DALLAS — Shundelon Ross hoped the seventh school would be the one to work.
Her son wandered the hallways, clutching his favorite stuffed animal. He threw high fives to the employees. He stared, mesmerized, at the chickens pecking around the coop.
Ross believed a private school would better serve her 5-year-old son, who has autism. Affording tuition became possible after he was approved for a school voucher. That’s why, as they toured First Baptist Academy in Dallas, her anticipation soared. After the visit came the application, then the admission decision.
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The school didn’t accept him.
The Texas Education Freedom Accounts promised vouchers would give students with disabilities options beyond public schools. Despite being awarded taxpayer-funded accounts, many families struggled to find a suitable school to spend it on. This means private education is still out of reach for Texas’ most vulnerable children, critics of the voucher program say.
“Private does not always mean better,” Ross said. “With more opportunity, comes more work, more heartbreak, more disappointment.”
Proponents believe private schools will proliferate and meet demand. The comptroller’s office, which oversees TEFA, plans to survey families to understand why they opted out, and their responses will inform the improvements made to the program, a spokesperson said. It’s also possible parents were unaware of deadlines, considering public school, or moved out of state, he said.
While 29,400 applicants with disabilities were deemed eligible, at least 7,400 have since returned their voucher. By early September, a total of 27,500 students left the funds on the table, according to data received through a public records request. The Dallas Morning News spoke to six North Texas parents about the challenges they faced in their private school search.
Many were told their child’s needs couldn’t be accommodated. Others realized the prospective school was too far or too expensive. And there were those left waiting for replies that never came. All applied — swayed by the prospect of a private education.
Now, some families, including Ross’, find themselves back where they started: returning to public school.
Students with disabilities struggle in admissions
Students with disabilities face an uphill battle gaining admission to private school. They’re at a disadvantage, because they lag behind their peers in criteria, like academic and discipline records, said Steven Aleman, senior policy specialist with Disability Rights Texas.
Families also lose key protections when they enroll in a private school, he said. Private schools are not required to support needs or develop an individualized education program, or IEP, which outlines how the school will meet a child’s particular needs.
“To think that this program was going to give some true freedom, some true opportunity to kids with disabilities, by and large, will never materialize,” Aleman said.
For families trying to make the transition, all this amounts to a black box, leaving them stumbling in the dark for clues, they said.
Ross wanted her “fully-functionable” son to be among the general student population. At his public school, he spends 80% of the day with other students. A private school, she thought, wouldn’t be any different.
She sent his IEP to one school, then another, and so on. Sometimes, she didn’t hear back. Other times, she was told his needs couldn’t be accommodated.
“I didn’t think that they really focused on what he could do,” she said. “They really just focused on what the paper said.”
But one, First Baptist Academy, invited them to tour. She spoke about her son’s needs, asked around her church and daycare for references, and paid the $120 application fee.
In June, Ross stared down a six-sentence email.
“We are not able to offer enrollment at this time,” Elizabeth Gore, director of admissions and marketing, wrote. “We want (your son) to have everything he deserves including resources that will help him thrive academically and socially. We do not have those resources at this time.”
When she requested more information, she received no answer, she said.
The mom didn’t want private schools to lower their admission standards. She just wanted to understand the rejection. She wanted a school.
“I kept feeling like everybody was saying my son wasn’t good enough,” Ross said. “We want him to go somewhere where people want to support what he needs. It was hard, and I had to talk myself out of that.”
Private schools want to stick by admission practices
When vouchers became available, First Baptist Academy saw an increase in applications — and had to increase rejections, according to Jason Lovvorn, head of school.
During the application process, officials consider test scores, interviews, recommendations, and more, Lovvorn said. After looking at the IEP, the special education department also determines whether it can support the student.
The more severe the needs, the costlier the services. A public school receives anywhere from $900 to $36,000 in state funding to accommodate a particular need, depending on its intensity of the disability and location of the district.
“It’s that full picture,” Lovvorn said. “It’s not just one factor.”
While Ross felt left in the dark, First Baptist Academy’s policy is not to divulge details into a rejection, Lovvorn said. Providing that information can be helpful, he said, but it can also be “hurtful or harmful.”
“It’s not just TEFA that has caused private schools to deny students,” he said. “Private schools have admissions practices.”
Lovvorn hopes all families eventually find the right school. Their decision to opt out leaves room for waitlisted families to access the funds, he said. Vouchers have been life-changing for families at his school, especially those with four or five children, he said.
