Parents of students in the lowest performing Kansas Schools may be eligible to receive up to $8,000 per year for their child to attend a private school approved under the State of Kansas’ Low-Income Private School Tuition Program.
How do you know if your child qualifies? First, your income must be low enough to be eligible for the free lunch program. But low-income isn’t the only qualifier, your child must be attending, or have attended the immediately previous year, and school identified as a Title I Focus School or Title I Priority School. Title I Priority Schools are the 33 lowest performing schools in the state — all of these schools are located in either Wichita, Kansas City or Topeka. Title I Focus schools are an additional 66 low performing schools, and includes additional schools in Wichita, Kansas City and Topeka, but also includes a few schools in Salina, Hutchinson, Dodge City, Leavenworth, Liberal and Garden City.
Click here for a list of Title I Priority schools.
Click here for a list of Title I Focus schools.
Online, we have a link to a list of these schools posted with this story. What this program does is provide parents of students attending these low-performing school an option for a better education, and it makes money available to cover the cost.
If your child’s school isn’t on the list, check back. Part of the changes approved this year by the Kansas Legislature is an expansion of the schools that qualify as “low performing.”
If you qualify for the scholarship, the next step is to find a qualified school with available scholarship money. Begin by finding a qualified school in your area. In Wichita, available schools are the Catholic Schools and Urban Prep Academy. In Kansas City, the available schools are the Kansas City Area Catholic Schools.
So far, the Catholic schools in Kansas City are using the majority of this available scholarship money. In the 2016-17 school year, there we 188 students awarded scholarships totaling $318,318.50. Since the beginning of the program, 297 student scholarships have been awarded totaling $588,972.
Students approved as eligible so far (all may not have taken the scholarships) are 329 by Catholic Education Foundation in KCK and 27 by Christian Faith Centre, Inc., Wichita.
