TRI-COUNTY — As the much-anticipated creation of a Texas school voucher program makes its way through the chambers of the Legislature, Big Bend area schools are considering how the governor-backed initiative that funnels public tax dollars into private schools may impact their classrooms.
The voucher bill, SB 2, passed the Senate earlier this month and now heads to the House for consideration. The bill, which is subject to change and lacks a House companion, establishes Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) for Texas students in the amount of $10,000 per student per year which families can use towards private school tuition.
The program, which would begin in the 2026-27 school year, will cost $1 billion over the next two years and up to $4.5 billion annually by 2030, according to a legislative fiscal analysis. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) estimates there are currently 350,000 students in Texas enrolled in private schools, half of which will apply for the program in the first year. The agency also estimates that 24,500 of Texas’ current 5.5 million public school students will leave public schools for private schools by 2027.
Sen. César Blanco voted against school vouchers, and in a statement to The Big Bend Sentinel Rep. Eddie Morales indicated that he plans to do the same. Morales said he takes issue with $1 billion being spent on vouchers, which are expected to serve just 100,000 students, while the same amount is proposed for public schools, which serve over 5 million students.
“This legislation is not only fiscally irresponsible to Texas taxpayers, it’s a wasteful neglect of crucial funds that the vast majority of our students and schools need, especially in rural and West Texas.” Morales said in a statement. “I strongly encourage our constituents to make your voices heard on this issue by writing to the governor, lieutenant governor, and the Texas Republican Party.”
In the Big Bend region, where public ISDs are facing declining enrollment and budgetary shortfalls, the legislative intent on school vouchers is frustrating to some school leaders who would prefer the focus be on helping their districts solve existing issues.
“The fact that there’s $14 billion a year in current funding gaps within public ed, and instead the state leaders are pushing through this $1 billion — projected to potentially rise to $4.5 billion a year — new entitlement program, it just shows where the state’s priorities really are,” Alpine ISD Superintendent Michelle Rinehart said.
Fort Davis ISD Superintendent Graydon Hicks said at this point, with little known about the House version of the bill, it’s hard to speculate on how a school voucher program may impact the area other than “reducing the amount of money available to public schools in general.”
“Do I think there’s going to be vouchers? Yeah, I do, but I really don’t know what they’re going to put in it,” Hicks said. “I don’t know if they’re going to have accountability measures or not. I don’t know if they’re going to have [income] limits or not. I don’t know if they’re going to have targeted populations or not.”
Unlike an urban setting, the tri-county area is home to few private schools — Wonder School Marfa, Alpine Montessori and Alpine Christian School — and students already have access to school choice for public schools. Parents can enroll their children in any public school as a transfer at no cost, no matter their zipcode.
Wonder School Marfa and Alpine Christian School representatives that responded to The Big Bend Sentinel’s request for comment are also awaiting the final ESA program details but said they believe vouchers will help the families they serve pay tuition rates.
Wonder School Marfa’s tuition is $400 a month, while Alpine Montessori’s is $625. Representatives from the Alpine Christian School declined to provide current tuition rates and said they are in the process of evaluating next year’s tuition.
Wonder School Marfa, a Montessori-style kindergarten through fifth-grade microschool established in 2022 after the abrupt shuttering of the Montessori program at Marfa ISD, currently has seven students enrolled. Board member Lauren Meader Fowlkes, whose daughter attends the school, said while it would be ideal for Wonder School to be tuition free, as the previous public Marfa ISD program was, school vouchers would help interested families afford their tuition.
“We receive feedback from families requesting information about scholarships. So, if there are families here that would like to have their children in another program but can’t afford it, then that would benefit those families,” Fowlkes said. “Of course, it would have been wonderful if this program were still at no cost the way it was when it was part of Marfa ISD.”
Fowlkes said despite the freedom to choose from the local public schools, educational choices for families in the region are still limited, prompting those with means to leave for better options elsewhere. Marfa ISD’s enrollment is down from 341 kids in 2019 to 194 at the start of this school year, a 43% decline in five years.
