Welcome to our webinar tonight for our private school families. We are excited to have you all here.
And for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Ronnie Daniel and I serve as the executive director of Children First Education Fund. First and foremost, I want to thank eACH of you for being part of the Carson Smith Opportunity Scholarship Program.
We recognize that every family participating in this program has made thoughtful and intentional decisions regarding their child’s education and we’re honored to play a small role in helping families access educational opportunities that best meet the needs of their children. Whereas we prepare for the 2026-27 school year, our goal this evening is to provide some important updates regarding the scholarship program to review key information for the upcoming school year and answer any questions that you may have.
Before before we begin, I’d like to introduce someone who many of you may already know. Bridget Wintell has been an integral part of our CFEF team for many years and has worked closely with families, schools, and service providers throughout the scholarship program.
She brings tremendous amount of experience, knowledge, and dedication to supporting students with and families that we serve. As our program continues to grow, Bridget will be transitioning into a new role where she will serve as the primary point of contact for our participating private schools and will play a leading role in strengthening communication, support, engagement between Children First Education Fund and our school partners.
This transition will allow us to provide even greater support to participating schools, which ultimately benefits the students and the families they serve. Bridget’s been very instrumental in many of the improvements we’ve made over the years, and I’m grateful for her leadership and and commitment to our mission and her dedication to helping families navigate the scholarship program successfully.
This evening, Bridget will walk us through the agenda, reviewing important program updates and discussing what families can expect as we move into the new scholarship year. If you’d like to submit a question, you can do so in the Q&A feature of the webinar platform.
It can be found in the bottom right of your screen. Just simply click on the Q&A button when you and then when you can submit a question there.
And as you do so, please remember to be respectful and we’ll do our best to answer the questions submitted, but we may not be able to answer every question this evening. If there’s questions that require additional research, we’ll document those and address those to through future communications whenever possible.
Thank you again for joining us this evening and for placing your trust in Children First Education Fund. We look forward to continuing to serve our families and support your students in the years ahead.
So, Bridget, I’ll now turn the time over to you.
Thanks for joining us tonight. I’m just going to kind of go over private school processes and and the program for private school students. First off, the award for private school students is for K through 12 private school students is $12,175. If your student’s in the preschool program, part-time is $2,600 and full-time is $4,800.
If your student is, an age that is not typical of preschool, so they’re a little bit older, five and six, but they’re participating in the preschool program, that is what the award is based off of. So, you would receive the preschool award. But if you are in K through 12 grades then it would be that award. So to qualify as a private school student you must attend the private school in person full-time.
Full-time for a private school student is a minimum of three days a week and the student is receiving their direction from the teACHer at the private school. The private school serves as the students primary education setting and the private school is providing the students core academic instruction.
Students that are enrolled part-time are taking supplemental classes or à la carte classes or enrichment programs they would be classified as a homeschool student and receive the appropriate award for that and participate with the private school as a service provider. It’s only students enrolled full-time with an approved private school, which we do have a list of approved private schools on our website that received the K through $12,175.
This year, part of legislation, there is an acceptance process to the scholarship award. In years past, you would be approved and awarded at the same time. This year you do need to accept the award. So approval will come first and then you need to accept it and then the award will come next.
And and I should clarify that a little bit for private school students. After your acceptance, it goes to the private school to input your tuition of fees and then once they do that, it kicks it into the actual awarded status. So just kind of to clarify that a little bit. If you do not accept the award, failure to accept it may result in closure of the students application or forfeiture of the scholarship offer. Our scholarships are based on fund availability. And so, you know, you can certainly take your time accepting it up until we close the awards, but but you could by delaying that miss out on scholarship funding because someone else has accepted it.
So, while we do, you know, anticipate, the being able to award scholarships through, December, it is all based part of our program is appropriations and part is donations. And so, it’s that donations, you know, that that we are unsure of kind of the the timing and the amount. So, it is based on fund availability. If once again, if you don’t attend the private school full-time, then that would be classified as a homeschool student and you would take the you would follow the homeschool guidelines for that.
Tuition payments, they’re a little bit different this year. We still as a private school student attending full-time, we still do pay the school directly for you eACH quarter. The one change that’s made is in our system it’s now going to lock the scholarship funds until the private school tuition and fees have been fully paid.
So, if you’re attending a private school where your tuition is less than your scholarship award, you can still use the difference of that, but you would not be able to submit for reimbursement for eligible expenses until the tuition and fees of the private school have been paid. And so if you’re that will vary by school, you know, depending on on how big of a difference your award is to the to the tuition and fees that are owed, but our funding schedule this year has also moved up.
It is still September and November that we pay the school, but now it will be January and March for quarters three and four, where previously it was February and April. So those funds will be available sooner. So we will pay the school quarterly September, November, January and March. And if you are an existing student, you already know this, but for new students, we do pay that directly to the school via an ACH payment.
Once again, if your tuition is less than the scholarship award amount, you can use that tuition for other eligible expenses. And you would refer to the homeschool guide for that. The different categories for that. You’re kind of in between both worlds a little bit with that, but but you do need to be aware of of what those guidelines are for the other education expenses.
Generally the private schools, as I mentioned, they input your tuition and fees into the system and that’s what the quarterly payments are based off of. So, if you do have changes to that after the school has input that, that’s fine. We can accommodate that. There’s one of two ways that we can accommodate that.
