Nicolas, Carlos and José Valenzuela, ages 5, 7 and 9, in their private school uniforms. All three are attending a private school in Charleston with taxpayer-funded scholarships. The state Supreme Court ruled those payments unconstitutional in September 2024. (Provided/Maria Valenzuela)
COLUMBIA — Gov. Henry McMaster plans to ask the state Supreme Court on Thursday to rehear arguments on the state’s school voucher program, in hopes justices flip their ruling, even as legislative leaders say that’s a waste of time.
The state Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the Legislature’s taxpayer-funded scholarships for private school tuition violated the state constitution’s ban on public funds directly benefiting private education. The 3-2 decision, issued weeks into the school year, left parents depending on their $6,000 allotment — but suddenly unable to use it for private tuition — scrambling to figure out how to keep their children in the school they selected.
Speaking to reporters this week, McMaster called the majority opinion flawed, repeating arguments that providing the money to parents, to choose where the money goes, is not a direct benefit to private schools.
“Is that an indirect contribution?” McMaster said Tuesday. “I don’t think that is a direct contribution.”
The majority of justices dismissed that attempted workaround as “window dressing.” The language in the constitution is clear, they wrote, saying it’s not their job to interpret the constitution differently just to “give legal cover to some fashionable innovation in social policy.” Still, McMaster hopes they think differently after a rehearing.
While the GOP leaders of the House and Senate also criticized the ruling, they said in a joint statement they don’t expect a do-over attempt to change the outcome. Further delays caused by continuing the case “will not help the students” already enrolled, House Speaker Murrell Smith and Senate President Thomas Alexander said in a joint statement Wednesday.
Instead, they pledged to get to work when the Legislature returns in January “to find a way to restore the opportunities these students deserve and unfortunately lost.” That means school choice will certainly be a top priority — if not the first priority — for Republicans who rule both chambers next year.
Still, they recognized there is no immediate relief to the “thousands of children who now face being removed from their current schools.”
Exactly how many of the 2,880 students approved for the program were using their allotment for private tuition remains unknown — at least to the public.
The state Department of Education has not provided any breakdown of how the money’s being, or already been, spent, which the SC Daily Gazette has requested since the Sept. 11 ruling.
After the decision, the agency informed parents they would continue to get their quarterly allotment of $1,500; they just can’t use the money on private tuition. It can still be spent on other approved providers the court’s decision didn’t touch, such as tutoring, speech therapy, and textbooks. It can also be spent for tuition at a public school outside the district where a student lives, which can charge tuition to cover unpaid local property taxes.
The unknowns include how many students are in a public versus private school through the program, as well as how much of the first $1,500 that parents received in their online account in July has been spent. None of the money that went to private tuition before the ruling has to be reimbursed, either by parents or the receiving schools.
The agency’s prior list of approved providers included 259 private schools, 92 tutors, 13 educational therapy services, and 22 public school districts. The private schools were removed from the list following the ruling, and the company that oversees parents’ accounts was told that day not to send any more payments for private tuition.
‘We can’t pay for that’
SC high court rejects GOP vouchers, says taxpayer dollars can’t pay private tuition
For parents depending on the state money to pay tuition, telling them they can use it for something else doesn’t help. The inaugural year of the program was directly specifically for low-income families.
Only Medicaid-eligible students qualified. Their parents can’t have incomes above 200% of the federal poverty level.
That means the income cap for a family of four in the program this school year is $62,400. For a family of three, its’ $51,640. Under the law, the income cap doubles to 400% of the poverty level by year three.
When Brittany Almeida of North Myrtle Beach enrolled her first-grader, Aveyan, in Risen Christ Christian Academy this year with the help of state tax dollars, she didn’t know about the legal uncertainty of the program. So, she didn’t have a fallback plan on how to pay tuition, she told the Gazette.
“If it was going to be an option for there to be an appeal or some kind of change, why would (the state) have even offered it in the first place?” Almeida said.
Maria Valenzuela of Charleston has four children in the program. The $6,000 per child would have completely covered tuition costs for her three sons, ages 5 to 9. With an additional scholarship through Bishop England High School, her 14-year-old daughter was attending the Catholic school on Daniel Island for $200 a month.
Now she doesn’t know what she’ll spend the remaining $4,500 per child coming to her account. Maybe she could pay a tutor, she said, but her children don’t need extra help.
If her children have to go back to public school, there’s no point in her having the money at all, she said.
“The main reason we applied is to pay for tuition,” Valenzuela said. “What now? We can’t pay for that.”
Less than 3,000 SC students set to receive K-12 vouchers. Thousands more applications denied.
Without the taxpayer-paid scholarships, her daughter’s tuition will be about $600 per month, and her sons’ tuition will be about $570 each. Barring some other scholarship help, Valenzuela will need to come up with $2,300 per month to keep her children in their private schools. How she would pay that, she’s not sure.
Jaleesa Johnson of Sumter is considering getting a third job to keep her three children enrolled in Sumter Christian School and Ragin Preparatory Christian Academy. She already works as an at-home customer service representative and as a caretaker, but that won’t be enough to cover what she estimates as $1,500 per month in tuition for all three children.
Private school was always her first choice for her children. She liked the idea of a religious education, and she wanted the smaller class sizes and one-on-one attention that came with a private school, especially when her son started struggling with his grades, she said.
She didn’t have another plan for her children, either. The schools have told her they’ll try to find a way to keep her children enrolled for at least the remainder of the semester, and she’ll pick up more hours at work in the meantime, she said.
“It’s going to be tough, but I don’t want them to go back to public school,” Johnson said.
Schools turn to fundraising
Principal Beth Martyn’s plan for her students at Divine Redeemer Catholic School in Hanahan involves “a whole lot of prayer,” she said.
Martyn is pulling from the school’s budget to cover the cost of tuition for the 31 students who enrolled there using vouchers. But she can’t do that forever. The pre-K through eighth grade school relies on tuition to keep running, she said.
Still, she is determined to not let any students drop out because of finances, she said.
“I can’t believe God would lead me through everything I’ve been through, to start the year off with 31 beautiful new friends who need to be here, just to have that taken away,” Martyn said.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, which oversees Martyn’s school, has assured principals that it is doing everything it can to find ways to keep students in its private schools for the rest of the year, she said.
The Diocese is raising money through the newly created St. Rita Relief Fund to help cover tuition for the 195 students enrolled in its 32 schools across the state. The fund will need to raise about $975,000, or $5,000 per student, to cover all the gaps in tuition for the rest of the year, according to the fundraising page.
Over a third of that money has already been donated, said Michael Acquilano, chief operating officer of the Diocese of Charleston.
“St. Rita is the patron of impossible causes,” the fundraising website reads. “While many families have been left with the uncertainty of their children’s education, we are reminded that the Church has historically defied the odds at what is deemed ‘impossible.’”