It didn’t take long for its governing board to right the Hope Scholarship this week – but families who qualified earlier for the education voucher will still have to wait until January to receive their money.
The board met Wednesday to grid it all out in Charleston, a week after the state Supreme Court voted 3-2 to reinstate the scholarship, which gives opportunities for charter schools or private schools that some families might not have otherwise.
A total of 3,000 families had qualified earlier for the scholarship, which was originally struck down over the summer in Kanawha County Circuit Court.
In her dismissal, Judge Joanna Tabit said the scholarship failed to provide “a thorough and efficient system of free schools” for all.
At issue was the public money the scholarship would use to pay for private education, including charter schools, faith-based schools and home schooling.
That currently comes out to $4,300, which is how much the state allocates per student enrolled in public school in the Mountain State, though that number can change based on enrollment.
Dollars for the scholarship will be administered through the office of state Treasurer Riley Moore, who said after the meeting that he was appreciative of the measure and the potential it offers.
“We’re just so excited for educational choice and freedom to be a reality once again in the state of West Virginia,” he said.
That also means freedom from paperwork for now, he said.
“Families that were approved for the Hope Scholarship previously will be made whole,” the treasurer said.
“If they continue on the path of home school or private school they will receive those funds,” he said. “Everyone that was already approved for the Hope Scholarship remains approved, so you do not need to reapply.”
For now, the checks are expected to go out by Jan. 15, 2023, still in time for the winter and spring terms of 2022-23 school year, the board said.
The scholarship is reflective of a new academic landscape in the Mountain State, which welcomed its first charter schools this fall and is many of its public school districts offering a new emphasis in career education training.
That new landscape is being sculpted in part by the money coming out of those districts, through the families seeking other avenues of education, Hope Scholarship or no.
And the depletion of state aid monies in that new landscape may hit some districts harder than others.
Monongalia County Schools, which is relatively prosperous in relation to some of its neighbors, isn’t immune.
The local district over the summer was set to lose some $2 million in state aid dollars, as a number of students left to enroll in the West Virginia Academy, a charter school now operating in Morgantown.
While Mon’s school system does have a current operating budget of $145 million, the enrollment trend is still making for some fiscal readjustments, Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said.
“It’s not like a fund we’re sitting on,” he said. “Every dollar has already been spent.”
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