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Marcia Pena works to apply for a Texas Education Freedom Account voucher for her daughter’s catholic school next year in Houston, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. Wednesday was the first day that the applications opened for parents to take part in Texas\u2019 new program to utilize tax dollars as part of school choice.<\/p>\n
Jason Fochtman\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Texas officials began sending out the first notifications to families awarded vouchers on Wednesday, with 42,644 students qualifying in the first round<\/a>, reserved mostly for those with special needs who were considered the highest priority.<\/p>\n The initial group of awardees will continue to receive notifications through Friday, the comptroller\u2019s office said. They accounted for just over $400 million in awards. Siblings of qualifying special needs children were also included in the first priority tier.\u00a0<\/p>\n READ MORE: More than 250K students have applied to Texas’ voucher program. A lottery determines who gets a spot.<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The program offers state funding to help pay for private and homeschool education. Roughly half of the vouchers approved so far went to students who previously attended a public school. The other half of awardees were already in a private school, or homeschooled.<\/p>\n In the initial round, Houston ISD led the state with 1,558 successful applicants living within its boundaries, followed by Dallas ISD with 1,313 and San Antonio\u2019s Northside ISD with 1,139.\u00a0<\/p>\n The remaining dollars appear likely to cover at least 60,000 other students, putting the $1 billion program on track to support an estimated 100,000 accounts in its first year. The state will run a lottery, scheduled for next week, to determine which other families will be accepted or waitlisted.\u00a0<\/p>\n Funding for children with special needs featured as a contentious point in the debate over the creation of the voucher program. Supporters including Gov. Greg Abbott promoted the policy as a way to help families escape schools<\/a> that were not meeting their children\u2019s needs and access higher-quality private options.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Critics, however, warned that vouchers would enable private schools to siphon off other, less resource-intensive student populations, leaving behind those with special needs in a public system that is already severely underfunded and understaffed<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Republicans initially proposed a voucher dedicated to special needs in 2017, but later turned down Democratic attempts to limit the program to the group when approving the program in 2025, with Abbott insisting the money be \u201cuniversal\u201d, or available to all families.<\/p>\n The program was funded last year with a total of $1 billion in funds, though some of that money was allocated to hire agency staff, pay contractors<\/a>, and run a marketing campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n