t notice that award amount on your portal, but that will happen shortly here in the next week or so. If you haven’t yet received an approval notification, that means your application came in after our initial cutoff date. We’ll be doing several additional waves of approval notifications before the end of June.
If by chance your application was missing documentation, CFEF staff will be reaching out to you to help you complete the application process. Scholarship funds cannot be awarded until the parent has accepted the scholarship, so please do that as soon as possible. Failure to complete the acceptance process within the required time frame may result in closure of the student’s application forfeiture of the scholarship offer.
Please refer to the Children First Education Fund website for current scholarship policies, participation requirements, timelines, award amounts, and other program updates. Regarding future improvements, we’ve heard many constructive suggestions from families over the last weeks. Those include an approved item list, approved vendor guidance, direct purchasing for educational programs, direct payment to service providers, reduced out-of-pocket expenses, improved communication, additional micro school guidance, and parent representation.
All of these areas are being considered, and we are working on implementation of all of these things in the near future. One area where families can expect significant improvement is in the development of more objective purchasing and reimbursement standards. It’s important to note that Children First Education Fund’s role is not to define exactly how homeschooling should occur in every home.
Our responsibility is to ensure that scholarship funds are spent on verifiable educational expenses. To accomplish this goal, we’re moving toward a curated approved item list, an approved vendor guide, and systems that reduce subjective determinations regarding educational value. We encourage families to refrain from purchasing items outside core curriculum items until the reimbursement guides have been published by June 30th.
By focusing on an objectively verifiable educational expenses and approved categories, we can ensure fair and consistent treatment of all scholarship families, maintain compliance with Utah statutory requirements and audit standards, improve transparency regarding allowable expenditures, reduce reimbursement disputes and processing delays, provide families with clear guidance and greater predictability, improve the efficiency and long-term sustainability of program administration. Our goal is greater consistency, transparency, fairness, predictability, compliance, and administrative efficiency. So now we’d like to move into the question and answer portion of our webinar.
If you’d like to submit a question regarding something that we haven’t already addressed, please do so in the Q&A feature that you’ll see at the bottom of your screen. Just simply click on the Q&A button, and while submitting questions, we ask that you please remember to be respectful. We’ll do our best to answer the questions submitted, but we may not be able to answer every question this evening.
Questions requiring additional research will be documented and addressed through future communications whenever possible. If you have questions about your child’s specific situation, I suggest that rather than asking that tonight, you reach out to our staff directly so that we can give you specific guidance for your own child. So our staff who’s online have been attempting to answer some of these questions directly through the chat feature, but we will now look to answer some of these questions verbally here.
First question is, what specific utilization data did the board review when it selected $6,000, $8,000? What was the average scholarship spending for homeschool students in K-6 and 7-12 over the past three years? So these numbers were reached out by exactly reviewing that data. I don’t have the exact data in front of me to give you that, but those two amounts were specifically selected to match the data that we reviewed over the past couple of years. The next question is, what is the statutory or policy basis for creating separate scholarship tiers for K-6 and K-12 homeschool students since Utah code does not address that? I think I answered that question earlier, that the statute gives Children First Education Fund the ability to look at that based upon the information that we reviewed.
How did you determine donor intent? As you can imagine, a number of donors are part of our program, and we looked at what would be reasonable and prudent if this was reviewed by a donor. Of course, all of our board members are donors, most of our staff members, and of course many of you are probably donors, I hope, but we looked at that as what would a donor find reasonable and prudent in looking at expenditures that we approved. Next question is, at what point did you know you were going to make these changes? As I indicated earlier, we reviewed this at our board meeting after all of the April expenditures were processed at our board meeting on April 4th, and the board’s final determination was made on May 18th.
Next question is, what process did the board follow in making this decision, and were conflict of interest policy followed in accordance with the Utah Code? Yes, we did review all of that, and the process we followed was in, as I explained earlier, in reviewing all of the different items that I mentioned. The next question, why was the prospect of potential reduction for homeschool students never discussed? It was discussed in great detail in our board meeting. The next question, will there be direct pay this year? It is creating a lot of difficulty for lower-income families.