If your tuition and fees are more than the scholarship award amount, you can just pay that to the school because the scholarship funds wouldn’t be covering, you know, that those extra charges anyways since your scholarship would already be be applied towards the full tuition and fees. If your award is less than that and we need to add additional or excuse me, your tuition and fees are less than your scholarship award and you’ve added maybe some elective classes, your private school can reach out to me and add that to the payment schedule or you can pay those upfront to the school.
But once again, because the tu the funds are locked until the school is paid, you wouldn’t be able to submit that for reimbursement until after the original tuition and fees are paid. Or once again, you can the private school can submit that and I would make a tuition adjustment on on the back end and include that in the quarterly payments that we make to them.
Legislation also changed with if your tuition and fees are less than the scholarship award amount, as I mentioned, you can use that on other eligible expenses. One thing that you should be aware of with the legislative changes is that no more than 20% of your total scholarship can be used towards physical education and extracurricular expenses.
And so just keep that in mind as you’re submitting those other education expenses. Legacy Carson Smith transfers. I don’t know if we have any students with the Legacy Carson Smith program right now, but you are able to transfer to the Carson Smith Opportunity Scholarship. You’re currently grandfathered in the Legacy Carson Smith program, but you can you can change at quarterly intervals.
And that is just to ensure that the Legacy Program is not paying the school and we’re also not paying the school at the same quarter. So from now until August 15th, you can apply to transfer your scholarship for quarter 1 and we would just take over the whole year of making the payments to the school and you would be withdrawn from the Legacy Program.
Once you withdraw, you cannot return back to the Legacy Program. And then quarter two you have up until October 15th to submit your application. And then quarter three, you have through December 15th to submit your application. We have very limited, options for quarter 4. We can only work if you already have an application in the system.
New applications cannot be submitted after December 15th. But if you have one that maybe we’re working on or was in progress and you never submitted it, we can work with those students for quarter 4, but no new students because by that point we have a new application for the next program year in the system and we can’t have two existing applications at the same time.
With that new process of accepting the award, once you’ve been approved for the scholarship, your acceptance of the award is your withdrawal from the Legacy Carson Smith program. So, if you accept the scholarship award, you will be automatically withdrawn from the Legacy Carson Smith program.
About 65% of scholarship fundings generated through the tax credit donations. I mentioned that we receive some state appropriations and then the rest is through tax credit donations. So once again that does impact the awards that we can extend and and we do extend them as funding is available. Some awards may be issued in phases. Our final scholarship awards they must be s or applications need to be submitted no later than December 15th and pending funding availability will award through December 31st.
Students that are wanting to transfer between scholarship types homeschool to private, private to homeschool, we will have definitely a way to do that, but it will be based on a calculation and like funding that’s already been used and adjusted accordingly with the scholarship awards for each scholarship type. Parents are responsible for reviewing current scholarship policies, requirements, timelines, and program updates. Important program information, award amounts, deadlines, reimbursement procedures, and policy changes. We put on the website. We also communicate those via email. And then parents, if you do withdraw or you have any enrollment changes, please be sure to, you know, communicate that not only with your private school, but with us.
The private schools are really good about communicating with us, but a lot of the time they’ll communicate with us that you’ve withdrawn from their school, but then we don’t know if you’ve withdrawn from the program also or if you’re going to a different school. So, if you can be proactive and reACH out and let us know, that just saves us, you know, a phone call and tracking people down.
So, either email us or call us to to kind of let us know what is happening with your scholarship. And then of course you would reach out. Our customer service number is on our website. It’s the [email protected]. They can take care of any of your general questions. If it’s something a little bit more involved, they will, you know, forward that to me. But please, you know, start with our customer service line first and to try and get your questions answered.
One question that I’d like for you to answer that I didn’t answer in the chat. It was it says, “My son is doing a flex program, three days full-time at the private school and two days at home with a tracker of work to get done from the school. What I’m hearing is that the money left over from the tuition can be used to cover the other needs. Can you address that one? So, the student is attending the private school full-time three days a week and then what was this? Attending the flex. Yeah. Yeah.
It says that they’re doing a two days at home with a with a tracker of work to get the work done from school. So there So I think if I remember our conversation with USB, a private school has to be at least three days per week. Correct. Yeah, I was just pulling that up.
So it is the school must provide instruction a minimum of three days per week. Grades 1 through 12, it’s a minimum of 4 hours per day and kindergarten is minimum of two hours per day. Sorry, I didn’t have that on this sheet. I had it on my private school sheet, but yes. What was the I guess I’m not quite understanding the flex part. I if I didn’t mean to if I Oh, it says that her son is doing a flex program. Oh, three three days a week at private school and then two days a week outside of private school. Oh, okay.
I thought you were asking about paying for the flex program in some way. But according to the direction that we’ve received from USB is we’ve been working the last two months to clarify kind of the minimum requirements of that private school full-time enrollment. And they indicated to us that you know it is 3 days per week grades 1 through 12 minimum of 4 hours per day in kindergarten minimum of 2 hours per day. For instance, I was doing ABA therapy last year paid by the scholarship. Yeah, so the other eligible expenses such as ABA therapy can be paid for.
Once again, the difference between last year and this year is the scholarship funds are locked until the private school is paid in full. You can still be receiving those services, but you cannot submit the receipts for those services until the private school is paid because you’ve chosen the private school as your primary funding.
