Senate Education Committee debates expansion of "Empowering Parents" grants; bill moved to Senate floor with no recommendation

Sen. Dave Lent (R‑District 33) presented Senate Bill 10 25 to the Senate Education Committee, a proposal that would expand the state’s Empowering Parents grants, establish accreditation and nondiscrimination requirements for participating private schools, reduce some public‑school reporting requirements and direct additional funds toward special education. After full debate and roughly 40 public testimonies, the committee voted to send the bill to the Senate floor with no recommendation.

Bill basics as presented by the sponsor: Lent described the measure as a package intended to establish a “threshold of accountability” for private schools that receive public funds and to trim state reporting requirements for public schools. Key provisions Lent summarized include raising the Empowering Parents grant from $1,000 to $5,000 per student, a household cap of $15,000, a $50 million annual cap on the program, a five‑year sunset and tiered prioritization so 75% of grants target families with adjusted gross income under $60,000. The bill also would allow parents to use the grant for some services as early as age 3 and would require participating private schools to hold accreditation recognized by the State Board of Education, accept students with special needs (including IEPs), perform criminal background checks for staff with unsupervised student contact and adhere to nondiscrimination rules. Lent said the bill would also reduce 52 state‑required reports that he described as duplicative and would designate $30 million in directed spending for special education through appropriations process.

Support, concerns and testimony: Committee members heard a mix of comments from education leaders, parents, law‑enforcement and advocacy groups.

Supporters and neutral witnesses argued for parental choice and some level of oversight. Robin Sickman of Decoding Dyslexia and other parents said they back parental access to alternative schools when public options don’t meet a child’s learning needs, but they favored the bill’s accountability measures. Sheriff Morgan Ballas, formerly a school resource officer, urged the committee to keep the bill’s criminal-background requirement for all adults with unsupervised student contact and called that clause “nonnegotiable” for student safety.

Opponents raised constitutional, fiscal and special‑education concerns. Fruitland superintendent Stoney Winston said the bill “diverts public education dollars to private schools” and argued it violated provisions of the Idaho Constitution restricting public funding for religious instruction. Several public-school special-education administrators and district finance officers urged caution, saying private schools often decline medically fragile or behavior‑challenged students and that public districts currently shoulder the cost of those services. Letha Blick, Valley View School District special‑services director, provided examples of high per‑student costs for medically fragile students and behavior‑intervention services and said her district’s IDEA funding covered only a portion of actual costs. Dr. Joy Jansen (Lake Pend Oreille) and other special‑ed administrators stressed that Idaho is already underfunding special education by many millions and sought clarity on how any new allocations would be distributed.

Legal and implementation questions surfaced repeatedly. Several speakers and senators cited Article IX provisions of the Idaho Constitution and Colorado case law as reasons to be wary of state money flowing to religious schools. The Idaho Freedom Foundation’s written testimony criticized the bill’s proposed accreditation requirement as a barrier that would exclude some classical-Christian schools that currently operate without the specific accreditor the bill references. Homeschooling organizations asked that the bill not change the statutory definition of a homeschool student or conflate homeschoolers with public students who receive a grant while remaining enrolled in public school.

Committee action: After testimony, Senator Woodward moved to send Senate Bill 10 25 to the Senate floor with no recommendation; Senator Burton Shaw seconded. A roll‑call vote followed; presiding officers called each senator’s vote, and the motion passed. (Committee staff recorded the roll call; the called votes in committee were: Cook — Aye; Woodward — Aye; Nichols — Aye; Carlson — No; Burton Shaw — Aye; Zito — No; Ward Engelking — No; Semeroth — Aye; Lehi (Lent) — Aye. The committee reported the motion carried.)

What proponents want: Supporters of the sponsor’s approach said a capped, accredited and temporary expansion would allow parents, especially lower‑income parents, to access alternatives while keeping protections and transparency for public dollars and retaining a path to strengthen public education.

What opponents fear: Critics said the plan could siphon scarce public funds from public districts, raise constitutional problems if religious instruction is funded, and shift costs for medically complex students and behavior interventions back to districts while allowing private sites to screen out high‑need students.

Next steps: With the committee’s “no recommendation” referral to the Senate floor, the full Senate will have the opportunity to debate, amend and vote on the bill. If passed, the bill’s fiscal elements would need appropriation action during the budget process; senators discussed how the proposal interacts with the existing Empowering Parents appropriation and how JFAC would handle any additional allocations.