As I just indicated, yes, those are specifically things that we are looking at to provide direct pay and trying to reduce out-of-pocket expenses for families. Next question, the education amounts needed by special education children is higher than by other children. You’re absolutely right, and so that, you know, all of the children on our scholarship program are special needs children.
Next question is, USBE requires private schools to meet specific building requirements that are comparable to public schools. This limits our options to large, commercial, typically religious schools. How will CFAF work to help schools that look different to become approved? That is something we are in communication with USBE about, and I believe if, you know, while they do have some requirements for a brick-and-mortar school, I don’t believe that the same requirements are existing for these types of schools.
The next question is, do any of the volunteers on the board have any real-life experience of special needs kids or homeschoolers? The answer is absolutely yes. Many of our board members have children or grandchildren who have special needs. Many of them have been involved in homeschooling before.
Next question is, why were private school funds increased when the average private school is less than $9,000 per year? We didn’t increase the private school’s amount. We just simply let that be at the 2.5 times the weight of pupil unit as stipulated in the statute. Next question, why aren’t online schools considered as private schools? That’s a question for the Utah State School Board.
We have to follow their definition of what a private school is, and as I mentioned earlier, that requires the students to meet in person and be at a physical location. The next question is, would you consider a 90-day rule for implementing changes in the future? That’s a great suggestion. We will definitely take that into consideration.
Next question, did private schools have any input in the decision-making process? We did not specifically ask any private schools for their direct input. We reviewed all the material for homeschools and private schools, and that was weighed in on the decision-making process. The next question is, please address more of the 20% caps, specifically is music education part of the core education or an elective? We are reviewing all that in detail.
Of course, as you can imagine, we’re trying to best understand the state law and what is considered extracurricular and what would be considered core curriculum. All of that, though, will be stipulated in our reimbursement guide that will be published by June 30 of this month. The sixth grade is part of middle school.
Why is the grade level part of the elementary school funding at that level? We looked at that, and just based upon the utilization data was where we drew the line, because while in some school districts, grade six is part of middle school and other school districts is part of elementary school, we just had to make a decision based upon the utilization data. What percentage of the decision was made? Let’s see. I’m sorry.
I’m trying to understand this. It sounds like a large contribution of this funding decision has to do with staff to review reimbursements. What percentage of those extra reimbursements, especially towards the end of last year, were from homeschool recipients versus the end of year private school reimbursements? I don’t know the exact percentage of that, but the vast majority of the year-end reimbursements were submitted by homeschool students.
Next question is, when they looked at the funds used this year, did they take into account lots of families couldn’t use all their funds as they only did refunds, not purchases? Lots of families didn’t have funds to use the scholarship with the program not having the purchase accounts available. Certainly, that was all looked at and considered in the decision. To what extent was the scholarship structure driven by student utilization patterns versus the administrative cost of operating the program under the new administrative cost model? Those factors were both looked at.
Most of you may know that, by law, Children First Education Fund is required to award 92% of all the funds we raise in scholarship awards. The reason why administrative time and cost are factored into that is because we only have a limited amount of funds that we can spend on administrative duties, and so making that more streamlined will help us to make sure we can continue to do the program in the way it’s intended to be done. Will you publish any de-identified data and board materials they used in making those determinations? No, we will not.
Please note that I did not get an email asking me to accept the award. I did notice that when I signed into my CFEF account that I was directed to accept the grant. I realized that things can be placed into junk mail, but I also checked my junk mail.
Can you confirm that an email was sent out? That process is done through our third-party service provider. We assume that emails were sent out. We will double check that, and if that’s different, we will notify the parents on that as soon as we can.
Are there any service providers that have already been approved in the past being eliminated? No service provider will be eliminated that’s already been approved. We did a very thorough process with that last year, so all those service providers will be continued. Will music classes or lessons be considered extracurricular or core curricular? That’s exactly, as I mentioned earlier, what we’re looking at to try to place those in the best category looking forward.
Next question says, it sounds like you’re reducing homeschool funding because it costs more to administer the program for homeschoolers. Why have you accepted so many new students if you don’t have resources to administer the individual needs of the students? I don’t know if I have a great answer for that other than we very carefully monitor and manage the funds that we have available to give out in scholarship awards and the way we administer the program to make it as most effective and efficient as we possibly can. The question is, how can the spending amount be determined for older age groups if only one amount was awarded previously? We looked at all of the data from spending that was made.