“For every story of where something didn’t work out,” he said, “there are more families who had an opportunity come their way.”
For some families, the barrier comes before the application
Challenges emerge before a private school application even gets submitted, parents say. A school could turn out to be far, expensive, or unresponsive.
Taniesha Lang prayed for the funds. When her daughter was awarded $16,000, it felt like the promise of a new school, new teachers, new experiences for her forever “baby.”
During her day job, Lang hunched over her desk, sorting through potential schools. She considered options at a local school fair promoting private schools. Four schools on her list couldn’t accommodate her daughter’s needs. Two schools required a 45-minute to hour-long commute. A long drive wasn’t feasible for a single parent like her.
The search, she said, ended in tears.
“I just want to get the best for my daughter,” Lang said. “It’s just hard what she has to go through, and you want to find a good school for her.”
Kimberly Watson booked tours, learned of long waitlists, and then never heard back. She initially considered six schools but didn’t bother sending in a single application.
“There’s no real plan, and there’s no accountability for these schools,” she said. “There’s no excuse to ghost a family, especially with how sensitive our kids are.”
There are private schools dedicated to serving students with disabilities, but tuition can reach more than $40,000 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The maximum award of $30,000 wouldn’t be able to cover that — let alone the average amount of $16,000.
The rollout schedule may have put parents in a time crunch to find a school. Families started receiving award notifications in April — but many private schools send out admission decisions in March. Several parents told The News they toured schools well into the spring, which strays from the typical admissions timeline.
The dates for the upcoming cycle have not been finalized, the spokesperson for the comptroller’s office said. The office must consider the calendars of districts, private schools and the Texas Legislature. Speaking with parents will help the office determine a user-friendly schedule, he added.
Who’s responsible for ensuring a private school seat?
Texas’ voucher program places the burden on the student to find a school, said Joshua Cowen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University, who researches these programs across the country. Though low-income students and students with disabilities were prioritized, lawmakers did not “do the hard work” of ensuring schools would be available, he said.
“It’s the school’s choice — not school choice,” he said.
Critics suggest requiring private schools to accept students as a condition to take vouchers. First Baptist Academy doesn’t support such a proposal, because it only participates in programs that ensure its autonomy, Lovvorn said.
Laura Colangelo, executive director of Texas Private Schools Association, also disagrees. Families receive state funds to attend the school, she said, but the school itself is not state-funded.
“They vary in sizes and shapes, and they are not set up to serve every single child that walks through the door,” she said.
Instead, private schools will scale to meet demand, she said. More accreditation agencies will come on board, meaning that expansion is on the way, and current schools will have more resources to accommodate needs, she said.
“It’s just hopefully a year one problem,” Colangelo said. “A lot of people are working hard … to solve this problem.”
While proponents can promise the program will improve next year, or the year after, and onwards, families cannot afford to wait, Cowen said.
“Maybe one day, 20 years from now, but tell that to a mom who’s trying to get her kid in tomorrow,” he said. “This is real life for their families.”
When the search doesn’t work out, families hold onto hope
Students with disabilities may feel caught between a voucher program that doesn’t work for them — and a public school system that has, at times, struggled to serve them. But advocates want to affirm all that public education has to offer.
Roughly 21,800 students with disabilities will participate in TEFA. Meanwhile, Texas public schools educate 911,300 students with disabilities.
“That’s a lot of trust and confidence that parents have in public schools,” said Dee Carney, director of the Texas Center for Voucher Transparency, a public schools advocacy group. “Public schools accept every child. Private schools choose their children.”
Watson is moving from Fort Worth to Frisco, because she believes the district has stronger special education programs. The family packed their belongings into boxes and rented a house.
“(TEFA) gives a lot of families false hope,” she said. “I only have the option of moving to a good public school system.”
Likewise, Ross will keep searching — no longer for a private school, but a public one. She wants to transfer to another district and find a campus with an excellent reputation of serving students with autism, like her son.
After collecting documents for applications, poring over prospective schools, and weathering the heartache that accompanied rejection, Ross finds solace in holding onto a promise. Not the one the state made — but the one she made to herself.
The mom promised herself: no matter where they went, no matter if they had a voucher in hand, there was a school out there.
A school that would welcome her family with open arms.
“A school can’t raise a child by itself, and neither can parents. We need a village.”
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