You know that that the priority of the funding first. Okay, so we are going off of so if the student is technically in ninth grade but in a different school or different level, that’s fine. The private school award once again that’s attending a private school full-time not online in person three days a minimum of three days a week. That is one award.
So the only difference is if a student were as I mentioned a little bit older but still attending preschool. The preschool award is based on a preschool program. So in that case an older student would be receiving the preschool award not the K through 12 award but otherwise K through 12 is the same award. Yes the difference between can be used for tutoring. I guess I should mention any of the other eligible expenses or services that you’re using. They need to be through an approved service provider which on our website we also have a service provider list.
If they’re not on there, that doesn’t mean that you can’t use them. That just means that they need to apply first and be approved before you can submit those expenses. And this award is a standard award for full-time in-person private school students K through 12. The new legislation did not differentiate low income or high needs. Okay. Scholarship award confirmations.
We have we are working this year in years past we’ve had to like review every single well we still do review every single one but we would be approving it and awarding it as we did that as we were reviewing it.
This year we’re doing like a bulk approval. So the first just over 1,200 students they their information has been sent to our system administrators student first technologies to put in the approved status and once they make that status change those parents will receive an email with what they need to do to accept the award.
It will direct them back to their to the online portal to log in. And when you log in, there’s a popup box similar to last year.
We had a popup box. That pop-up box was more of like a, hey, just a reminder, you can’t participate in public school except Utah fits all scholarship or participate in those other, you know, programs and receive this scholarship.
It was more like we wanted to really drive across the point, you know, that you can only accept one scholarship at a time and that you could not be in public school. This year that popup will be the acceptance. So, it will have a language to accepting the award. You’ll click a box to acknowledge it and you’ll sign that. So, you’ll want to be sure when you get that approval email to log into your portal and accept that. And then our program year technically starts July 1st.
So any families that have completed the acceptance will be awarded at that time. And we we have another wave of bulk approvals that we’re working to submit to our our system administrators around the 15th of this month. And so those statuses would change shortly after that. So, we’re we’re kind of doing a rolling approval as we as we review them, we get a batch of them, we send them off for the status to be changed.
If your application has been put in like a missing documents or needs changes status, obviously they may not be in that first round of of bulk approvals, but once again, we’ll continually do bulk awarding. So at least through July 1st and then after there we will have a cadence of quarterly doing it but yeah we are trying to get as many before the program year technically begins to have that approved status so parents can start accepting and we can start awarding.
Bridget, the qu the question by Cara Adams. What if my student is technically in the ninth grade but is actually on a middle school level? How does that work? I would like him to do seventh and eighth grade courses but not ready for 9th. Does a scholarship go up to 21 if not graduated? How does that work? So I that’s the question I was referring to about the K through 12 status. Once again this is for full-time private school students.
So, yeah, if if your private school has your student on a different, grade level than like the traditional grade that they should be by age, that’s that’s completely fine. And yes, the scholarship, if the student is not graduated, they must be under 22.
So, they they have to be 21 through the end of the program year to still continue to participate. If they had turned 22 let’s say May, unfortunately that program year.
So if they were turning 22 May of of next year, they would not be able to participate this program year. It is they have to be 21 or under to continue to participate and un if they’re beyond grade 12, they would not they should not be graduated.
Private school approvals, those go through USB. So, we are not part of that process until USB notifies us of the approval.
I honestly don’t know the timeline because I don’t know when when we receive the approvals. I don’t know when that private school has officially applied.
So, I can certainly look into seeing if there’s an estimated time frame. I’m sure that is dependent on how many private schools have applied at one time.
I know in years past private schools applying they just kind of trickle in but with some of the award changes this year I know there’s been an increased interest in some of our service providers becoming private schools. And so I’m sure that USB has you know an increased workload currently.
But once again we don’t have any part of that process until the this private school is approved and then that information is sent to us.
We reach out to the private school and get them added to our system at that time. So if your student and I guess I should also clarify a student a private school student that is enrolled in preschool must be three before September 2nd of the year they’re awarded.
So, if they turn three after September 2nd, September 2nd or after, unfortunately, they would not be eligible for this program year. A K through 12 student, if they’re participating in the in, kindergarten, not a preschool program, if they’re participating in kindergarten, they must be five before September 2nd.
So, if they turn five after September 2nd, they would not be a K through 12 student and would be under the preschool award. If you have marked your application incorrectly, I have reACHed out to a handful of private schools, I’m trying to think if it was yesterday or the day before with students that we noticed their ages did not match the preschool age and and ask them to clarify if they were enrolled in their preschool program or not.
But certainly if you had marked your application incorrectly, reACH out to our customer service and we can look into that and verify that with your private school that they are participating in the kindergarten and not the preschool program.
The list of eligible private schools will be expanding. As I mentioned, we proactively reACHed out to several that we thought might fit the designation of a private school.
Now whether they apply is completely up to them. But definitely if if there is a school that would meet the the criteria that’s outlined by USB, I would and and the USB private school application is can be found on the internet.
I just usually Google USB Carson Smith and there’s two Carson Smith listed. There’s Carson Smith and then Carson Smith opportunity.
If you click the Carson Smith opportunity, that application is on USB’s website. And so you can see, you know, what the checklist is that USB requires of the the schools that are applying.
And so if there are schools in your area that you think you’re interested in enrolling in and they’re not on our private school list, for sure, let them know to apply. You’ve mentioned UFA private schools.
