The Ohio Department of Education says it received 17 hundred applications for an expansion of a program meant to help students from underperforming public schools attend private schools.
The Educational Choice Scholarship Program offers vouchers for private schools to students from consistently underperforming public schools. Legislation for the newest state budget expanded the EdChoice Scholarship program to 2 thousand more kindergarten students. The department expects to start notifying recipients by mid-August after evaluating which applicants meet the program criteria. To be eligible, students must be first-time kindergarteners who don't qualify for the traditional EdChoice or Cleveland Scholarship programs. They also must come from families earning no more than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or 46 thousand dollars for a family of four.