As someone mentioned earlier, not all the families spent all of the money and that was taken into consideration as well. Can you provide more information on what qualifies as extracurriculars? As I mentioned, that will all be part of our updated reimbursement guide that will be published at the end of the month. Will we get answers on things like art and STEM classes or curriculum and materials, especially if taught during school hours and as part of formal homeschool? Yes, all of those things will be included in the reimbursement guide.
You mentioned that approvals went out today and those who didn’t get approval didn’t get their application in within the time frame. I’m pretty sure. If you didn’t get an email today, it doesn’t mean you’re out of luck.
You will still get that email. As was mentioned earlier, one parent went in and checked their account. I would encourage you to do that.
It may already be indicated in there. You said that students could do private school or co-op or other program. If your child would like to do a private school most of the week as well as a co-op once a week, would that be allowed for reimbursement? The answer is probably.
It depends on what you’re classifying as a private school. When we’re talking about private schools and receiving the tuition amount for private schools, it has to be at one of the USVE approved private schools. We know there are a number of private schools and micro schools and co-ops that are there that haven’t been approved.
You can participate in those schools. They are approved as service providers and so you can do that. You can participate in those programs and do some homeschooling and that’ll all be fall underneath the homeschool model.
Just to clarify, if my child’s current school takes till next February to qualify as a private school, you’ll probably prorate that amount. That’s right. If your school gets approved at any time and you want to switch to private school status, we would do that.
Hopefully you’re not going to not educate your child for that whole time and you’ll use some of the homeschool funding for you to do that. We would prorate the amount based upon the time you switch to a private school. Let’s see.
Can you confirm that private school scholarship recipients cannot access their funds for therapies until tuition has been fully paid and that may not occur until March? That is correct. You mentioned that there was a meeting that took place on May 18th. Was this a formal board meeting? Can you provide agenda and minutes to parents from this meeting? Was this posted to the public in advance or was any public comment accepted on this? That was as a private nonprofit.
Our board meetings are private. That meeting did take place on May 18th with the board as a formal board meeting. I will need to confer with our board to determine whether or not they would be comfortable releasing the minutes from that meeting.
Again, another question about the 20% and what will be included was not. I can’t give you any further guidance tonight until we finalize our reimbursement guide that will be published by the end of the month. Do you anticipate any major changes being made to the approved vendors? For example, we will still be able to order directly from approved curriculum providers.
Absolutely, yeah. We don’t see any changes being done there. The one small thing that will be done, the state law updated this past legislative session requires that all of our service providers have an employee identification number.
We do have some of those service providers that have just used their social security number for that, so we’ll be working with those individuals to update that information. That’s a free process. There’s no cost to that.
We just need to comply with that new statute. Everyone has been notified if they’re awarded a scholarship. If we don’t hear anything, does that mean we don’t get it? No, that just means our first wave of people have been notified.
We’re doing that in massive bulk processes as we’ve been able to finalize those awards in our system. Next question, sounds like you guessed at what donors might prefer. If I’m mistaken, please clarify how this was a data-driven decision.
That was one of the data points we looked at. We looked at a lot of other data points as well. Has it been discussed or any possibility to have any more frequent reimbursements bimonthly so that parents aren’t floating the cost as long? We are, as I mentioned here, seriously looking at ways of eliminating out-of-pocket expenses for families.
We know that’s burdensome, and so we’re trying to create ways of doing that. With homeschool students receiving a reduced amount, this significantly reduces what they can spend on PE while private school gets a significant more with their 20%. Well, private school students, the bulk of their scholarship award is going to pay for their tuition.
As I mentioned earlier in my comments, the primary purpose of scholarship funds is to focus on educational objectives. PE and extracurricular are an important part of that, but the bulk of the funds should be being spent on those core curricular items. Why is the amount gap so large between homeschool and private schools? As I explained earlier, I’d encourage you to go back.
We’re going to send out this webinar and the transcript to all of the families. I think we talked about that earlier in the meeting. You can refer back to it there.
What are the practical steps being taken to establish a parent advisory committee? That information has been shared with the board. We’ll be reviewing it at our next board meeting. I can’t put a specific timeline on that, but within the next quarter, I would expect we’d have some information about that.
