All right, we’ll go ahead and get started. I just want to begin by letting you know that this meeting is being recorded and we’ll send out a a copy of it to you as well as all those who may not have been able to join us today. let me welcome you all to our webinar here this morning.
Those you may not know me, I’m Ronnie Daniel. I’m the executive director of Children First Education Fund. And first and foremost, I want to thank each of you for for your important work that you do every day on behalf of the students with disabilities and their families.
The Carson Smith Opportunity Scholarship Program would not exist without the partnership and commitment of Utah’s private schools. And so we’re very grateful for all that you do. You provide educational opportunities, individualized support, and learning environments for to help students thrive.
And we are grateful for your partnership. So, as we prepare for the 2026-27 school year, our goal this morning is to review several program updates, discuss important operational information, and answer any questions that you may have regarding participation in our scholarship program. Before we begin, I want to share some exciting news regarding our team.
Many of you know Bridget Wintrell on our staff, and she’s worked with the team for over many years in various capacities. Bridget’s been an an invaluable member of the CFEF team and bringing the deep understanding of the scholarship program, a strong commitment to serving families and schools and a genuine passion for her education choice. As our program continues to grow, we recognize the importance of strengthening our relationships with our school partners and providing even greater support and responsiveness.
To help us accomplish that goal, Bridget will be transitioning into a new role that will make her the primary contact point for our participating private schools and schools seeking to join our program. In this role, Bridget will join our school engagement efforts, helping to streamline communication, support schools throughout onboarding and compliance processes, and work closely with school administrators to ensure that they have the resources and information they need to successfully serve the Carson Smith scholarship students. We’re excited about this transition, the opportunities it creates to enhance our partnership with schools throughout Utah.
Bridget’s been instrumental in many of the improvements that we have implemented over the past several years, and I know she’ll continue to be a tremendous resource for all of you moving forward. Bridget, I just want you to know I appreciate your leadership and commitment to our schools and our families. So, with that, I’m going to turn the time over to Bridget to walk us through the agenda and just let you know that if you have any questions during the presentation, please put them in the chat and I will either respond to them throughout the meeting or we’ll address those questions together at the end of the meeting.
So, with that, I’ll turn over to Bridget. Thanks. Thanks for coming today.
I’ve been mainly all of your point of contact through these years. but I will be, you know, focused solely on, you know, private schools and our service partners. now, so I’m just going to kind of follow I created a a private school partner guide that I will be sending out after this meeting.
And so I’m just going to kind of follow that. We’ll make sure that we touch on everything. And then if there’s any questions that I feel need to be added in, I’ll I’ll add those in.
you know, any questions that we’ve answered that need to be added in, I’ll add those in before I send it out. So, so the private school eligibility, just I want to clarify that, private school eligibility, it, private school applies through USB to to be eligible. And, an eligible private school has a full-time student.
they must intend they must attend in person receive direct instruction from the private school. They are the students primary educational setting and the private school must provide instruction a minimum of three days per week. the school must charge a comprehensive tuition rate rather than per course fees.
And then for instructional time grades 1 through 12 minimum 4 hours per day and kindergarten is minimum of 2 hours per day. let’s see online programs if a student this we’ve we’ve we’re trying to provide a little bit more I can’t think sorry online programs while they’re still eligible a student would not be a private school student with an online program that you offer. if the student is receiving online instruction, they would be considered a homeschool student and you know participate that way.
private school students are in person at a brick and mortar school and they do attend full-time. Let’s see, preschool programs students can participate part-time or full-time in the preschool program and there are different award amounts for those.
Part-time preschool is 2,600, full-time is 4,800. And the classification on those is what the school classifies it at. So as so if a if a private school is saying that it’s a full-time preschool program, then that’s what the student, you know, would be classified under.
If they’re the program that the student is signed up under is part-time preschool, then that is the award amount that they would receive. A student can a student must be three by September 2nd of the year they are awarded to participate in a preschool program and participate in the scholarship. They can certainly be older than the traditional preschool age but their funding if they’re participating in the preschool program the funding would be based on that participation in the preschool program.
