Public school funding has increased every year since long before Hope and has continued the last three years of Hope.
Total State Aid to public schools has increased from $1,752,591,362 the year before Hope to $2,018915,542 for this school year, despite reducing the number of students the public schools are serving.
Every student who leaves the public schools for the Hope Scholarship Program leaves behind all the federal and county funding, which increases the per pupil funding.
Hope Scholarship funding has come from various sources in the state budget, depending on the year.
Normally is comes from general funds, other funds, or lottery funds.
Hope Scholarship funding never comes from federal state aid, county property taxes, or county excess levies.
In the 2025 - 2026 school year, Hope students received $5,267.38.
The estimated Hope scholarship award for the 2026 - 2027 school year is $5,435.62.
Hope students with special needs do not receive any additional funding.
No, Hope Scholarship account holders do not receive a check or direct deposit.
They can only spend their child's Hope funding through an online portal.
Account holders can only spend Hope funding through an online portal, they never receive Hope funding directly in the form of a check or direct deposit.
Educational Service Providers are prohibited from refunding money directly back to parents. It must be refunded back to their Hope Scholarship Account.
Parents and other relatives are prohibited from using Hope funding to pay themselves for providing an academic service for their own child, even if they are a established tutor or certified teacher.
Reimbursements are allowed, but extremely limited. Most reimbursements are for off-the-shelf curriculum or academic program subscriptions for pre-recorded online classes.
The Hope Reimbursement policy can be found here: https://hopescholarshipwv.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=6ZgDKPEcT8k%3d&tabid=831&portalid=7
Public school funding is based on headcounts taken October 1st of the previous year. A public will receive funding for any new Hope funding for an entire school year, as long as that child was included in the October 1st headcount the school year before.
If a student receives Hope funding, and then returns to the public school, all of the remaining funding in their account for the school year is given to their local public school for their tuition.
If a Hope student receives Hope funding, spends most of it in just a couple of weeks, and then returns to the public school, then their account holder is generally asked to pay it back, and the funding is given to their local public school for their tuition.
Hope account holders can only use Hope for qualifying expenses, as defined by law, policy, and outlined in the Hope Scholarship Parent Handbook.
These include:
- Public school services such as individual classes, extracurricular activities, and sports programs;
- Private or parochial school tuition and fees at a participating school;
- Tutoring services (not provided by student's family members);
- Fees for testing, assessments, and preparatory courses for such exams;
- Tuition and fees for nonpublic online learning programs;
- Tuition and fees for alternative education programs;
- Fees for after-school or summer education programs;
- Educational services and therapies (occupational, behavioral, physical, speech-language, audiology, ect.);
- Tuition and fees for programs of study, curriculum, or supplemental materials in reading, language, mathematics, science, social studies, or the arts;
- Fees for transportation paid to an approved fee-for-service transportation provider for the Student to travel to and from an education service provider;
- The cost of school uniforms required by a participating school;
- Basic educational supplies, including but not limited to, paper, writing utensils, scissors, etc.;
- Tuition and fees for programs of study, curriculum, or supplies needed for supplemental or elective educational courses;
- Technology equipment needed for an educational program, including but not limited to computers, printers, smartboards, and required software;
- Any assistive technology or other equipment/supplies necessary to accommodate a Student with a disability, including the rental of such items;
- Vocational supplies or equipment required for a K-12 course of study;
- Tuition and fees at a microschool;
- Certified teacher annual reviews of a Student’s academic work;
- Payments to out-of-state public schools for tuition and fees;
- Fees for general or special event admission to museums, art centers, science centers, agricultural centers, geological locations, and zoos for educational purposes;
- Portable DVD and CD players for educational purposes;
- Student lunch fees charged by a participating school for lunches consumed on school premises during the school day;
- Fees for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) preparatory courses;
- Building blocks and kits other than LEGOs;
- LEGOs purchased from the official LEGO Education site;
- Individual library membership fees;
- Any other qualifying expenses as approved by the Hope Scholarship Board. Requests for the Board to approve a new qualifying expense can be submitted to the Board on the Qualifying Expense Request Form available at Hope Scholarship Parent and Student Forms (hopescholarshipwv.com).
The Hope Scholarship Board has put into place an extensive Non-Qualifying Expense List.
