\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSome Texas families began learning April 22 if they were accepted to the state\u2019s education savings account program for the 2026-27 school year, officials said.<\/p>\n
Over 42,600 students will receive funding notices through April 24, the state comptroller\u2019s office announced<\/a> April 22. The first awardees include low- and middle-income students with disabilities and their eligible siblings.<\/p>\n Families that do not qualify for funding will also be notified through April 24, and additional students will receive funding awards in the coming weeks, a program spokesperson said.<\/p>\n What you need to know<\/p>\n Families accepted to the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program<\/a> will receive state funds to send their children to private school or homeschool them. Proponents of the new program have said it will expand educational opportunities for families \u201cstuck\u201d in their local public schools, while critics have expressed concerns<\/a> that the program will unfairly benefit students already enrolled in private schools and divert funding from public school districts facing financial challenges.<\/p>\n In total, the first round of awardees is set to receive about $400 million of the $1 billion state lawmakers allocated<\/a> for the program, a spokesperson for the comptroller\u2019s office told Community Impact. Between 90,000 and 100,000 students are expected to qualify for the program in its first year.<\/p>\n Over 274,000 students applied for the program, and about 247,000 were deemed eligible, Community Impact previously reported<\/a>. Most eligible applicants will be placed on a waitlist for the 2026-27 school year, with applications prioritized in the following order:<\/p>\n Tier 1 includes students with disabilities whose annual household incomes are at or below 500% of the federal poverty line<\/a>, or about $165,000 for a family of four.Tier 2 includes children with household incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty line, which is about $66,000 for a family of four.Tier 3 includes families earning between 200%-500% of the federal poverty line.Tier 4 includes families above 500% of the federal poverty line.If a child is accepted into the program, state law states their eligible siblings who applied will be automatically accepted.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Legislature made low- and middle-income students with disabilities the first priority for the first year of school choice here in Texas, and that is exactly where this process starts,\u201d Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock said in an April 22 statement.<\/p>\n Students with disabilities can receive up to $30,000 each in TEFA funding, depending on their individual needs. Other accepted students will receive $10,474 to spend on private school tuition and related expenses, or up to $2,000 for homeschooling.<\/p>\n The comptroller\u2019s office said it will conduct a lottery the week of April 27 to determine which students in the second priority tier are accepted, as funding is expected to dry up before it reaches some low-income applicants.<\/p>\n Zooming in<\/p>\n Nearly two-thirds of the initial awardees have qualifying disabilities, while the remainder are their siblings, data<\/a> from the comptroller\u2019s office shows. Families were required to submit documentation of their child\u2019s disability to receive priority consideration, and all students with disabilities must have an Individualized Education Program, or IE<\/a>P<\/a>, from their local school district on file to receive extra funds later this year.<\/p>\n Of the first batch of accepted students, 53% attended a public school in the 2024-25 school year, per state data.<\/p>\n Forty-two percent of accepted students were white, according to the comptroller\u2019s office, while 25% were Hispanic and 12% were Black. This is similar to the overall applicant pool, in which 45% of applicants were white, 23% were Hispanic and 12% were Black, Community Impact reported.<\/p>\n Program participants will likely have different demographics and \u201cbe a more disadvantaged group than the group that applied,\u201d TEFA spokesperson Travis Pillow said April 6.<\/p>\n Once students are accepted into the program, they have until July 15 to confirm enrollment in a participating private school for the 2026-27 school year, if they intend to use state funds for private education. State law does not require private schools to accept all interested students, Community Impact previously reported.<\/p>\n Applicants may get off the waitlist if accepted families opt out of the program, decide to switch from private education to homeschooling or do not find an education option that works for them, Pillow said April 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some Texas families began learning April 22 if they were accepted to the state\u2019s education savings account program…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,95271,7853,98651,98656,5621,23257,52534,98655,81596,14331,98652,5622,17870,80036,80039,98653,98654,62086],"class_list":{"0":"post-263381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-eligible-students","12":"tag-esas","13":"tag-first-round-of-tefa-awards","14":"tag-iep","15":"tag-kelly-hancock","16":"tag-low-income-families","17":"tag-private-school-vouchers","18":"tag-qualifying-siblings","19":"tag-students-with-disabilities","20":"tag-tefa","21":"tag-tefa-funding","22":"tag-texas-comptroller","23":"tag-texas-education-freedom-accounts","24":"tag-texas-education-savings-accounts","25":"tag-texas-school-choice","26":"tag-tier-1-funding","27":"tag-tier-2-funding","28":"tag-travis-pillow"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}