Most parents who treat ESA spending as a kind of tuition scholarship are allowing much of the value of these accounts to go unused. It seems to me that guidance we got from a colleague was that we could view this as a ‘general contracting’ budget. You hire the specialists you need, purchase the curriculum you want, and pay for the necessary facilities just like you would hire a team to build a building based on your plans.
The Shift From District Funding to Student-Centered Funding
Throughout most of the history of public education, money was distributed based on geography. Your school was in your district, your district was in your town, and your town sat within a county. All of these defined the school that you’d attend, and then that school received a per-pupil allotment from the state. It didn’t matter if the school was right for you. It was the default, and the money followed you there.
ESA programs broke all of that.
Under an Empowerment Scholarship Account, the state doesn’t write a check to the child or the family or the new school they want to attend. It writes the check to the child or the family, and they put it wherever their family wants. In the case of the ESA, the money can be used for tuition, private tutoring, purchases of curriculum materials, therapy for educational disabilities, online courses and much more. It’s the student’s needs that determine the spending, not the overhead costs of a district.
The program’s universal expansion supercharged this trend, and the shift largely went unremarked. But the Arizona Department of Education’s FY 2024 quarterly reports show what that means in practice: More than 70,000 students are using the ESA program right now, often at a lower cost than what they would have been in a district school. The average non-disabled student receives approximately $7,200 annually, with 13% of active students receiving an alternate assessment being allotted significantly more than double that amount.
Auditing Your Child Before You Spend a Dollar
The error many parents make is to go straight to vendor selection. Before you touch the ESA account, you need a clear picture of what your child actually needs.
Start with a genuine learning audit. What does your child already do well? Where do they consistently struggle? Is the issue content knowledge, processing, attention, or something structural like an undiagnosed learning difference? Educational diagnostic testing, assessments that identify specific learning profiles, is itself an allowable ESA expense in most states, so you can use funds to get answers before committing to a full educational program.
If your child has an existing IEP, review it critically. An IEP is a document, not a destination. The goals it contains were written by a team that may or may not understand what’s available outside district services. Use it as a starting inventory, then ask what private services would address those goals more directly.
Once you have a real picture of strengths and gaps, write down three to five concrete educational goals for the year. These don’t need to be formal. They might be as simple as “reach grade-level reading by spring” or “complete Algebra 1 with genuine understanding rather than just passing grades.” Goals give you a framework for evaluating every purchase decision against a real outcome.
What the Funds Can Actually Cover
ESA programs can differ between states, however, the approved spending categories are quite similar. Knowing what is eligible in advance can inform your decision-making when setting priorities throughout the year.
For obvious reasons, you always start with tuition and fees at approved private schools, the most common use by far. This will include full-time enrollment but, depending on the program, it could also include part-time or hybrid enrollment.
Private one-on-one tutoring is another important common use that differs only in how the providers are approved, which subject areas are eligible, and whether the tutoring must be in connection with the previous inadequate enrollment at a public institution. It is a very flexible use of funds, and ESA dollars make otherwise cost-prohibitive part-time, one-on-one instruction an appealing option for many.
Computer-based learning or online education is an approved expenditure for an ESA in all programs. Curriculum providers are approved vendors as well under all current state ESA guidelines. This means that you can buy a complete pre-packaged structured curriculum, including textbooks and workbooks, from a provider of your choice if the costs are justified by appropriate educational needs. In addition, you can purchase subject-specific materials and supplies or supplemental materials to fill in gaps not addressed by other programs.
This last category covers just about everything else, including many niche programs and services. Some states will also pay for the cost of several national standardized tests each year. Finally, whether in a public or private setting, students with the qualifying needs are often eligible for approved academic services such as speech-language pathology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, or behavioral therapy. For families exploring an Arizona ESA approved school, it’s worth noting that public schools aren’t allowed to pay for the needed services to the same extent private vendors can justify the expenses so long as these services are preparing the student to transition to gainful employment.
Managing the Account Without Triggering Compliance Issues
The financial details are just as important as the educational choices. The majority of states operate their ESA funds using an administrative middleman. ClassWallet is the most common tracking and claims submittal system for approved transactions, which get paid out of or reimbursed from your account, or direct bill to the vendor account.
