September 30, 2026
A Chalkbeat national report published September 30, 2026 describes public school foundations, districts, and charter leaders planning to use §25F scholarships for tutoring, after-school programs, and enrichment. The Denver Public Schools Foundation wants tutoring and after-school scholarships, and Clark County's schools and the Public Education Foundation in Las Vegas are exploring a district service package that scholarships would pay for.
Update, October 21, 2026: in Kentucky, Bowling Green Independent Schools told a legislative commission it intends to partner with the statewide Kentucky Education Fund and start taking donations in January 2027, with dual-credit tuition and AP exam fees first, after state changes raised what students pay for both. It joins Logan and Russell counties, which signed with the same fund in September. What Bowling Green plans.
Update, October 21, 2026: in Florida, the Pasco County school board voted unanimously to sign a three-year contract with Step Up For Students to take part in its federal scholarship program, starting with about five schools and services like after-school care and tutoring. Pinellas County's superintendent has recommended the same, and Step Up says Miami-Dade, Orange, Indian River and Santa Rosa counties are looking at it. Rather than form their own SGOs, these districts are partnering with an existing statewide one. The Pasco story.
Update, October 20, 2026: Alaska's school administrators are in. The Alaska Council of School Administrators has applied to put RISE (Raising Investment in Student Education), led by former Juneau superintendent Frank Hauser, on Alaska's SGO list to fund public school students. RISE plans to handle the IRS paperwork for small rural districts. The Anchorage School Board has asked the Association of Alaska School Boards to set up a statewide one as well; that resolution goes before school board members in November. Full story.
Update, October 12, 2026: in North Carolina, the Moore County Board of Education approved setting up its own SGO foundation, alongside a separate foundation for teacher and staff housing. The committee behind it proposed a $20 million annual fundraising goal, and the district plans to front about $15,000 in start-up costs. The Moore County story.
Update, October 12, 2026: another North Carolina public school foundation is taking a look. The board of the Carteret Education Foundation, the fundraising arm of Carteret County Public Schools on the coast, is reviewing the credit “to better understand its potential benefits and how it may align with our mission of supporting Carteret County's public schools,” executive director Erica Jones told the Carteret County News-Times. School board chair Katie Statler said the district's central office is working out what the credit will mean for the schools. North Carolina is in the program by statute, and its SGO list will run through the State Education Assistance Authority (our North Carolina page). In Columbus County, educators have already formed a foundation for the same purpose.
Update, October 12, 2026: in Virginia, where Gov. Abigail Spanberger is still deciding whether to file the state's 2027 SGO list, the Chesapeake School Board voted 7-2 to support the program instead of adopting a teachers' union resolution asking her to opt the state out. The Chesapeake story.
Update, October 11, 2026: Iowa's school administrators want to run one SGO that any public district in the state can use. School Administrators of Iowa (SAI), which represents more than 2,000 Iowa school administrators, says on its SGO page that it is converting an inactive 501(c)(3) foundation it already holds into a dedicated SGO, so it can serve as “a centralized hub for any Iowa public school district.” The obstacle it is solving is the one described at the end of this story: a district can't be an SGO itself, and SAI expects districts with foundations of their own will prefer not to convert them. Under SAI's plan, donors give to its SGO and designate a district, the district decides which programs to offer, and SAI handles “the backend tracking, fund management, and administrative burdens.” It names tutoring, after-school and summer programs as the likely uses, but that list is its own expectation: Treasury's October 1 rules left the expense list to separate section 530 guidance that hasn't been issued. SAI is asking districts to tell it through a short survey whether they want to take part. Iowa is in the program because Gov. Kim Reynolds opted in, and existing Iowa tuition organizations have formed their own statewide SGO on the private school side.
Update, October 9, 2026: the fee model described below has hit a paperwork snag. Writing for the Fordham Institute, Marguerite Roza and Maggie Cicco of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University say they are lowering their summer estimate that the credit could raise some $1,000 per public school student once it reaches scale. Their reason is income verification. Treasury's proposed rules let an SGO confirm the 300% of area median income limit through documents such as pay stubs, tax returns and W-2s or other relevant data sources, through a SNAP, TANF, WIC, Section 8 or SSI award letter dated within the last 12 months, or through safe harbors for foster children and for school-selected tutoring in low-income areas (the four routes). A family's own signed statement that it is under the limit isn't one of them, and a district bundle only works when nearly every student takes part. Roza and Cicco say they advised Treasury to accept a family's attestation for scholarships or fees up to $3,000 and keep full documentation for larger awards. The rules are proposed, and comments are open until December 1 (how to comment).
Update, October 8, 2026: in North Carolina, four Columbus County Schools educators, including the district's chief academic officer and a former superintendent, have formed the Columbus County Educational Opportunity Foundation to fund programs for the rural district's 5,200 students, with Superintendent Eddie Beck calling it “a potential partner.” The Columbus County story.
