Private school vouchers have arrived in Hamilton County

On the homepage of Grace Baptist Academy's website, one of the first items a visitor reads is a notice that the school qualifies for Tennessee's education savings account program. That's just one way the school has aimed to inform its constituency about the program.

It's worked. The school has 63 students enrolled in the program, almost double the number of any other school in Hamilton County.

"You don't promote something you don't believe in," Head of School Matthew Pollock said in a phone interview. "We really believe that this is going to be a very positive thing for parents, so why hide that?"

Grace Baptist Academy is one of 12 private schools in Hamilton County participating in Tennessee's education savings account program. Known informally by some as private school vouchers, it allows low-income students to use up to $8,756 of state and local money for private school tuition and other education-related expenses.

As of Thursday, the program had 136 students enrolled in Hamilton County private schools. Around 50 more students have been approved, but they had not yet sent proof of enrollment to the Tennessee Department of Education, Brian Blackley, the department's spokesperson, said in an email.

"As we saw Tennessee as a state authority beginning to move toward: 'We want to support our residents to be able to choose the school that they want for their child.' That resonated with us," Pollock said. "We want them (parents) to be able to make that choice."

The program is entering its second year after it launched swiftly in Memphis and Nashville last fall following a favorable court ruling. Legislators in May extended the voucher program to include Hamilton County.

That notice came fairly late in St. Jude School's typical admissions cycle, so the school wasn't able to promote the program to new families as much as it plans to in future years. Still, Kathleen Preston, the school's director of admissions and development, said in a phone interview she knows of at least one new family that was able to enroll its children due to the program.

"We felt like the ESA program was a great opportunity to allow people who might otherwise not be able to afford Catholic or private education to be able to access our program," Preston said.

Of the 12 private schools in the county participating in the program, all but one are Christian. The other is a specialized school for students with learning differences.

(READ MORE: How would a private school voucher program affect Hamilton County public schools and students? Here's what we know so far)

Most of the students receiving vouchers at Grace Baptist Academy are returning students, but Pollock said around 15 are new to the school. A different bill that also passed earlier this year expanded the school voucher eligibility to include students who did not attend a Tennessee public school the year prior.

The school is holding classes at Morris Hill Baptist Church while the main campus is under construction after it was destroyed by tornadoes in April 2020.

Over the years, Pollock said it's been difficult to work through situations where parents have gone through the admissions process at Grace Baptist Academy only to realize they couldn't afford it.

Since the voucher program was expanded to Hamilton County, he said the school has had families reach out that may not have inquired in the past. Not all of those families will enroll at the school, Pollock said, but that interest is a result of the increase in opportunities open to these students.

"We are seeing some families who bottom line would not have been able to enter our school without this support," Pollock said. "They're a great fit, and so we're thrilled already just to start to see a little bit of that opportunity being extended."

Depending on the school, the voucher may cover the entire cost of tuition or only a part. For instance, at St. Jude School, the voucher would cover the cost of tuition of a Catholic student but not a non-Catholic student. Catholic parishes provide a subsidy for their students.

"I think as more is known about the process and we're able to better promote the program, it will just increase access to Catholic education for families who might not otherwise be able to afford it," Preston said.

By the numbers

As of Aug. 1, 242 Hamilton County students had applied for the program, which is less than 1% of the students served by Hamilton County Schools.

Statewide, 2,961 student applications have been received, with 2,145 of those being approved. Applications can take up to three weeks to review and could be postmarked until Aug. 1, so the number of applicants and approved students is likely to increase as the final applications are processed, Blackley said.

Just two of the private schools in Hamilton County participating in the program have more than 10 state-funded students. In the future, that will affect the amount of student performance data publicly released to assess the effectiveness of the program.

By law, participating schools will have to administer the math and English language arts portions of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program test to its state-funded students. However, federal student privacy laws limits student performance data that can be released about small groups of students, such as the fewer than 10 students enrolled at many of the participating private schools.

The law directs the state comptroller to start issuing reports on the efficacy of the program after its third year of enrolling students, which would be Jan. 1, 2026.

Contact Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.