The rule: every dollar spent ties easily to a state-approved educational expense for an enrolled student. ClassWallet pays a vendor or reimburses you based on a receipt you submit. They demand a real trail of paper, state auditors go account by account each year, and a vague receipt or mis-keyed number gets everyone in trouble.
Good practices to avoid headache: Save every vendor receipt, no matter the size. Add a line or two in the description field when you submit an invoice or receipt so the reviewer understands what the obscure vendor name or amount was for, and what student it benefited. Avoid splitting a purchase between personal and ESA on the same charge. Always check the approved-vendor list to confirm new providers before you sign a contract. If it’s not an allowed vendor, you’ll find yourself writing a check back to the account.
Building the Unbundled Education Schedule
This is the point at which ESA funding becomes genuinely powerful. The old school model packaged everything, teaching, socialization, sports, arts, counseling, into one place you either took or left. ESA funding lets you “unbundle” that.
A family doing this might put together a week that looks like this: two mornings at a small-group academic micro-school, an online course subscription for STEM, a reading or math tutor once a week, an arts or sports program locally, and so on. None of those providers need to know about the others. You are the general contractor with the master plan.
Micro-schooling has arisen in part because ESA money made it possible. Tiny pods of four to twelve kids and a full-time teacher can charge tuition that few families could afford without tapping into state money. With an ESA, tuition becomes a qualified expense.
The daily schedule you come up with should also reflect your priorities. The things you’re most concerned about should have regular places in your week, not just be names on a list of things you hope will get better. For instance, if your kid’s sticking point is writing and you don’t much care about athletic prowess, that should be reflected in the schedule you develop.
Vetting Private Schools and Registered Providers
Not every private school or tutoring service can accept ESA funds directly. But many can. The registration and infrastructure requirements to do so are distinct. If they’re not set up to accept ESA payments, you may still be able to get reimbursed for paying them out of pocket, but it’s debatable whether it’s worth the trouble.
With any institution, the first question to consider is whether they’re registered with your state’s education department and appear on the approved provider list.
Beyond that, though, you may need to ask the institution directly. Have they worked with ESA families before? Do they submit invoices through ClassWallet or your state’s equivalent program, or do you pay out of pocket? Can they provide the itemized documentation your state requires for expenses to be approved?
A school with no experience handling ESA transactions isn’t necessarily a bad school. But you’ll carry more administrative burden working with them, and that’s something you’d want to know upfront.
Transition Planning For High School Students
The stakes are higher when kids get to high school because the choices determine what will be next for them. If you’re the parent of a high school kid using ESA dollars, “what comes next” is the right frame of mind to start with. College or employment, training or apprenticeship, this is about outcomes more than course access.
Paying for a teenager to take a real college course in high school that would earn transferable credit is almost always a better spend per dollar than simply paying for more standard high school electives. And in nearly every state, ESA funds can be used to pay for dual enrollment tuition and fees.
The same usually goes for a bunch of other specific category expenses, like AP exams, career-technical certifications, or standardized test prep. If you harness your ESA to these sorts of expensive items, you can cover a lot of ground.
If your high schooler is on an IEP and closing in on the end of formal schooling, there is also a legal catch you need to be aware of. In most states, parents who assign their child’s right to state education dollars to an ESA are understood to be waiving their child’s right to a free appropriate public education under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. If your child has significant support needs, you should be sure to discuss this directly with your state education agency or with a special education advocate before making the jump.
The Practical Reality of Being the General Contractor
Managing an ESA-funded education is a part-time job. There is no superintendent responsible for the whole district, no master card that tracks all activity, no connections between the various providers. You run all of that.
It’s not an argument for or against. It’s an argument that when you go in, you need to go in with your eyes open. The families that succeed with ESA funding usually have been organized, have been clear on what they are trying to achieve, and have been quick to find other providers when things didn’t work out. They tend to see the money as a means to execute a plan, not an entitlement to be used up.
The money’s there. The providers are there. The education is the bit that you work out before a dollar moves.
