With parent applications for the Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA) program open, Alpine’s two private schools are on the list of vendors but are still unsure of what will be required of them and what the impact, if any, will be.
The window for parents to apply for financial aid to pay for their children’s private education through what is commonly called the state’s school voucher program opened on February 4 and will run through March 17 for the 2026-2027 school year.
Alpine Christian School, a private school offering kindergarten through 12th grade, and Alpine Montessori School, a private school offering the Montessori curriculum format for grades kindergarten through 6th, are the only schools listed as vendors in the TEFA program for the tri-county area.
But while things are moving forward with parents potentially filling out applications and schools on the vendor list, officials at both schools are uncertain of everything from how money will be distributed to how special education services and food will be paid for, what testing will be required and whether parents will want to apply with testing as a requirement.
Krista Gilbert, the office administrator at Alpine Montessori School, said the process of becoming a TEFA vendor “felt extremely self-guided.” By that, she meant that it felt like they were on their own. “So we obviously work with tons of state entities, both from a financial assistance standpoint and just a regular licensing standpoint,” she said. “And in most of those, we have like a point of contact or a representative that we’re able to, you know, communicate with about anything little or anything big.” Gilbert added that there was no point of contact for this process. “And I would say that’s the one component that really feels like it’s missing,” she said.
Graydon Hicks, a member of the administrative team at Alpine Christian School, has multiple specific questions regarding the paths funds will take, the services that will need to be provided, and the testing that will be required.
And, while he has reached out to state officials and representatives of Odyssey, the company selected by the state to administer the voucher program, he hasn’t gotten any answers.
“They’re just not offering a lot of information,” Hicks said, “I mean, there are so many more questions than there are answers.”
A key question is what testing will look like for TEFA participants and how reporting will occur.
According to information provided by Odyssey, “TEFA program participants in grades 3-12 enrolled in an approved private school are required to take an approved nationally norm-referenced or state-approved assessment each year. … Parents are required to provide results to Odyssey to verify compliance with program requirements.”
Hicks said the information is unclear about how students in upper grade levels will be tested and how many tests they will take. Students in upper-grade levels in public schools take course tests, not grade-level tests. And the Texas Education Agency recently changed public school testing requirements, moving from yearly tests to beginning-of-year, mid-year, and end-of-year tests given each year.
“They reference back to the education code, which references back to the same tests that public school kids take,” Hicks said. “Then they come back to the statute on the vouchers, and so it didn’t say exactly on the voucher system … There’s no one-for-one. You don’t go straight from one to the other.”
Hicks also questions the feasibility of having parents report their students’ test scores, wondering what would happen if parents forget to report or do not complete the report correctly.
“So do they lose eligibility?” Hicks questioned. “Do they have to repay money? Does the school get penalized?”
Several of Hick’s questions center on money, including how schools and staff will get paid and what will happen when funds for students with disabilities run out.
Some schools outsource disability services and food, Hicks said. Alpine Christian is part of an area partnership called a “588 Coop” for disability services.“If the school’s tuition is $10,600, but the child is special ed, and they gotta provide services, who gets paid for those services?” Hicks said.
And while the TEFA program provides $30,000 for disability services for special needs students, it is often not enough to cover all that is called for in a student’s individual education plan, Hicks said.
“It’s not clear to me that the private school can bill for those extra services that may be required under that child’s individual education plan,” Hicks said.
Hicks also doubts that the questions will matter once parents realize that the cost of the financial aid is testing for their children.
He doesn’t believe many parents will participate because the primary reason they send their children to a private school is so they won’t have to take tests, Hicks said.
Texas’ Senate Bill 2, passed in 2025, established a $1 billion budget to fund financial aid for parents who want to send their children to private schools through the Texas Education Freedom Account program.
According to the official website of the TEFA program, the Texas Education Agency has set the amount available for the average attending student at about $10,475 and for a student with disabilities at about $30,000 for the 2026-2027 school year. Parents of homeschooled children could be eligible for $2,000 through the program.
Sentinel staff reached out to the Texas Comptroller’s office for information on the number of parents that have applied for the TEFA program listing Alpine Christian School and Alpine Montessori as the vendor, but had not heard back at deadline. However, information released by the comptroller’s office on February 16 said that more than 100,000 people had completed applications for schools across the state.