Unfortunately, you know, because I don’t work for UFA, I’m not familiar with their processes or their legislation. We do have different legislative requirements, and so I don’t know if their providers are required to go through USB for private school approval.
Our program has always required it in the 5 years that it’s been in existence. I’ve been here since the beginning and all private schools have always had to go through USB for that.
I can I can expand on that. In the last year in the 2025 legislation the the the coordinator of the Utah Fitsaw program was given permission to approve private schools outside of USB USB.
So the answer to that question is there’s a strong possibility that not all the private schools approved for Utah fits all would be in our program. Our program is still required to receive you state board approval before they can be part of our program.
Yeah. The money that was awarded last year that was dependent on enrollment.
There was preschool awards and then last year it was based on income or special needs level of special needs and so it was either $9,348 or $11,685. So, okay.
So, I think this is talking about, private schools adjusting. Maybe you have applied for and received financial assistance from your private school.
If you do receive the scholarship, the private school may adjust that previous financial assistance because now you’re receiving scholarship funds. The scholarship funds are prioritized for private school tuition and fees.
And so, as I mentioned, those funds will all go to the private school for tuition and fees, based on kind of their rack rate or their their regular tuition and fee schedule. And then, that allows the private school to help other students that don’t have the opportunity to, receive a scholarship.
Because our scholarship is specifically for students with special needs. You know that private school maybe 10 to 20% of their students can take advantage of that while the financial assistance part can be spread out to more students at the school and and help out.
So yes, with our program, we do advise the the schools to apply the scholarship to the standard tuition and fees first and then whatever difference they want to make up with financial assistance, you know, that is up to them and their policies. But many times the if you had a prior financial assistance, that will be adjusted once the student participates in the scholarship program.
So the first tuition payment is in Jul excuse me is in September. It is around the 25th of that payment month which which once again will be September, November, January and March this year.
And then as far as submitting receipts, once again the tuition and fees to the school must be fully satisfied before any receipts can be submitted in the system. No, you do not need to wait to purchase uniforms, but the once again those can be if you are purchasing them, the receipts would be submitted after the tuition and fees for the school are paid for.
So the scholarship does not cover college classes.
It will cover technical college but it does not cover just regular college. It’s K through 12.
It’s a K through 12 scholarship. So with few exceptions it is K through 12 courses.
Yes. The 20% is PE and extracurricular combined.
Once again our the authority to approve private schools has never been given to us. In our program our legislative requirements require that it goes through USB.
You can the private school application once again is on the USB website. There’s a checklist that they have.
I know one of the things that they require is an audit to show that they have financial stability. Because of course they wouldn’t want a program to apply and you know take advantage of any scholarship funds.
And private schools, you know, private schools, I would advise to really have a clear understanding when you are enrolling in a private school, what they can provide for a scholarship student. Private schools generally because I mean other than like the help of scholarship fundings which goes towards tuition and fees, they don’t have the federal funds that are paid to them to support a student with specific special education services similar to public schools.
So, they have very limited resources for special needs generally.
Of course, it varies from school to school. So, you’ll want to make sure that as you’re, you know, choosing your private school that that the expectations are clear on on what as far as the students special needs that they can, you know, accommodate.
I think that you would have to we would have to have clarification on your question about technical college. We’d have to have more details about the courses, who it’s through.
You know, that’s kind of too general for me to speak on now. It’s it would be something that I would have to look into for you.
Once again, the the place that you’re seeking would need to seek USB approval to be a private school. So, if it doesn’t meet their criteria as a private college as a as a K through 12 private school, then they would not approve them and then they wouldn’t be able to participate as a private school with us.
Yes, with the after your private school tuition is paid.
If you have if you have funds for other eligible expenses, laptops are an eligible expense and those generally do have specifications that they need to meet. Our reimbursement guidelines which will be they’re not currently, but they will be put on our website.
They will have like specs on them like you know there’s certain requirements with like RAM and storage and stuff like that. I can’t think of all the the language for that.
I we could certainly look into how it was when we checked with our system administrators because of the the different the way the system works for funding the students this year. They indicated that and because the students are kind of working within the two different programs, the private school and then the eligible additional eligible expenses for other approved expenses.
I didn’t say that right. Additional funding for other eligible expenses.
Because it’s a private school scholarship that those are locked because what we find with our system if they’re not locked and then a parent submits a receipt that takes more of the funding than is available that creates an issue on the back end with those scheduled payments to the private schools. It’s like a domino effect.
So by locking the funds, which is locking them for the tuition and fees that were submitted by the school until that’s satisfied, that makes sure that we’re not like running into that issue where it just creates a lot of just a lot of back research on like why is this not you know being paid for the amount it’s supposed to be paid and it it just creates a lot of issues. So that is my understanding of why the funds are lost and the reason and the necessity for that.
Basically private schools we do pay them we do not pay them the full amount upfront. As I mentioned our scholarship about 65% is based on tax credit donations.
As you can imagine, those come in throughout the year. And generally, other than last year, we were actually really pleasantly surprised that our tax credits that were available were satisfied in end of July, 1 of August, which allowed us to, you know, not have a wait list.
But that’s the first year in the four years of our program at that point that that had happened.
Generally, our tax credit donations are received, the bulk of them in December as people are starting to think about, you know, their taxes for the next year. And so we can’t pay everyone upfront if we don’t have the funding all up front.
