The shifting landscape of education for West Virginia’s K-12 students will likely get even more so in the coming years.
The first ripples came last month when the state Supreme Court reversed a ruling that had previously overturned the Hope scholarship program – a sweeping educational choice bill giving qualifying families dollars to take their children out of public school, should be prefer.
The court on Thursday released its full opinion of that Oct. 6 decision allowing the scholarship to continue.
Opponents of the scholarship argued that it went against the state’s Constitution, in that it would allow state monies to be used to fund private education.
Under the measure, a total of $4,300 – the current state aid formula allocated for public students here – would be granted to qualifying families wishing to school their children elsewhere.
That includes private schools, faith-based schools, charter schools and the kitchen table, by way of homeschooling.
Which isn’t anyone’s business, they said, unless public dollars are picking up the tab.
In her dismissal in July, Kanawha County Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit agreed, saying the Hope Scholarship, as per that current incarnation, failed to provide “a thorough and efficient system of free schools” for all.
Proponents, though, said the measure was about choice and opportunity for all.
And the above-mentioned, they said, are pretty rare commodities for most families in the Mountain State.
In a 49-page majority opinion Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Tim Armistead agreed, saying the scholarship can coexist with the state Constitution – since that’s what the state aid dollars are there for, anyway.
When the scholarship was overturned over the summer, 3,000 families had already qualified for the $4,300, for which they won’t have to reapply. Checks are expected to go out in January for the spring term of the 2022-23 school year.
With charter schools also part of that aforementioned landscape, public districts do stand to lose dollars from the state aid formula due to students enrolling elsewhere.
Mon County Schools over the summer stood to lose $2 million in state aid, due to students leaving the district to enroll at the West Virginia Academy, a charter school that opened its doors in Morgantown in August.
The district’s current operating budget is $145 million – but an all-at-once loss of $2 million, Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said – is still going to leave a mark the next day.
“It’s not like a fund we’re sitting on,” he said then. “Every dollar has already been spent.”
The local district recently fared better than its neighbors during recent national math and reading assessments, but Campbell and his colleagues allowed that it wasn’t enough, even if the COVID-mandated push to remote learning two years ago had a lot to do with the lower marks.
In the meantime, members of the Hope scholarship met Friday to discuss its future steps, which might include the implementation of “microschools” – those learning formats that provide the structures and philosophies of public schools, private schools and homeschools.
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