Update, October 7, 2026: Cleveland's public schools are now looking too. "CMSD is looking into how the Education Freedom Tax Credit might possibly benefit CMSD students," Cleveland Metropolitan School District board chair Sara Elaqad told Signal Cleveland. Ohio is in the program because Gov. DeWine opted in. Marguerite Roza, whose fee model is described below, told the outlet that districts need to start now and talk about it constantly, with staff, boards and PTAs, because donors have to choose to give: "This money you really have to go out and get it." Ohio already has a working local example under its own state credit. In Nordonia Hills, a nonprofit set up with outside partners raised enough to help many district families pay for full-day kindergarten, and its treasurer, Chad Lahrmer, suggested one organization covering all of the state's public schools, with donors directing gifts to their own district.
Update, October 1, 2026: Treasury's rules, released a day after this report, leave the expense list and the meaning of "school" to separate section 530 guidance that Treasury calls a high priority, so the fee model is still an open question. The proposed regulations do set how money moves: tuition and fees a school charges must be paid directly to the school, other providers can be paid directly only if they are verified and not related to the student, and families can be reimbursed only against a receipt. How scholarship money can be paid.
Some of the most detailed §25F planning right now is happening on the public school side. A national report by Erica Meltzer and Melanie Asmar in Chalkbeat, published September 30, 2026, describes what it calls "a small but growing set of organizations," including school districts, charter schools, public school foundations, start-up nonprofits, and after-school providers, working out how to turn the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit into tutoring, after-school programs, and enrichment for public school students.
In Colorado, the Denver Public Schools Foundation, which raises money for the state's largest district, hopes to use tax-credit dollars for tutoring and after-school scholarships. "Critics would say this wasn't created for us," its president and CEO, Sara Hazel, told Chalkbeat. "I believe there's money on the table, and public school students should benefit from that." Colorado is in the program because Gov. Jared Polis opted in, and Chalkbeat reports the state has become a hot spot for planning, including one idea aimed at the roughly 130 Colorado districts on four-day school weeks: scholarship-funded programming on the fifth day.
In Nevada, Chalkbeat reports that Clark County's public schools and the Public Education Foundation in Las Vegas are exploring a model proposed by Marguerite Roza, who leads the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. She calls it the K12 Plus Plan: a district puts together a fixed package of services, such as tutoring, arts, sports, or counseling, charges a fee for it, and scholarships cover the fee. The Las Vegas partners hope to build a package that local donors will find compelling. Nevada entered the program when Gov. Joe Lombardo opted in in January.
The report names others. Deb Gist, a former superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools, launched Future School Fund as an SGO to help district and charter schools pay for enrichment and education services. The Southern Education Foundation, which opposes the credit and supports repeal, decided after internal debate to launch a tutoring-focused SGO of its own. New York charter leader Ian Rowe argues a school's role is to connect families to trusted providers, from SAT prep to aviation programs.
None of this is a stretch of the statute. §25F scholarships pay for "qualified elementary or secondary education expenses," which the statute defines by reference to section 530(b)(3)(A), the Coverdell education savings account rules. That definition reaches well past tuition, to tutoring, books and supplies, and educational technology, and the law expressly lets students in public and charter schools receive scholarships. It is the same structure Kentucky districts are using: Logan County and Russell County signed agreements with an approved SGO so their own students can apply.
The open question is how far the rules let the fee model go. Not everyone in public education likes it. "We will never make up fees and then go pay for those fees with the scholarship," Shannon Hancock, chair of the Colorado School Foundations Association, told Chalkbeat. Roza herself calls it "certainly a circuitous route," though she believes it is legal. Treasury's rules, which cleared White House review on September 29, are expected to settle some of this, though Chalkbeat notes they likely won't answer every question. Public school groups have been pressing their case directly: the National Association of Education Foundations, whose members are foundations like Denver's and Las Vegas's, met with OIRA on the rules on September 25.
For a district or school foundation weighing this, the structural point from Kentucky applies everywhere. A school district is a unit of government, not a 501(c)(3) public charity, so it cannot be an SGO itself. A district foundation that qualifies can form one, or the district can partner with an existing SGO. Either way the state has to have opted in and the SGO has to be on the state's list. Check your state on the states page, see who is already operating in the SGO directory, and if your foundation is forming its own, our free SGO Builder covers each step.
Sources
- Anchorage Daily News (Tim Rockey, Oct. 19, 2026): Alaska voucher-style school tax credit scholarships coming soon as first nonprofits are approved
- School Administrators of Iowa: SAI's Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO) (accessed Oct. 11, 2026)
- Thomas B. Fordham Institute: One detail in FSTC proposed regs will reduce participation in public schools (Marguerite Roza and Maggie Cicco, Oct. 9, 2026)
- Signal Cleveland (Oct. 7, 2026): How Cleveland public schools could benefit from a new federal income tax program
- Chalkbeat: Public schools see 'money on the table' in education tax credit designed for private school choice (Erica Meltzer and Melanie Asmar, Sept. 30, 2026)
- Reginfo.gov: EO 12866 meeting, RIN 1545-BS17, September 25, 2026, National Association of Education Foundations
- 26 U.S.C. §25F (federal Education Freedom Tax Credit)
- 26 U.S.C. §530(b)(3)(A), qualified elementary and secondary education expenses
Originally published by EFTC Credit. Reproduced with permission.