You know, that funding trickles in. So, so we do stagger it into quarterly payments.
It is also historically followed the Carson Smith program’s quarterly payments to the schools. We kept we have kept the same cadence and so that’s the reason why and definitely you know if you’re frustrated about that tax credit part I encourage you to donate early yourselves we’d love to have your tax credit in January so that we can you know plan on that for for the year and paying our private schools once again that tax credit it’s based on your tax liability to the state not necessarily what you’re receiving back and we would love to have more parents participate in that.
As as we look at our our donors and the percentage that are parents that are taking advantage of the program we would love to see more more parents that are taking advantage of the program because we know more parents are paying Utah State taxes for sure. So, that’s just a little plug for the tax credit donations and also hopefully an explanation of why our program, and I’m sure that’s being compared to UFA, UFA receives $120 million in appropriations.
It’s all received u Julyish, end of July, 1 of July, I’m not sure. So, they are able to have those funds available upfront for for the families in that program.
As I mentioned, that would leave about 45% of our funds as appropriations that we receive around July, but that’s not going to, you know, that that that would only cover about 45% of our students. So, that is we do quarterly payments that way.
Let me see. So, I I really can’t say the time frame of when your if your tuition is lower than your scholarship award and you have additional funds available for other education expenses.
I can’t give an exact date because the private school tuition and fees vary too much, right? I mean, maybe you have a private school and your tuition and fees are 6,000 but in others are 10,000.
Those funds, the additional funds would become available at a different interval because of that. So, basically the scholarship award, I’m going to get my calendar or calculator here, is $12,175 divided by four quarters.
So, $3,43.75 would be paid eACH quarter. So once you know your tuition and fee schedule or your tuition and fee totals for your private school, you’ll be able to figure out about when those funds would be available for you to submit.
Yes, uniforms count as a qualified expense. They must be, you know, school uniforms, required school uniforms.
So keep that in mind. Private school scholarship for approved private schools, which are listed on our website, is $12,175.
Yes, piano lessons are fall within extracurricular.
I asked about locking just that amount and I was told that the system that we use so so just locking the amount that the tuition and and fees were put into the system. I was told that the system that we use with student first technologies is unable to just lock that amount like the the whole award is locked until that amount is satisfied.
I’m I’m happy to ask them again. I have reviewed it twice with them but I I can certainly check with them again and I would let you know of any you know changes if if that’s the case.
You can change your application from home school to private school if you are attending an approved private school full-time in person, minimum of 3 days a week, 4 hours a day, K through 12. If you get into private school after a term doesn’t work, yes, you can convert to homeschool.
It will not be at the private school funding. There will be a formula to figure out what has been spent what the difference in the time that you were enrolled as a private school student versus a homeschool student.
So yes, but but you would not transfer the the full private school award with you. It would be once again figured out a pration with a formula.
Okay. And I did advise a parent that they’re waiting their private school had applied and I received confirmation that you know their application was received by USB.
So, I did just advise them if they are approved as a homeschool student at the beginning and they’re hopeful that that private school will be approved as a private school, I would just say don’t spend your funding until, you know, we know for sure that we need to switch you to a private school.
That obviously is the easiest way, easiest thing to adjust. That question in particular made it sound like the student would be, you know, say maybe the first quarter they’ve attended the private school and it doesn’t work so they need to switch.
So, so yes, once again, we would have a formula and a process for that. Leah Hona is an approved private school, but you need to be attending their in-person classes.
As the legislation indicates, it does need to be an in-person class. Now we did realize it was not brought to our attention when we confirmed enrollment with Leona in years past.
There was no differentiation made to us that the student was an online or an in-person student. So we could not correct that.
That has been brought to our attention now. And so I have you know left a message for Leah Hona and we will have a process for verifying that.
But our legislative requirements are that a private school is a brick andmortar. The student attends in person and receives instruction, direct instruction.
It is the students primary education setting and they’re there a minimum of 3 days a week. 53E-7- S408.
It states eligible private schools. To be eligible to receive scholarship funds on behalf of a scholarship student as an eligible school, a private school shall have a physical location in the state where the scholarship student attend classes and have direct contact with the school’s teACHers.
Once again, that is 53E-7 says S48. I don’t know if that’s an S on here.
It just says 408. So, but my online thing said S48.
Sorry. If you are using this solely for ABA and other medical bills, that would be a homeschool student.
But a homeschool student must be a student that is receiving instruction at home.
So, if you are if you were previously a private school student and we were unaware that you were not using it for private school tuition and fees, you must be a private school student, if that makes sense. And then once again, the tuition and fees as a private school student is the priority of the scholarship.
And if your tuition and fees are less than the scholarship, you can use that difference towards other eligible expenses once your private school tuition and fees are paid. You to qualify, your student needs to have a disability as defined by IDA and they would either need to have a public school IEP or they would have a on our website there’s an MDT which that form is a form that needs to be signed by two separate qualified providers from two different disciplines and those providers are attesting after based on their evaluation and reviews that the student qualifies as a special needs student with a disability under IDA.
So, if your student doesn’t have a disability and requires special education services, then they would not qualify for the scholarship. So, being able to switch any time, what about if funds are all dispersed already?
So, if you’re talking about if the I’m not quite sure I understand that question, Lynn.
If you are starting as a private school student and have the private school award and you have already exhausted the funds that a homeschool student would use, then then you’re correct. The and you try to, you know, switch to homeschool with the private school funds.
