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Seven months after the Iowa Legislature passed Gov. Kim Reynolds' controversial Students First Act to establish education savings accounts (ESAs) allowing Iowa families to use public funding to send their children to private schools, those private schools across the state are preparing to welcome new students into their classrooms.
The Education Savings Account program provides $7,635 to each qualifying student who is enrolled in an accredited private school. The government doesn't just cut a check and give the money to those families -- the funds are placed in ESAs facilitated through Odyssey, a New York-based software company that holds the contract with the state to host the accounts. Families will go online to their Odyssey account and select the private school they're attending, then the school goes into the Odyssey portal and verifies the student's enrollment.
The process to apply for the account and use it has been relatively smooth, according to administrators at Webster County's three private schools -- St. Edmond Catholic School, St. Paul Lutheran School and Community Christian School.
"The application process was very simple and most were approved quickly," said Patty Lansink, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Diocese of Sioux City, which oversees St. Edmond. "The communication piece and the process to choose a school and approve tuition on parents' end has had some kinks, but Odyssey's support team has been very helpful and responsive to schools' questions and requests for help."
According to the Iowa Department of Education, just over 25,000 students applied for ESAs during the month of June and 18,627 of those have been approved. As of Aug. 7, the department still had less than 1,000 applications under review.
In Webster County, there were 369 approved ESA applications.
Community Christian School Principal Stephanie Coble-Day said that CCS has 62 students enrolled who will be using ESAs.
St. Paul Principal Bruce Hartley said his school has 60.
Lansink did not answer a written question about how many St. Edmond will have.
The program is being rolled out in three phases over three years. This year, the program is open to only public school students, all students who are incoming kindergarteners and all students whose family is at or below 300% of the federal poverty level, which is roughly $90,000 for a family of four, according to the Iowa Department of Education,
The students who were approved for an ESA will receive $7,635 to go toward tuition and other approved educational expenses. The money must first go toward tuition, but if any remains, it can be used for things like textbooks, curriculum fees, Microsoft Office and Adobe computer software, computer devices, educational therapy services, sensory items, musical instruments and other eligible expenses. Those eligible items can only be purchased through the Odyssey portal. Unused money will be returned to the state's general fund.
CCS and St. Paul aren't ready to credit their slightly increased enrollment this year to the ESAs.
At CCS, Coble-Day said they started the last school year with 65 students and this year they're expecting 86 on the first day of school.
"We had a small group of eighth graders that graduated last year, but we're starting with a really strong kindergarten class," she said. "A lot of them were in our four-year-old preschool so they're not brand new to our building."
St. Paul is expecting 82 students on Wednesday, which is about nine or 10 more students than last year, Hartley said.
"The biggest influx we've seen is in kindergarten," he said. "And I don't know for sure if that's just because of the ESAs, or if it's because we had a good sized four-year-old preschool last year and more of them decided to stay because of that."
Hartley said he wasn't expecting a massive influx of new students in this first year.
Lansink said the diocese has some early estimates of how the ESA program has impacted enrollment at St. Edmond, but won't have any solid numbers until students show up for the first day of school next week.
Coble-Day said CCS has at least two families who were able to return to CCS this school year only because of the ESAs. The families weren't going to be able to afford tuition for multiple students, but because of the ESAs are able to cover it.
"And I think there's probably four or five new families that come to us this year," she said.
She said she wasn't sure if those families enrolled at CCS because of the ESAs or just because they wanted to be in a Christian school.
Overall, it's not clear how this new program is going to impact the schools' enrollments in the future.
"We can't predict how this will look like a year or two from now," Lansink said. "Some schools may see mild increases, but we are not expecting a massive influx of new students. Now that families have a true choice in the education that is best for their child, we do of course hope more families in Fort Dodge would choose a Catholic education for their children, but only time will tell."
St. Paul and CCS are both looking at expanding classrooms if the ESAs lead to more enrollment.
"Like other schools our size, we're kind of waiting to see how it all plays out," Coble-Day said.
Hartley hopes to be able to split some of the grades that are sharing classrooms at St. Paul. Currently, the school has three classrooms that are double grades -- third with fourth grades, fifth with sixth grades and seventh with eighth grades.
Coble-Day said she's also hoping to do the same with her double-grade classrooms.
If, as the ESA program is fully implemented and more Iowa students become eligible, enrollment does increase significantly at St. Paul and CCS, both schools said they're prepared to have some expansion within their existing school buildings.
The ESAs may provide some students more extracurricular opportunities as well. The law allows the remaining funds after tuition is paid to be used for things like the purchase of a musical instrument.
"There might be some kids that may join band that hadn't thought about it so much because now they're able to buy instruments that way," Coble-Day said.
All three schools have raised tuition as a result of the ESA funding.
"We went up a little bit," Coble-Day said, noting the tuition did not rise to meet the $7,635 in the students' accounts. "We decided to do a slow, gradual increase because we knew not every one of our families were going to be able to afford it if we went straight to that amount."
Hartley said St. Paul had similar reasoning to implement a modest tuition increase.
"We raised tuition some to be able to better support our school, but we didn't want to raise it too much so that the families that don't qualify for an ESA had to pay a lot more out of pocket than they did last year," he said. "We understand that there are some families that are not going to qualify, but they cannot afford to pay [the $7,635] which everybody else will have in their account."
Hartley said the school wants to remain an affordable option for families.
St. Edmond, as well as the other schools in the diocese, also raised tuition.
"All schools in the diocese raised tuition to be able to increase teacher pay and keep up with inflation rates," Lansink said. "My directive was for schools to increase tuition 10-20 percent depending on their budget expenses and revenue needs."
Iowa Capital Dispatch previously reported that the law does not specify a maximum amount for accepted applications. All Iowa students who meet the criteria will be eligible for an education savings account, meaning the program will exceed the original one-year estimation of $106.9 million, which approximated 14,000 students. Under the ESA program, the state will still grant public school districts $1,205 per private school student in the public school's district.
Other area counties with approved ESA applications:
• Kossuth, 183
• Palo Alto, 75
• Humboldt, 83
• Sac, 29
• Calhoun, 30
• Pocahontas, 43
• Hamilton, 49
• Wright, 7