Since the funds are significantly reduced this year and most educational materials and tuition is due up front, can you make all of the funds accessible to homeschool families at the beginning of the year? We do that on a quarterly basis because, as you can imagine, the funding we receive from the state and the funding received from donors doesn’t all come in in one big chunk. It comes in throughout the year, and so that allows us to fund those scholarship accounts on a quarterly basis based upon when funding comes in. I respectfully request that you publicly address whether parents are allowed to attend board meetings.
At this point, no. They’re private meetings. As a private non-profit, we reserve the right to do that.
I might add that definitely all the information you’d like to share is and will be shared with our board members. I just might mention about our board that they do serve without compensation. They’re volunteers, and so they do the very best they can based upon their experience and the information that is available to them.
We’ll be updated on spending and restricted categories so we don’t go over. We’ll spell all that out as we have in the reimbursement guide, and that will be available again by the end of the month. Does CFEF notify USBE before announcing these award amounts? Yes.
Why are private schools being prioritized in scholarship for special needs kids? Many of us have children who will never be accepted or accommodated by a private school. Again, this was not a decision made to call out and say that homeschooling is not an appropriate means. It was done specifically by looking at all those data points that I mentioned earlier.
Why did the board not consider student need in the list of factors considered in making this decision? It’s not that we did not consider that. It’s just that we don’t have any specific data to tell us exactly what individual students’ needs are, and so it’s very hard to determine that on an individual-by-individual basis. Are there any planned changes for issues last year, such as items or services that were pre-approved being determined to be ineligible? Yes.
You’re going to see a much more specific list of approved items that will be allowed this year, and so hopefully that will be resolved. The UFA scholarship allows 20% for PE and extracurriculars separately. Can CFEF consider this special need? Kids use more of these funds than average.
We have to follow what’s stipulated in the statute, and it does not specify those to be considered separately in our statute. What alternatives were considered to reduce administrative burden short of reducing homeschool scholarship amounts? I’m concerned about the reduced amount decreasing homeschool students’ equitable access to the fund. I assure you we reviewed all of the various ways that we could make this program be more effective for everyone, including different ways to make our staff more… Our staff hasn’t grown any this year, but our program has grown significantly in the number of students, and so we’re always looking for ways to be more effective and more efficient in our staff work.
If the board is a voluntary role, where can we find information on how to become a board member? We’re not looking to grow the board at this time, but I’d be happy if you’d like to email me your resume. We’d be happy to keep it on file for when future openings occur. What utilization data, for the sake of transparency, can this data be shared? All of the data that is processed in our CRM, we can download that and use it to view in a lot of different ways how the funds were used, what different categories.
That’s the information that was used for the board to make these considerations. Are you working on something to make vendor approvals easier for families or directly dealing with that instead? For example, Loveland Aquarium or rec center classes. We are.
In fact, one of the things that we’ve done is we’ve assigned one staff member especially to be responsible for working with our service providers to help make that process smoother for families and the service providers. Why should something that you can take at a class at a regular school, such as arts, woodshop, etc., be considered extracurricular? We are re-reviewing all of that information, as I mentioned earlier, and we’ll make a determination and have that in our reimbursement guide. The question is, with the legislation changes that gave CFEF permission to approve vendors, will therapists, doctors, and cities be allowed to just be approved since they are very public and official businesses that require all the information for them to operate? We’re reviewing, as I mentioned earlier, all of the processes of how to approve vendors to try to make that easier and smoother for both the vendors and the families.
Is there an appeals process if a reimbursement or pre-approval request is denied? Absolutely, yes. We’ve had that in place and we’ll continue to have that. Why are PE and STEM courses being lumped in together? I don’t believe no one said that.
PE and extracurricular activities are underneath the 20% cap. STEM programming is traditional and would most likely be not counted under the 20% rule. Can you explain why a tax ID is needed now over social security number? As I mentioned, that’s now stipulated in the statute and it’s not a difficult process to get that.
So any of our vendors who have social security numbers will be working with them to help them get that tax ID number that they’ll need. Why are you saying you have to stick with USBE-approved private schools when UFA does not? Strictly because the UFA statute gives them the ability to approve their own private schools. Ours does not.