Once again, there’ll be a formula for that, but if if you’ve already exhausted the full amount of those funds, then I don’t think that that would work. The 3-day a week requirement came from USB specifically and they said it was state statute.
I don’t think I have that pulled up now, but can certainly look for that and provide it. So, private school students, their private school tuition and fees are paid first.
They are a private school student and that is where the priority of their their tuition and fees go. If you’d like to be a homeschool student, once again, a homeschool student receives their education from a home education setting and that would be a different scholarship award type.
How can I switch to private school? So, if you don’t use homeschool funds because you wait for the private school student to be approved, and that’s October, say they get approved in October.
Yeah, once again, if you know that your private school or service provider is applying as a private school and as I had suggested to that parent that I had been communicating with outside of this that they knew their private school had applied, I actually saw an email come through from the private school that they had applied. So I had just suggested that when we award the scholarships in July, I suggested to them to just kind of wait on it and see if that private school is approved.
And then our first payment to the private schools is September. So that gives a good two-month, you know, time period for that private school to be approved.
And if they’re approved and we switch them to to private school, obviously if they haven’t spent any of their funds yet, it’s really easy peasy. There’s there’s nothing to adjust.
There’s nothing to prorate. There’s nothing to formulate.
We just simply switch it. But once you start using funds and then you factor in the switching, it just it just becomes more complicated.
Obviously, we will have formulas for that, but that was just my advice to that particular parent. And what I was saying about that.
So, the the scholarship funds are locked. The tuition payment to the school depending on your I’m just pulling up that amount again.
Depending on your private schools what they’re charging you 121 1754. This is a new number for me.
Sorry, I don’t have it memorized yet. But the amount we would pay the school eACH quarter is $3,43.75.
So if your tuition is $6,000, obviously that would be satisfied in November when the second quarter is made. And at the next dispersement in January, then those funds would be available for you to submit tuition and fees or other eligible expenses.
If your private school tuition is $11,175, that obviously won’t be satisfied until March, that last $1,000 that you’re wanting to use on other eligible expenses. So, it just it varies by, you know, by private school.
And so, I don’t have like an exact date or anything like that.
No siblings, I mean they can receive funds if they have special needs and they have a determination that qualifies them for the scholarship, but siblings because Utah fits all is such a large scholarship program for every scholarship student. The and and we haven’t been able to award siblings for I think three years because special needs students take priority from sibling awards.
The siblings they were taken out of legislation. So they’re no no longer considered for the scholarship funds.
The reason why we don’t, you know, pay the school all upfront, the the scholarship award because of those tax credit donations. Once again, we we award based on the funds we have available.
And so like the difference in your scholarship award isn’t going anywhere. It’s just the availability of when it’s just when it’s available to you.
So the as a private school student using the scholarship, the tuition and fees are prioritized over any additional spending. And then once that has been satisfied, then those funds are available on that quarterly based on those quarterly dispersements to the family and the system for use on other eligible expenses.
No. The student doesn’t need to receive special education services outside of the classroom at her school in order to qualify.
The qualification is based on the determination of eligibility that’s provided to us, either the IEP, ATMR or MDT. So that that is the qualification for the scholarship.
Once again, private schools have different varying ability of what they provide a student in school. Certainly a student may also receive services outside of school, but the qualification for the scholarship itself is based on that determination that we receive summer camp.
Yes, if they are if it’s a program that they offer, then that would be eligible for reimbursement and and or if the if the private school submits it as like a fee on the tuition and fee schedule, then it would just be it kind of depends on the private school, right? If they required the the payment upfront for that summer class summer summer camp, then you would submit that as a reimbursement when those funds are available.
But if the private school submits it as a as a fee on the fee schedule, then that could certainly be included in the like quarterly as part of the quarterly payment.
So I think it probably depends on the private school what their abilities are. I know some private schools are smaller so they may not be able to you know accommodate that but I would certainly check with your private school.
Yeah certainly we we as Bridget and mentioned we do rely on donations coming in but we do also keep a reserve to make sure we can cover any awards that we’ve promised to the students. So no no need to be concerned about that if you switch throughout the year.
No. 2526 funds.
I mean 2526 funds, they don’t roll over to a specific student’s account. They roll over as part of the general funds.
But they don’t roll over to specific students accounts. Yes, we understand the the calculations of breaking it up into four different portions.
As we said, that is how we’ve done it in the past. Due to complications of funds being used before schools are being paid and kind of the only way to do that and the way that the approvals are working now in the system.
The scholarship funds need to be locked for the private school payments being made. Once again I know that there were over 1,200 so what we’re re we’re reviewing all of the scholarship applications on the back end and then we are approving them in a bulk a bulk approval with our system administrators.
So the first group have been sent to student first technologies to change the status to approved. We are waiting for that to happen.
It should happen at any time. And then that first group that was whoever had their application ready.
It had been reviewed. It had been verified.
It had been corrected if applicable. And I think that I want to say that report was sent and Travis can correct me, but I think it was sent last FrIDEAy.
So since that time, we’ve been continuing to review scholarship awards or applications and we will do another bulk approval send another bulk approval around the 15th to Student First Technologies to change the status to approved. So they will be in different, you know, waves.
But we certainly will as long as we have scholarships to re or applications to review and as long as everything is complete they will be included in those bulk approvals. So you should be seeing those statuses changing over the the next all of June.
