Under HB349 families would receive scholarships of up to $6,000 that could be used for:

• Tuition or fees at a qualified school
• Textbooks required by a qualified school
• Educational therapies or services from a licensed or accredited practitioner
• Tutoring services
• Curriculum
• Tuition or fees for a private virtual school
• Fees for testing
• Services provided by a public school including, but not limited to, individual classes and extracurricular programs
• Computer hardware or other technological devices that are used to help meet the qualified student’s educational needs
• Fees for summer education programs and specialized after-school education
• Transportation costs 

Imagine how different education during the pandemic would have been if the families most in need had had financial support to figure out how to ensure their children were able to continue learning.

HB349 is carefully targeted at the students who need help the most — those with special needs and those dealing with poverty to ensure that they have the educational options as more affluent students.

Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, and similar programs, have been proven to work in other states where they help to improve educational outcomes not only for students receiving a scholarship but also for students in the surrounding districts.

Empowerment Scholarship Accounts also result in savings for the state and the local district, savings that can be redirected to public education.