Parents who choose to enroll their eligible children in an accredited nonpublic school will receive an amount equal to the per pupil funding allocated to public school districts for the same budget school year. Funds will be deposited into an education savings account (ESA) to be used for tuition, fees, and other qualified education expenses as specified in the legislation.

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Who is Eligible?

Year 3: School Year 2025-2026

All TK-12 students in Iowa regardless of income.

 

Funding

The per-student funding for the 2024-25 school year will be $7,826. Half of the funds ($3,913.00) will be available for use in the Fall 2024 semester and the remaining half will be available for use in the Spring 2025 semester.

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Applying for the first time: Parents/guardians will first be directed to sign up with an email and password. Parents/guardians will receive a message from Odyssey asking them to confirm their email address. After the email is confirmed, the parent/guardian can sign in to the Odyssey portal to begin their application.

 

Returning applicants: Parents/guardians with an existing Odyssey portal account will log in to the existing account to begin the application for the 2025-26 school year. 

 

Transitional Kindergarten/Kindergarten Parents/Guardians: If your child is enrolling in TK/Kindergarten for the 2025-26 school year, regardless of the grade they attended in 2024-25, mark ‘NO’ to ‘Did this student attend an Iowa accredited nonpublic school in the 2024-25 school year?’

 

Split Households: The first parent/guardian to apply who meets the eligibility requirements will be the parent/guardian under which the ESA is established. For an application to be contested, court documents supporting the contesting person’s position as the parent/guardian that has education making authority are required for consideration.

 

Foster Parents: Foster children do not require any additional verification beyond fulfilling the standard requirements. As long as they attend a public school or an Iowa-accredited school and their foster parent submits tax records, the process remains the same as for other students.

 

Detailed application walkthrough.

 

The application process should only take 5 minutes to complete. Applications that are able to be verified through the automatic review processes (e.g., verify residency through Iowa 2024 State Tax Return) should receive a response within 30 minutes of completion. Applications that require additional documentation verification or manual review will take additional processing time. The ability to select the school your child plans to attend in the 25-26 school year will be available in the Odyssey portal immediately after an application is approved.

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Applications are available in English and Spanish and will be accepted until June 30, at 11:59 p.m.

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