All of June we’ll be doing a waves. I would add if we see a significant roadblock for not doing mass approvals because that’s what we’re doing is we’re doing mass approvals.
We we’ll send an email out to everybody just letting them if we have a significant issue that has to it’s like okay we didn’t see our platform having this problem. It’s it’s really kind of out of our control.
It’s our service provider that helps us with this. And so if they’re yeah, if they have a problem, we will send an email out >> and worst case scenario, we would just switch to what we’ve done in the past and do it to individual one-on-one.
We are just trying to, you know, do them in bulk amounts. Yes, the applications are reviewed in the order they’re received.
Existing scholarship students that submitted their application by March 31st, those were reviewed first. And then any new or existing students that submitted after April 1st, those were reviewed in the order that they were received.
Right now there’s not currently a wait list. So, as long as your application is, you know, complete or corrected, if we’ve already sent it back to you, you know, we will include you in those bulk approvals.
So, you know, go back and check your account if you, to make sure that it’s not in a status that’s waiting on information to be corrected or uploaded. That would be great.
You know, I’m not sure if Family Lysm’s 3-day program. I haven’t specifically looked at it.
Once again, the direction from USB is that it’s full-time is considered 3 days a week 4 hours per day. So, I would encourage them to apply and be approved as a a private school.
Just as a whole we’re looking at you know upgrades to our system certainly on the back end and something is is that is very seriously being looked at with a lot of of promising changes and I’ve I’ve been using the system for three years and so I can say with all you know confidence that the direction we’re going with that won’t be immediate and we’ll be over this next year. But I’m hoping that definitely next year our system issues will will not be what they have been.
So once again I don’t do the private school approvals.
So the direction that I’ve received from USB is it’s three days a week, minimum of four hours per day. Of course, if you would like that provider to reACH out to the private to USB, Tony Sombrana, his information is on the USB website.
If you just Google USB Carson Smith, he would be happy to, you know, talk to him and would never discourage anyone to from applying. You know, I think that that’s understandable there there is.
So the question is, these micro schools want to become private approved, but they’re nervous about the rules. Same with vendors.
They feel like they don’t want to try. Can we do more to help with this?
I mean, just this week, I’ve reACHed out to I don’t know if it was 2025 organizations that I thought would qualify just based on name, right? I didn’t do a deep dive into any of them, but just saying, “Hey, we’ve had parent inquiries and you may want to look at applying as a private school.” I provided them with whatever information I could.
You know, USB has been great to work with with our program as far as just communication wise and awarding or excuse me, approving those that apply and meet meet their criteria. So, I I would just say that if they have questions to reACH out to them and they could get some clarification.
Oh, yeah. So, if they as far as music and STEM and art programs, if they’re corecurricular core curriculum related, they they would not fall under the extracurricular.
And so, it’s hard to know exactly what type of things you’re asking about.
So, my recommendation would be send in your specific request about those programs to our staff and then we’ll be able to answer those more specifically. >> And and I’m we’re also not quite sure if you’re asking as like a homeschool student or if you’re talking about classes within the private school since this is a private school.
You know, Zoom meeting. Obviously, those classes would be part of the tuition and fees that a student signs up for and that the the school lets us know that we need to pay them for.
So, those are are part of the students school day with their private school. My understanding is Let’s Play Music is one of our service providers and that would be part of that 20% extracurricular physical education cap.
Yeah. Once again eACH school, you know, has limitations on what they can provide.
They don’t receive any of the the funding from the federal government to provide special education services. So eACH eACH private school or micro school or hybrid school has to decide what they can manage based on the students needs.
I I can’t really speak to to that I guess in general. I just know that they don’t have the funding that some of the public schools do.
If they’re, my understanding is is if they are a through a service provider outside of what the, you know, standard tuition and fees are from the school, my understanding is they would fall under the 20% that you have to spend on extracurricular and physical education.
So if a vendor was approved for 2526, they’re approved in our in our system. If you’re talking about for them to become a private school for 2627, they can certainly submit that to to USB at any time.
They’re they’re accepting those applications anytime. If your application is currently homeschool, you get approved.
Private school yet, but approved vendor, you can switch to private school later. And once again, we would have to, you know, there would be a formula to figure out that difference.
It would it’s hard to say like in general because we don’t know like what maybe you’ve spent yet what time of the year you’re switching that sort of thing. So Travis has a formula that would figure out that switch and to add to and to add to that it to simp simplify it if it’s just going to be prorated based upon 12 months you know if three months have passed that’s what it is and we just use the simple math based upon the months and yes services can start July 2026 and then be submitted when those funds are available.
Thank you, Bridget, very much. It looks like we’re we have no more question.
Oh, we have one more in the queue. Go ahead, Bridget.
Okay. If the math tutor is on our service provider list, then they’re an approved service provider.
There’s not a reapplication. We are doing some housekeeping and have noticed some have applied under their social security number.
So if that’s the case, they will just need to provide a federal EIN to us that that information is going out to those providers though. And they will still be able to participate through at least September, you know, to be able to obtain that.
But yes, you can be reimbursed for in 26 27 for services. This program year we don’t get into the like the financial agreements with your personal providers.
When you sign up for a service with them, the financial responsibility is ultimately on the parent. Yes, the scholarship does pay for certain eligible expenses, but we don’t take on that cadence of the financial responsibility.