So, you know, we know sometimes there’s maybe five or six year olds participating in the preschool program. That’s completely fine, but their award will be based on their participation in the preschool program, not the K through 12 program. for I’ve had this question recently for scholarship deadlines.
Initially, you know, it was set as May 31st, but we are continuing to accept scholarship applications as long as there’s fund availability. And, last year because we reached our tax credit the the maximum amount that we can raise in tax credits, it was donations was six almost 6 million, like 5.9 million. that tax credit donation limit has has increased.
So, we’ll be able to award more students as more, you know, donations come in. Our final deadline for the year, though, is December 15th. So, we’ve got to, you know, kind of close out the program year awards award everyone no later than that date or applications submitted no later than that date.
But once again they are first come first served and subject to funding availability. We will start notifying scholarship families of their awards. This year it’s a little bit different.
Legislation indicated this year that a parent must accept the scholarship award. So in the in years past when a student was approved they were also awarded at the same time. This year there will be an approval and then the parents will need to log into their scholarship account and accept it and then we will be doing the awards.
So I know that we’re trying to do approvals in bulk batches. So the first group of students was sent to our system administrators and I’m hoping to see those approvals the end of this week. all initial approvals though to start the beginning of our program year July 1st would be by by June 30th.
But as I mentioned our first batch which I think was just over 1,200 should receive their approvals I’m hoping the end of this week the next batch we will submit to them on June 15th. So it should be you know shortly after that that they receive their approvals. And I believe we’re on track for about another three or 400 as of today in that batch.
So, we hope to to increase that even more. as I mentioned, they they must accept the scholarship award or they must accept the scholarship before we can award them. And they log into their account.
It’s like a popup that comes up that indicates that they accept it. they click the acknowledgement and then sign for their acceptance and we have a way that we verify those acceptances and then we will once again do bulk awards on that. Failure to complete the acceptance process may result in the closure of the students application.
We it also could result in them missing the scholarship award because once again it is based on fund availability. So if they put off accepting their award, other students may have accepted those funds ahead of them. So it is important that those families and and we have been communicating that to those families that they do need to accept their scholarship award.
So in your system, you should be able to log in and submit your 2627 tuition and fees. You’ll do that if you’ve been with us before. you’ll go into your account and it automatically defaults to 2627 and you will input all of the tuition.
You know, if you have tuition, textbook, technology, after school fees, you’ll put the highest amount you could charge a student. So, and then you want to make sure once again that you check the box next to that grade if you want that grade to be acknowledged in the system. If the box isn’t checked, the system doesn’t identify it.
And so if if you had input all the tuition and fees for grade one, but forgot to click the box, when you go to submit individual student tuition and fees for grade 1, they won’t show up. it won’t accept what you’re putting for that individual student. So, if you’ve already gone in and input your tuition and fees and may have forgotten to check that box, just reach out to me via email and I can go in and and make sure that those boxes are checked.
But you will once again put the highest amount you could award a student. And then once you verify the students that have been awarded, that’s when you put the individual students tuition and fees. And if you know the student has a particular discount or maybe they are charged because they take additional classes so their tuition’s a little bit more that’s why you want to put the highest award amount cuz sometimes individual tuition and fees you know have a range.
We also ask as always that scholarship of funds scholarship funds be applied to the tuition before any school discounts or financial assistance. This approach ensures scholarship funds are used for the students private education first and allows schools to extend financial assistance to additional families. I would also note that it is wise to and this is once again individual school you know what what they want to do but I do always advise families that if they’ve received financial assistance before they’ve received their scholarship award that that could impact their financial assistance and and alter it.
So, on the school side, you know, that’s up to you if it does or not, but I do advise families that that that may impact, financial assistance of school has, extended. We still do quarterly payments. We are going to, move up a couple of quarterly payment dates this year.
