The state’s debut Texas Education Freedom Account program, which set aside $1 billion to give families public funds for private school tuition and education services, capped at roughly 96,000 students this week.
Of those, 8,676 students are in the San Antonio area across 16 school districts. More than twice as many, 21,483, students originally applied for the funds.
“This first year is groundbreaking for Texas,” said Kelly Hancock, acting Texas comptroller of public accounts. His office is overseeing the voucher-like program.
Unsurprisingly, San Antonio’s largest districts saw the largest number of applicants and awardees in the area, including Northside ISD, where 2,537 students got award notifications out of nearly 7,000 who applied.
In North East ISD, 1,748 students could get awards out of 5,414 applicants; at San Antonio ISD, there’s 1,405 awardees out of 2,236.
While the state hasn’t released how many of those students are currently enrolled in public school, the public does know where students went to school during the 2024-25 school year. Roughly a third of San Antonio applicants attended public school last year.
This outpaced the state’s rate — about 25% — of students who applied for a TEFA and were previously enrolled in public school.
Statewide, over 270,000 students applied before the application window closed in March, and this week, available funding capped those accepted at 95,935.
The first award notifications went out in late April to about 3,800 in San Antonio. These included children with disabilities, and their siblings, whose families make up to 500% of the federal poverty level, which is $165,000 per year or less for a family of four.
These families are likely to get higher awards, up to $30,000, based on special education needs. Other families will get closer to $10,500 and homeschool families can only get $2,000.
This week, second-priority award notifications went out to another 4,000 families in the San Antonio area, which includes families living at or below 200% of the poverty level, which is an annual income of $66,000 or less for a family of four.
These families were picked through a lottery system after the state awarded all eligible first-priority students.
Statewide school voucher data
Statewide, 42,600 families qualified for the first-priority tier and over 51,000 fit in the second-priority group.
Forty-three percent of awardees across Texas had enrolled in public school during the 2024-25 school year, and 70% indicated they plan to attend a private school for the upcoming 2026-27 school year.
From the statewide pool of students awarded a TEFA, 38% are white, 27% are Hispanic and 16% are Black.
By comparison, 24% of 5.5 million public school students in Texas are white, 53% are Hispanic and 13% are Black. In San Antonio, 64.4% of the population identifies as Hispanic or Latino according the U.S. Census Bureau.
State officials plan to notify all families, regardless of their priority status, with their application status by Monday, May 11, but not all awardees are expected to claim or spend their awards.
Awardees have until July 15 to either confirm private school enrollment for the upcoming 2026-27 year, select a homeschool, or opt out of the program. This process could open funding up for waitlisted students.
There is also funding reserved for appeals, and families have 30 days after notification to appeal their child’s funding amount, application priority or ineligibility.
