WACO, Texas (KWTX) – On Monday Gov. Abbott announced that since the applications for Texas Education Freedom Accounts opened on Feb. 4, they have received more than 100,000 applications.
Abbott said this marks the largest launch of a new school choice program in the nation’s history. Central Texas private schools say they aren’t surprised by the response.
Private schools see surge in interest
“The parents are the ones that have asked for choice and so I think they are showing that what they asked for they really meant they wanted,” said Dr. Tracy Hanson, principal and founder of Oak Creek Academy.
Dr. Hanson says since the passage of school choice last year, more and more people have shown an interest in their private school.
“On average I’m doing about 10 tours per week, our phone has not stopped ringing,” she shared.
Dr. Michael Pennell, the head of school at Bishop Louis Reicher, says they’re experiencing the same thing.
“We saw a lot of people contacting us and touching base with us, asking us a little more about it, reading things online,” he explained.
Schools await notification process
But while interest levels are high, as of now they have no way of knowing how many additional students this could bring.
“We don’t even know yet who has expressed an interest in our school, so we’re just going to have to wait until after March 17th and see what the interest level is at our school and how many people get approved,” Dr. Pennell said.
According to Dr. Hanson, applicants will find out if they were accepted the week of April 6. Then in June schools will be notified about who has been accepted and chosen their school, with funding being sent to the schools in July.
However Dr. Pennell adds that even if approved for a Texas Education Freedom Account, applicants still have to be accepted into the school.
“Whether we’ll accept them all that remains to be seen, again our approach to this is really to match families with mission and to approach this as modestly as we can,” he shared.
Regardless both schools are preparing to accept as many students as they can. Applications will close March 17.
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