So, we’ll still have it’s usually around the 25th of each payment month. And this month, those this year those payment months will be September and November, which that is the same. That’s not changed.
But this year, we are going to do January and March to try and just alleviate some of that end of year hustle and bustle that we have that always seems to everything comes at once. So, you should be getting paid sooner this year for those last two quarters. and once again, I every quarter I send out the instructions on how to to do the quarters.
This year, one change we are making due to an unforeseen experience this past year is when you do go in and accept and verify the invoice. In the past, I’ve told you you don’t need to put in any sort of enrollment roster, anything, this year, we would like you to include an enrollment roster as a PDF on that invoice verification. that just, you know, is just a verification from the school that those students are enrolled in your school at that time.
If this is your first time with us and you haven’t gone in yet, please go in and update your banking information. Go into your user profile and update the your routing and account number if you run into any issues. Sometimes some schools have quite sophisticated ,you know, verification dual verification and stuff like that.
We can connect you with student first technologies to make sure that that can you know get input. We’ve had a few schools who’ve you know had maybe a few more safeguards in place that they’ve had to work directly with student first technologies and so we can connect you with them. Let’s see.
Another change this year is, if your school charges less tuition and fees than the scholarship award amount, in the past, that difference would be available to the families each quarter, divided by the four quarters. this year with the way that the system is working and and how we’re inputting the students tuition and fees and and payment schedules the tuition will be locked. So like the the priority of the payment to the school will it takes priority and so until the school tuition and fees are all paid that difference in the tuition amount and the scholarship fund will not be available until the school has been completely paid.
So for some students that may not become available till like quarter 3. but that is once again prioritizing the scholarship type is a private school student and so we’re prioritizing the scholarship funds to go to the school first in full before the difference becomes available for other educational expenses. student withdrawals and enrollment changes.
Once again, if you’ll reach out to me and let me know of any student withdrawals and enrollment changes prior to especially the quarterly payment cycles, that is very helpful. And I’ve included in the guide kind of the how to figure those out on if we owe you funds for that quarter or if we’ve overpaid you for the time that the students been enrolled and we need a credit back. This year we’re going to try and deploy more Quickbooks invoicing if the school does owe us any funds back rather than mailing a check back to us.
We find it’s just more convenient and has a quicker processing. I know sometimes those checks mailing them back to us are are are maybe not, you know, top of mind. So that’s just one way we would love to help you, you know, kind of settle that student’s account.
I know last year in figuring out those totals, I was going off of tuition rate, but, I reviewed that and also, going off of the history of the Legacy Carson Smith, that difference will be figured on the scholarship award amount. So I do have a calculation in the guide for that, but just wanted to kind of note that that that’s been revisited. When a student transfers between private schools in my system, I can’t pay two private schools in the same quarter.
So if one school is owed funds, you know, to settle the student account that has withdrawn from the school, we will pay that school that amount on that payment quarter. And then the school that the student is transferring to, their payment, any difference, you know, depending on when the student transferred, that would be included in that next quarterly payment to the new school. So many of you are familiar with that process, but just wanted to kind of mention that in our system, we can pay one school at a time.
So, I’ll just be working with, you know, the parents and the schools to make sure everyone is getting the funds, that they should be and and are expecting. Legacy Carson Smith transfers, those are pretty much the same. The only difference is we did move up that third quarter deadline to December 15th from January just to complement our end of year, you know, awards.
Kind of our final date for awarding any students. and also the previous deadline was was butting up really close to our new application cycle and stuff. And so December 15th transfer deadlines are August 15th, October 15th and December 15th.
That’s when they need to have their application submitted by. if they have an application in the system as we’ve done in years past, we can certainly include them, you know, in the last quarter of the year if they can complete it, but we can’t accept any new applications after December 15th. and Esther at at Legacy and I work closely together to verify student participation and, you know, transferring.
