Proposed changes to Utah Fits All Scholarship program will support families

• The changesto the fourth substitute of H.B. 467, Utah Fits All Scholarship Program Modifications, further support the scholarship families it serves.
• Future changes to the program should continue to preserve choice and innovation.

Some changes are coming to Utah’s education choice program that, in 2023, brought national recognition. The Utah Fits All Scholarship was one of the nation’s first expansive universal education savings accounts. And the changes support scholarship families.

This session, H.B. 467 Utah Fits All Scholarship Program Modifications has had several versions, or substitutions (commonly called “subs”). But the latest version that passed the Senate Education Committee on Monday – the fourth substitute – supports accountability to taxpayers while allowing choice and innovation to thrive.

While there is still time before the session ends and the bill is finalized, here are a few key things that the current version accomplishes.

Private school definition remains broad but now excludes pass-through functions

Utah law currently defines a private school as “a full-time, tuition-bearing educational institution where the student receives the majority of the student’s academic instruction.”

This bill adds a new provision, which says that a private school “does not include an entity that distributes, rebates, or passes through to families any portion of enrollment-based funding received by an LEA.”

In short, this new provision ensures accountability for how scholarship funds are handled while keeping the definition of private schools broad enough to allow innovative private schools to exist now and in the future. This is an appropriate balance.

It’s worth noting that during the refining process of the legislative session, there was a lot of debate about the definition of private schools, with stricter language and a proposed accreditation process in earlier versions of the bill that were ultimately removed.

Future discussions about private school definitions should retain a broad, open-ended view of private schools that contemplates future innovation, so more schools, not fewer, are available to Utah scholarship parents.

Opens new options for parents and creates space for innovation

This bill also opens new education options for parents and encourages space within the scholarship program for new or innovative schools.

Basically, under this legislation, even if a school doesn’t take the path of becoming a Utah Fits All Scholarship “qualifying provider” – with the burdens that entails – parents can still use their scholarship funds to send their child to that school.

In this case, rather than sending scholarship funds directly to the school, parents may directly pay the school and then seek reimbursement on a monthly basis. Furthermore, the most recent version says that parents who choose this are now required to provide evidence that the school meets the definition of a private school by providing at least four pieces of information (as spelled out in the law). This may become burdensome for some parents, but it’s clear that the provision aims to strike a balance between school accountability/legitimacy and genuinely creating space for more schools.

Overall, this refinement supports the principles on which this program is founded: choice and innovation. It allows parents to seek a wider array of options by opening the program to more private schools. And it offers opportunities for schools that want to enroll scholarship students while still retaining their autonomy by forgoing “qualifying provider” requirements, such as maintaining a website with certain information available, and more. This change is prudent and positive.

Ensures extracurricular eligibility, increases customer service capacity, and more

The bill also refines several other areas of the scholarship program. It codifies that LEAs must allow scholarship students the same opportunity to participate in extracurriculars and athletics as homeschool or private school students. This clarification is important because it ensures these opportunities are available for scholarship families who value and seek extracurricular programs.

The bill gives higher priority in scholarship eligibility to siblings of scholarship recipients than it previously did, and it processes applications for multiple children in the same household as a unit.

It also includes other important provisions that strengthen the program, like increasing program manager call center capacity to handle customer service needs. As the program grows, this becomes especially important for families.

Conclusion

Overall, the changes in the fourth substitute of H.B. 467 further support the families it already serves, making good on the program’s potential for true education choice. No doubt, more refinements will come to the program in the years to come. We hope that, in the future, as lawmakers continue to refine this program, they keep choice and innovation at the center of their work as they did this year.