Applications portal for Texas Education Freedom Accounts opens this week

Texas will join more than a dozen other states in launching a school choice program when the application portal opens on Feb. 4.  The program is called Texas Education Freedom Accounts.  TEFA will provide families with an opportunity to apply for financial assistance to homeschool their students, send them to private school or provide their child with personalized tutoring.

Texas Education Freedom Accounts will provide families an opportunity to use state taxpayer dollars to fund their student’s private or home-schooled education.  The TEFA portal will accept applications between Feb. 4 and March 17.  The application will require families to provide families to provide information about their financial status and where they plan to enroll their students for the upcoming school year.

Parents can inform the state through their application if their child has a disability.  Students with disabilities who come from low-income families will be the highest priority to receive funding.  Families can apply at anytime during the application period, as applications are not reviewed on a rolling basis and instead viewed once the portal closes.

The Texas Education Freedom Accounts website has a map that shows schools accepting TEFA.  The system TEFA is using for the application portal is supposed to be user-friendly so families can apply at home.