We would be open to the idea of changing that in legislation, but currently we have to stick with USBE-approved schools. We’ve heard a lot about the elective and PE courses coming under the 20% cap, but not much has been said about therapy and therapy costs. Those are all fully allowed under the scholarship.
In fact, that’s the direct way we’d love for you to spend your money is through therapy and through other direct educational supports. There’s no cap on therapy currently. Another question about wanting to serve on the board.
I answered that earlier, but one thing I just want to mention is that another element that’s built into the state statute is that any of our board members and administrators of our program, their children are ineligible for scholarships, and so take that into consideration also that if you serve on the board, your children and grandchildren are not eligible to receive a scholarship. If program administration is an issue, could we limit the number of requests rather than the funds so you aren’t doing 500 requests for pencils but can still get things like tutoring covered? Those things are all still allowable and coverable, and as I mentioned, we’d love for you to do that. But as of now, the scholarship amounts have been fixed for next year.
How intensive is the process for a private school to become an approved provider? Is that something that would be possible to accomplish prior to next school year if they aren’t already a provider? The process is this application process with USB is fairly simple. It’s just a straight two-page education or application rather. The things that they do look for are, is this a brick-and-mortar school? Do students attend in person? One thing that USB does require is a review of the financials of an applicant school to make sure that they are financially viable.
That’s often one of the challenges that some of the smaller schools have, but I’m personally aware of schools that have applied and been approved within a month, so I don’t think it has to be a long process. Question is how are board members elected? They’re elected by the existing board when we have a vacancy. Will funds be distributed all at once or throughout the year? It’ll be as it was in years past where we fund each homeschool and private school account on a quarterly basis.
Will changes be made mid-year again or once the guide is rolled out, everything will stay in place until the following school year? That’s exactly right. We intend to have a guide published by the end of the month that will stick for the whole year. Can we start buying curriculum now or do we need to wait until July for it to be reimbursable? As I indicated earlier, curriculum is definitely something that will be approved.
You can purchase it now, but we encourage waiting until you see the reimbursement guide to purchase things other than curriculum. Good question. I do not think legislators would have put a strict 20% cap had they known CFEF would have made such dramatic cuts in homeschool funding.
Do you plan to advocate to have this restriction altered? That’s a distinct possibility. We would be willing to look at that and review that for the next legislative session. Next question is why do we require vendor approval for reimbursement? Because the state law stipulates that we have to do that.
The question is are private school students given access to higher funding for PE and extracurriculars and homeschoolers? The answer is no. The bulk of their funds are going to pay for tuition. Any of those PE or extracurriculars are part of that homeschool curriculum, typically, and so there’s no advantage there.
They’re still subject to the same 20% for any additional funds that would be used outside of their tuition. What other funding options are being considered to prevent cuts to maintain current amounts as CFEF membership grows? As you probably are aware, the bulk of our funding comes from fundraising. We are able to give all of our donors a 100% state income tax credit for their donations, so that is our primary focus on raising additional funds.
I encourage any of you who pay state income tax, if you’d like to have that money go towards helping support homeschoolers and education choice versus paying it to the state, you can participate in that and help us raise more money that allows us to continue to grow the program. Is there an estimate? Basically, the question is asking what’s the breakdown between private school and homeschool students. Currently, it’s about 70-30.
70% of our recipients are private school students and 30% are homeschool students. The question is why are we concerned about growing the number of students? The ability for us to raise additional dollars is directly tied to the growth that we have in the number of students, and so we’re always looking to increase our program so that we can see that state tax credit cap increase each year that allows us to raise more money and have more students in the program. Is Utah’s weight of pupil unit factored into the decision at all? Yes, it was factored in to the discussion.
The question is IEPs are required or MDTs, so why are individualized use of funds being less prioritized when kids’ needs vary? I think I discussed that earlier in the webinar when I talked about the different criteria we reviewed. While we know all of our students have special needs, it’s virtually impossible for us to have any kind of scale or range to determine the severity of individual needs, and so that’s a difficult thing to consider in our deliberations. The question is, is the purpose of an approved item list that if a family purchases an item from that list, it’s guaranteed to be reimbursed? Exactly why we want to do that.
