Parents vent about school voucher program
Parents of special education students in Arizona’s school voucher program on Monday told the State Board of Education that their children are having difficulty accessing tutoring and therapies because the massively expanded program is being poorly administered.
Their experience with the program over the past few months has been marked by late payments and shifting rules that have left them confused and angry, they said.
Nearly 20 parents spoke before the board, and dozens submitted written comments.
They’re all champions of Arizona’s school vouchers — called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts — but they’ve started a new group called Arizona Coalition of Parents for Equal Student Access to get their complaints about the program heard.
“The scholarship has reached a breaking point,” and parents of voucher recipients “worry the program will soon implode,” the coalition said in a news release.
The voucher program has grown five-fold since lawmakers approved universal voucher access in June. More than 48,000 individual students are now part of the program, compared to roughly 12,000 at the end of last school year. Families with special education needs, foster families and military families were among the select groups that could access Arizona’s school vouchers before all Arizona students became eligible.
Christine Accurso, who has been directing the voucher program within the Arizona Department of Education since Republican Tom Horne took over as Arizona’s superintendent of public instruction in early January, said families are experiencing problems because of an administrative backlog that began under former schools chief Kathy Hoffman, a Democrat.
Accurso also blamed the voucher program’s troubles on Class Wallet, the company that processes voucher payments to schools and other vendors providing education-related services.
The education department is still in the early months of finding a workable way to run the program and is requesting patience, said Accurso.
Her team is understaffed but is nonetheless continuing to work through a backlog of vendor payment requests that have piled up since last fall, she said. Even with that difficulty, Accurso said, the department has made sure all families can access their voucher dollars.
Parents, meanwhile, said they have spent the past few months dealing with vendors reluctant to work with voucher recipients because of late payments, program emails from Accurso that seem to contradict the parent handbook and concerns that the administration is shifting accreditation requirements for tutors.
One worry repeatedly raised in written comments to the board was the future of the debit card payment option. It’s one of four ways voucher recipients can pay for services but one that many families of students with disabilities rely on.
The Horne administration said in a February email to families that it will no longer issue new debit cards and would consider removing debit card access for account holders who did not submit receipts on time. That is the case for about 750 of the 17,000 accounts that use debit cards, Accurso said.
Without debit cards, parents said, some services — like tutoring or mental health visits — will only be accessible to families who have cash on hand and can wait for reimbursement.
“There is no way I could do this without the debit card because I have an autistic child, and I use his funds primarily for tutoring and a paraprofessional,” said Sandra Kirkby.
Parents also contend that Accurso has removed information about what can be purchased with voucher dollars, leaving them confused about where they are allowed to spend their money.
“It’s becoming a hell to know if we will end up going into debt because someone changed the agreed-upon requirements,” said Jen Weimer.
The parent complaints are coming in as some administrative changes are on the horizon for the voucher program.
The board is slated to review the first draft of the latest edition of the voucher program handbook on March 20, and the department will soon be seeking new bids for its payment processor, potentially replacing Class Wallet.
State board members on Monday suggested that the education department post as much information about what families could purchase as possible online and offer forums for the public to weigh in on handbook changes.
Accurso said holding any live feedback sessions was complicated by the sheer size of the program.
Board President Daniel Corr said voucher families were owed some stability in their experiences with the program.
“I would just ask that we not make a false dichotomy between oversight and accountability and a system that is friendly to parents,” said Corr. “It’s got to be this and that.”
Beth Lewis, executive director of Save Our Schools Arizona and a school voucher opponent, spoke at the board meeting and sent a news release highlighting parents’ concerns and calling on the Legislature to support a bill requiring more voucher oversight.
“Arizona taxpayers want to know where their taxpayer dollars are going, and we all should want real accountability to ensure children are safe and learning,” Lewis said.