“The goal of the program is to keep a Montessori option available for families that live in Marfa and Presidio County,” Fowlkes said. “To the extent that the vouchers help parents that are interested in that, I think it’s beneficial to keep families here.”
Fowlkes said, if needed, there is room for Wonder School Marfa to expand while remaining at their current site at the First United Methodist Church.
The Alpine Christian School, a Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools accredited K-12 institution, currently has 49 students enrolled, 32% of which are on some form of tuition assistance, according to board member Rudi Wallace. Wallace said while “a lot of people are under the impression that private schools are where wealthy families send their kids,” that is not the case for Alpine Christian School.
“We have families that are middle income, low income, families that are working people, just like everybody else, and pay their taxes,” Wallace said. “They’re not what I would consider well off. So that would certainly help a lot of our folks that are on tuition assistance be able to pay the tuition that we charge.”
Wallace said the school will likely still solicit donations, which currently go towards tuition assistance, if school vouchers pass, but that additional revenue from vouchers would go towards operating expenses, curriculum and consumables.
He said school leaders anticipate that the voucher program will primarily help existing students — whose families are drawn to the program for its emphasis on Christian values and community — rather than bring a significant number of new students through the doors.
Some opponents of the voucher program have raised concerns about public tax dollars flowing into religious schools, which constitute 60-70% of private schools across the state, according to the Texas Private Schools Association.
While SB 2’s proponents have said it will not take away from public education dollars and will focus on “low-income” families, Rinehart said the bill is “disingenuous” in that it defines low income at a much higher rate than public schools. SB 2 and the fiscal analysis outline that the voucher program can potentially fund 100,000 students, and if more than that show interest, the bill prioritizes allocating “up to 80%” of the spots to children who are “members of a low-income household,” and children with disabilities who attended a public school the year prior, with the remaining positions being “filled by lottery to eligible applicants.”
SB 2 defines “low income” at 500% of the federal poverty level, or roughly $156,000 for a family of four. Public school low-income eligibility ranges from 130 to 185% of the federal poverty level, roughly $40,000 to $57,000 for a family of four.
“Why would low income be defined differently for private education than public education, especially when we’re talking about state education dollars?” Rinehart said. “The bill isn’t actually about prioritizing funding for families that need it most. This will actually help many families who are already in private school receive this new taxpayer-funded voucher to pay for their private school fees that they were already paying.”
Rinehart said the fact that the baseline allotment for school vouchers, $10,000 per pupil, is more than the baseline allotment for public schools, $6,160 per pupil, is also inequitable.
While public schools receive additional funds for special education, emergent bilingual (EB), Career Technical Education (CTE) and low socioeconomic background students that raise student allotments — last year Alpine ISD’s was $10,400 per student — the district then shoulders the responsibility of providing those programs and services, unlike a private school who is not beholden to state requirements.
“A big chunk of our funding that we received, that $10,400, is tied to providing state-regulated specific programs, which private schools will not be required to offer,” Rinehart said.
There are also several subtractive elements to the school funding formula that impact districts, including average daily attendance (ADA), where schools lose money when students are out sick, for example, that do not appear anywhere in the voucher bill.
The potential lack of accountability among private institutions, regarding admission decisions, special education services and financial stewardship — things that public schools are required to be transparent about — concerns Rinehart as well, she said.
“What I’m calling out here is this lack of symmetry in terms of how these bills are being written, that private schools can have public funds, but in essence, with no strings, no requirements, no accountability, no transparency to the public,” Rinehart said. “That just feels 100% at odds with what we in Texas believe about the stewardship of public funds.”
Wallace with the Alpine Christian School said one of their concerns about school vouchers is that they might come with more reporting requirements that currently only public schools are subject to. “If there’s a lot of bureaucracy and a lot of reporting going on, a lot of additional paperwork that we have to do, doing a lot of testing, that’s maybe detrimental to us accepting it,” Wallace said.
Rinehart, who has traveled with other area education leaders to the Capitol to meet with Sen. Blanco and Rep. Morales and testified to the Senate Finance Committee earlier this month, said Alpine ISD is trying to shift the focus away from vouchers and onto “good education policy.”