And in the past the parents would have to email Esther with an official withdrawal but where a student has to accept our scholarship this year that will be their withdrawal from legacy. So once they accept our scholarship they can be withdrawn from legacy. Once again they are grandfathered in.
So once they leave they cannot go back to legacy. but yeah we’ve simplified that a little bit with that acceptance process. And I’m just trying to see if you have any students that are transferring from home school to private school or private school to home school.
We will have a calculation. because I don’t know if you’re aware our our award amounts are different for those different types of scholarships. So, we will need to either prorate or you know increase depending on which direction they’re switching the award.
And so we will work that out with the parent and also we can let you know once you know those totals are are figured out with the parent. our main point of communication is email and so you know email me directly. I ask that you have the parents email our customer service first because they can generally answer any general questions about their account.
If it’s something, you know, more involved, of course, they will send that on to me and I’ll work with your private school parents, but they should, you know, work with our customer service first. and I’m just trying to think if there’s anything else. Let’s see.
Tax credit donations, you know, I’ll send more information about that throughout the year. But while our scholarship does receive appropriations, that the tax credit donations also help with awarding students. And with tax credit donations, the donor can specify a school that they would like their donation to go to.
And so we do apply that to students from your school last year. thankfully due to tax credit donation we didn’t have a wait list. Anyone that completed their application you know by the end of the year we were able to award as long as it was you know complete and there wasn’t anything missing we were able to award them.
So there wasn’t a wait list but definitely the tax credit donations and being able to designate a school helps your school when there is a year where there is a wait list. and so far with applications, I don’t anticipate a wait list right now, but once again, that could always change, you know, depending on when students are identified and such. Let’s see.
Private school. I’ve in the private school guide, I’ve included a couple of the links to our legislation in regards directly to private schools. That’s something I always like to point out to private schools just so they’re aware of that before enrolling a scholarship student participating private schools must provide written disclosure to parents regarding any special education services that will be provided cost of special education services, tuition costs, additional fees required during the school year.
And I do like to suggest once again, you can do this your own way, but it is wise since it is required that you disclose those fees that I personally would probably have them, you know, sign a disclosure that they have been disclosed to them just to have on file since that is part of you know legislation. So I will that’s all that I have. I hope I covered everything, but we’ll look at the chat and see if there’s anything that I may have missed.
Yeah, I think I’ve answered all the questions in the chat. But if anybody else has any additional questions, you can either put them in the chat or unmute yourself and ask them directly. Yeah.
And once a student is approved, as Ronnie said, they receive an approval email and it does let them know that they need to accept the scholarship and it does direct them back to their account. and then I believe Hannah that your request or your question that references Esther’s about the legacy transfers once they accept that’s enough this year last year we didn’t have they didn’t have to accept we our system was such where if they were awarded they were if they were approved they were awarded at the same time and a parent didn’t need to like accept and so just so that we weren’t inadvertently withdrawing someone that you know maybe changed their mind in between the middle of the process. We would have them email Esther an official withdrawal where they do have to go and accept the scholarship.
Now, we won’t need to do that. in addition to so, and I’ll be communicating directly with Esther to let her know the date that they’ve accepted and also that they have accepted. and I think that was it unless anyone else has direct questions I can answer.
Great. Just Bridget, one thing I didn’t hear you mention was the you know the amount of scholarships for our our K through 12 students is $12,175 this year. And so that will be the award amount for any student at your schools that are in kindergarten through grade 12.
Yep. I don’t think I specifically mentioned that, but yes, that is the I did send it out via email. but that is the award amount and and I did mention private school pre-k once again they have to be three before September 2nd of the year they’re awarded.
part-time is 2600. Full-time is 4,800. And for private school kindergarten, that is the 12,175, but they must be five before September 2nd of the year they are awarded.
Awesome. Well, if there are no any any no more questions, we will not keep you any longer. get you back to your day.
Thanks everybody for joining. We’ll send out this recording to everyone too. So awesome.
Thanks so much everybody. Have a great day.
