{"id":460845,"date":"2026-10-09T04:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T04:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/460845\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T04:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T04:58:09","slug":"parents-seek-more-vendors-for-texas-education-freedom-accounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/460845\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents seek more vendors for Texas Education Freedom Accounts"},"content":{"rendered":"

ABILENE, Texas \u2014 Starting this school year, parents in Texas can apply to the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, which provides education savings accounts. <\/p>\n

Families accepted into the program can use the account for a range of approved expenses.<\/p>\n

Hannah Garrett said she was initially unsure about the program but decided to apply after learning more about it.<\/p>\n

RELATED | Over 200,000 Texans apply for TEFA program as deadline approaches<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Redbud<\/p>\n

Redbud Park. (KTXS\/Russell Taber)<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, at first, I was kind of skeptical, like, even kind of against it. But once I kind of looked more into it and saw that it kind of benefits my situation more. I applied for it,\u201d Garrett said.<\/p>\n

Garrett\u2019s 11-year-old son has ADHD and autism, and her family was accepted into the program. She said her family qualified for Tier 1 because of her son\u2019s disability.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are tier one. Since he is a disability. So, we got about like $17,000. Part of that goes to his tuition. And the other part is set up for the supports for me to kind of hire, those like professionals to, you know, assist him during the school day,\u201d Garrett said.<\/p>\n

RELATED | Federal Education Freedom Tax Credit set for Jan. 1, 2027 launch; states urged to opt in<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Redbud<\/p>\n

Redbud Park. (KTXS\/Russell Taber)<\/p>\n

The program is administered by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. <\/p>\n

Accepted families are permitted to use funds for private school tuition, education expenses for homeschoolers, tutoring, and career and technical education programs.<\/p>\n

Garrett said she would like to see more providers available through the program\u2019s web portal.<\/p>\n

RELATED | Education Department releases 2027-28 FAFSA early, giving students a head start<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Redbud<\/p>\n

Redbud Park. (KTXS\/Russell Taber)<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a parent with a child on the spectrum. And if I could find that help, like those providers on the, the web portal, that would be a great relationship for me as a parent, my child as a student. And then a professional kind of be able to help us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As of Oct. 8, there was only one vendor in Abilene on the Odyssey website that Garrett said is close to her family\u2019s needs, leaving limited options for parents in the Big Country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very hard. I don\u2019t have a lot of results when I look up Abilene, Texas on the portal. There are not a lot of professionals on there. And I know there\u2019s many professionals in town that I think we could all benefit helping each other by, utilizing this grant,\u201d Garrett said.<\/p>\n

More information about the program is available on the Education Freedom website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ABILENE, Texas \u2014 Starting this school year, parents in Texas can apply to the Texas Education Freedom Accounts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-460845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460845","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=460845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}