This district’s legislative priorities involve teacher pay increases, more funding for special education, enrollment rather than attendance-based funding, and a solution to ongoing property value disputes between the local county appraisal district and the state comptroller, which this year resulted in a $700,000 loss for the district. While both school vouchers and teacher pay raises were declared emergency legislative items by Gov. Abbott, vouchers were fast-tracked while a teacher pay raise bill was only filed on Wednesday.
“What we’re seeing is kind of similar to last legislative session, no meaningful movement from state leaders to move forward good public ed policy until vouchers are approved into law,” Rinehart said.
Will vouchers impact existing public private school partnerships?
In the Big Bend, there is already a flow of public school dollars into private schools across the state due to an early childhood education partnership program launched by Fort Davis ISD in the 2023-24 school year.
By dual enrolling K-2 children from early childhood programs in private schools across the state, Fort Davis ISD raised its enrollment from 170 to 486 students and dramatically increased its state aid from $70,000 to $1.5 million.
The unorthodox use of a preexisting TEA program gained Fort Davis ISD attention, and other districts in the area, and across the state, adopted similar programs this school year; Marfa ISD even hired Fort Davis ISD as a consultant on the matter. Hicks said they get calls “daily” about partnership opportunities and are acting as consultants for around 20 districts. Both Fort Davis and Alpine ISDs have staff members dedicated to cultivating the partnership program.
The one-year legal agreements vary but involve the exchange of paperwork and attendance numbers rather than physical transfer of students or staff. Private school partners may receive half of the additional state aid the public schools receive from the dual enrollment, lease payments, payroll assistance, access to public school programs and more.
Fort Davis ISD currently partners with Alpine Christian School — who dual enrolled 24 children this year, and whose payout is estimated to be $95,000, according to Hicks — and Wonder School Marfa, who uses the money to help offset its primary educator’s salary.
Alpine ISD is partnering with four sites, including Alpine Montessori, for an additional 50 students enrolled and is working on bringing on another 50 students.
Fort Davis ISD is working on additional partnership deals with Midland Christian, a large private academy that plans to dual enroll around 350 students, and Lake Country Christian in Fort Worth, another large private religious school. Hicks said Fort Davis ISD’s current enrollment is 815 students. Hicks said one of the reasons why Fort Davis ISD has so many religiously-affiliated school partners is because they are easier to find.
“It’s far easier to locate and find a religious private school than it is, say, a daycare or a Montessori or another private school,” Hicks said. “They’re out there, but they’re not … as organized as a group.”
He said he is not concerned about school vouchers potentially impacting the early childhood partnership program. “From what I have heard and read about the conversations in Austin on this, I don’t see an impact on what we’re doing with our early education partnerships,” Hicks said.
Rinehart expressed greater concern that vouchers could jeopardize the existing public-private school partnerships. She said it is likely that language will be written into the final bill that doesn’t allow students to be simultaneously enrolled in a private and public school, otherwise all active public school students could receive $10,000 for their public school.
The $10,000 per student vouchers are more advantageous for private schools compared to the public-private partnerships, she argued, because there are no strings attached, and private schools don’t have to split the money with any other partners.
“It could absolutely impact public private partnerships, because it would set up a different taxpayer-funded funding stream at a level that is maybe two to three times what those partner sites are currently receiving as their half of the funding generated through the public school funding formula,” Rinehart said.
Hicks said the public-private school partnerships involve more than just money, and that private school access to grants, fieldtrips, and more through the public schools is valuable.
Both Rinehart and Hicks pointed out that their districts’ extra curricular activities, like sports, are a huge part of school identity and why people send their children, especially older kids, to public schools rather than to the smaller private institutions in the region.
“Hundreds of families choose Alpine ISD every year for their kids, and I fully anticipate that continuing,” Rinehart said. “They choose us because we have incredible teachers, we have incredible culture, we have an incredible identity. It means something to be an Alpine Fighting Buck, whether that’s in the classroom, on the court, in FFA, and any of the many different extracurricular programs that we provide.”