You know, we try and manage the program and the cadence of funds that we are able to do, but when you sign up for a private provider, that financial responsibility is between you and the p financial provider. If he’s not a if your speech therapist is not a current service provider, then yes, he needs to on our website there’s an application, excuse me, an application to have them fill out to be approved.
So, if you are signing up for a program at your private school and they have included that in your tuition and fees, then that would be part of the quarterly payments that we make to the private schools. The the tuition and fees that we pay, they they generally submit them to us as like a bulk payment. And I actually think that that’s part of it.
It’s the school part of the full-time school definition is the school must charge a comprehensive tuition rate rather than per course fees. And that’s when I work with our private schools. That’s, you know, how we we do it on this end. I I don’t see the approved vendors going away.
Unfortunately, the 1%, you know, kind of dictate what the rest do. And and by that I mean it’s a way while it’s not foolproof, it’s a way to vet organizations and ver I mean the Utah legislature is legislature is putting funds towards verifiable eligible expenses, right? So there needs to be some sort of checks and balances with that. And I just don’t see that that application process going away.
Just because although once again it’s not perfect, it is putting eyes on individual vendors and organizations and that and just at least verifying that they’re legitimate. I would I would add that that would be a hard that would be a hard thing to not have a high standard there.
Especially with our donors and everybody else that’s that wants to look at us under a microscope. So at one time we thought that verifiable public entities could automatically be approved.
You know what we don’t know we don’t know and we we in a recent audit it was indicated that an application does and that was by recent October that they do need to have an application.
So, you know, in our audits, different things are looked at eACH year and this year the the vendors were looked at and it was indicated on on those that they definitely need to also apply and those audits, you know, they’re checks and balances. This year, once again, another thing that was checked was like the tuition and fees that the school submits versus like what is, you know, published.
So eACH year something else is kind of added to the the audit and checked and it’s just part of the audit process. I don’t know. Once again the application is on the on USB’s website. I would say probably the the most intimIDEAting part of the application process is they do need to provide an audit as part of their application.
Sometimes that can be difficult for some of those smaller vendors. But USB is just once again with I’m sure audits that they receive, they have to to show that this is an organization that is financially stable and it’s not the scholarship that’s making them financially stable.
They’re they’re financially stable on their own. Rec centers aren’t run by volunteers. Rec centers do have, you know, ad administration. Certainly I’ve been able to feel free to reACH out to us. We sometimes it does just take an email. I mean, while we can’t, you know, chase after every vendor, we’ve had success in in sending an email and having it responded to.
Sometimes it’s just additional context that’s provided to those vendors. It just, you know, it just kind of depends.
But anyone that has asked me for help and or express frustration in getting a vendor to sign up, I’ve, you know, been more than willing to help. I know all of our team have.
So, you know, please let us know and and we’ll do what we can. For sure.
I think it’d be appropriate to also just help the community at large understand the nature of if we if we identify a private school that is not doing things correctly, we have to take correct action and we work very closely with USB to address that. So it’s really a a symbiotic relationship that’s happening there with that the private school.
So there’s no gray area for us in in that in that and it’s very sort service orientated to have that be a streamlined process to pay for the tuition. So so the vendor application it’s pretty streamlined. I would say that the the biggest error with the vendor application is it’s very narrow. Like it only has three options. But other than that, once you get past like what it’s classified as the it’s just asking questions like what is your organization? What do you do?
How many students can you you know service? It’s it’s basic business information that a provider should have no problem providing us. Yes, it does get a little trickier when we get to say the organizations like soccer where it’s like does it the coach that signs up? Is it the soccer organization? Is it a is it a league?
You know, and and we’ve had to work through several of those and we’re not perfect and we do our best to try and track down who exactly we need that from. But once again, we don’t know every organization structure.
So, as as we start researching and looking into it, you know, we’re we’re trying to provide the best information we can, but the application itself is asking for very basic information. And then it it does have the provider attest you know that that they have a safe environment for the the student and that they do background checks and you know I I’m sure all of us want that for our students.
So I’ll just add we don’t require them to submit any background check information. We just ask them that they are being, you know, that they are doing appropriate background checks if that’s if that’s required for that organization and that they’re keeping our kids safe.
That’s really the bottom line. I mean, I I don’t think it has more than 10 questions on it.
So, it’s not a burdensome application. Once again, the the the classification I mean they can choose between I think tutor, seller, and special education.
And so that is clunky and we know that. But other than that, once you get past that, the there’s limited questions and it it it’s not super involved. All right. Well, I think we’ll wrap things up. If you have further questions, definitely send them in. We have a special email set up called [email protected].
And we will definitely respond back to you as quickly as we can with those questions. It was apparent that there there might be people who are listening tonight who want additional information about the homeschool adjustments that have been made and we encourage you to visit or to participate in our webinar tomorrow night.
We’ll be giving a lot more detail about that. So, with that, we’ll say thank you to everyone and sorry, just I’m just going to type the [email protected] is the email address that you can send us questions to.
If you would if you didn’t receive a a link to the webinar tomorrow night, email that send us an email at that email and we’ll send that link out to you. Hey Ronnie, is it question or questions? I thought it was questions at CFEF. I think I think you’re right. It is questions. Sorry about that. Yes, questions. All right, we will sign off then for tonight. Thank you all so much. We appreciate it and best luck to everyone. Good night.