We want to try to take any of the subjectivity out of the equation, and our list of approved items will be approved items. Someone asked, please elaborate on what I said about no cap on therapy. PE and extracurricular by state statute is capped at 20% of the scholarship amount.
Therapies and other types of tutoring, curriculum, those types of things, there’s no cap on that. You can use as much of your scholarship funds for those things as you’d like. The question is, why are you using Utah FedSolve funding and policies as a model for our program? We’re not using them as a model for our program.
Our program is older, and the state statutes are different for both programs. Are you anticipating substantially reduced categories for reimbursements? The categories that are spelled out in the statute are those that we’ve used and will continue to use, but we will be providing some direct guidance on the types of products that are in those categories. Will there be explicit provisions describing excessive amounts of things? As much as we can.
I mentioned earlier that this past year there was over 600 homeschool families. There are over 600 imaginative parents trying to find ways to help their kids. The reason why we are going to create a more curated list of items is because we shouldn’t be telling you how to issue the scholarship funds in a way that is intended by the state law.
The restrictive amount of the items that we’ll have will be applicable to that. If you want to spend money on other items outside of that, you’re free to homeschool your child any way you want. We just have to be very careful about how the dollars that are being awarded scholarships are being used for your homeschooler.
Are you saying that if a child attends a micro school full-time, they will not be able to use any funding towards the micro school unless they become a private school? That’s not exactly what I said. Micro schools have the option to try to become a approved private school with USBE. The students that attended that, if they were approved, would then be eligible for the private school award amount.
If you’re currently participating in a private school and have been, they still will be an approved service provider and can continue to be so. The question was Utah Code 53E-7-4, the Open Meetings Act requires decisions regarding disbursement of tax dollars to be open to the public unless exempted under executive sessions. Because these are donated dollars, they aren’t expressly tax dollars.
Our donors get a tax credit, but the donations we receive are still charitable donations, so they would be exempt under that ruling. Will parents still be allowed to request reimbursement of items if they aren’t on the list? They will be, but they will be reviewed. As I mentioned earlier, we’re trying to make sure that we have just one curated list.
The likelihood that they’d be approved might be lower, but you can still submit those for review. Will there be another webinar to review the reimbursement guide? We’re definitely planning on doing something like that so that we can answer any questions about that when it comes out. Will items not on the approved list be allowed at all, or can we use the funds only on items for the approved list? We definitely would like you to use as much of the funds on the approved list.
That way it’s an easier process for you. There’s no questions about that. As I mentioned earlier, you can still submit things for pre-approval, but we’re going to stick as close as we can to our curated list.
It looks like furniture is prohibited in the law now, which is accurate. What does it look like for things like sensory swings and adaptive chairs? We are addressing that in our new reimbursement guide. Those things are still allowed, and so you’ll see that in our guide.
What criteria is being used to determine what’s on our reimbursable list? We are using past usage history to help determine that, and we are looking at creating a parents advisory group to help us review that before it’s finally published. Some private schools offer very limited individualized education, and yet they are being better funded. While that may be true for some of our private schools, we have a very large number of specialized private schools that deal specifically with individuals with disabilities.
I don’t know if that’s an exactly accurate statement. I would encourage our families to look on our website under our schools tab and see all the different schools that are part of our program. Looking at the time, we promised we’d have you finish by 7 30.
The rest of the questions that are in here, if we haven’t already answered them, our staff will still take some time and respond to them outside of the platform. If your question didn’t get answered tonight and you would like to have some more detail about that, please send an email to questions at cfe-fund.org. That’s probably the most effective way for us to respond to those questions, and we promise we’ll get back to you as soon as we can on the answer to those questions. Just to wrap up here, I want to say thanks again for taking time to spend this evening with us.
We’re grateful for your involvement, your engagement, and as we conclude tonight, I just want you to know that every message we receive, every concern that’s raised, represents a child and a family with a unique educational journey. These stories matter, and whether you agree with our board’s decision or not, I want you to know that your concerns have been heard, your feedback is valued, and your advocacy for your child is appreciated and will be considered. While the scholarship structure has changed, again, our mission has not.
We want to continue to support as many children as we can with disabilities to fulfill their education needs. Thank you for joining us tonight, and we wish you the best in the new school year.