It includes many things that people claim Hope can be used for, but it cannot. Some of those items are:
- Home entertainment items including video game consoles and TVs;
- Toys;
- Trips to Italy;
- Theme Park admission;
- Sports uniforms or performance costumes;
- Travel sports expenses;
- Appliances;
- Home internet;
- Playground equipment;
- Livestock equipment.
Hope funding can only be spent through the online portal at https://hopescholarshipwv.gov/.
It can be spend in four ways:
1) Private school tuition: The parent chooses their private school and funding is directly paid to that school.
2) Closed Marketplace: All products and services in the Closed Marketplace are reviewed and approved by State Treasurer's Office board staff for compliance with law and policies before they are available for purchase.
3) Theopay: Theopay is used to make purchased directly on websites. It is a chrome extension that scans the account holder's cart. An AI reviews the purchase for compliance. If an item is rejected, the parent can complete an exemption text. All Theopay Orders are completed by a human fulfillment team member, who manually recreates the order, reviews it for compliance, and places the order on behalf of the parent. It is done this way to prevent fraud and to require vendors to process all refunds through the Hope program and not directly to parents.
4) Reimbursements: The Reimbursement Policy is very limited. It mainly covers curriculum, books, and online academic subscriptions with a few exceptions. Families must provide both itemized invoices and proof of payment. Sometimes they are also asked for additional verification (for example, they might ask for a photo of the books purchased from a local book store if the receipt does not clearly identify it as a book).
There are many guardrails put in place to prevent fraud and abuse in the Hope Scholarship program.
- Every single marketplace entry is reviewed by State Treasurer's Office Board Staff before it is available for purchase.
- All TheoPay orders from websites like Amazon, Walmart Business, ect are reviewed both by AI and by a human being trained in the program policies and restrictions before it is fulfilled.
- Providers cannot refund money back to parents.
- Parents cannot pay themselves using Hope funding.
The Hope Board Staff does regular account auditing of Hope accounts.
Some areas of the state, such as the northern and eastern panhandles, there is increasing population due to economic growth. In these areas, many public schools are crowded, and there are limited public and private teachers in state because in-state educator pay has not kept up with increased living expenses.
Allowing these students access to public and private schools gives families with working parents options they would not otherwise have.
In 2025, the State School Board voted to update school code to require public school county Boards of Education to charge Hope Scholarship students for classes, sports, and other extracurriculars.
The Hope Scholarship code states, "The board, in consultation with the Department of Education, shall ensure that any public school or school district providing such services receives the appropriate pro rata share of a student's Hope Scholarship funds based on the percentage of total instruction provided to the student by the public school or school district."
This is generally interpreted as 1/7th of Hope Scholarship funding for any given school year. In 2026, that amount is estimated to be $776.
This is an unaffordable amount for most familiar to pay out of pocket.
Hope IIP students (HOPEschoolers) lose their Hope funding if the account holder does not submit an Annual Academic Progress Report to their county Board of Education by June 8th each year.
There are two ways to perform Academic Progress:
1.) Standardized Testing
The student takes a nationally normed standardized achievement test in the subject areas of reading, language, and mathematics. They must also take science and social studies when available for their grade level (which I believe is first grade and above).
The mean of the child's overall test results must be within or above the fourth stanine, or if below the fourth stanine, must show improvement from the previous year's results.
2.) Portfolio Reviews
Portfolio Reviews must be performed by a licensed teacher. The teacher reviews samples of the student's work in the five required subjects (reading, math, language arts, science, and social studies).
To assess progress, teachers typically ask for a minimum of 5 - 10 pieces of work in each of the five required subject areas from throughout the school year, or access to review grades in an online educational platform plus a reading list.
The licensed teacher must certify that the student is, "making academic progress commensurate with his or her age or ability." You might wonder why it doesn't say grade level. This is to accommodate the many special needs kids who have chosen Hope for more adaptable education and access to tailored tutoring.
Between June 8th and the end of July, the State Treasurer's Office confirms each and every Hope student's Academic Progress Review with the county BOEs. If it was not received, or was not meeting standards, then that child's Hope account is no longer funded and they must choose another educational option to comply with compulsory schooling laws.
Portfolio Reviews must be performed by a licensed teacher. The teacher reviews samples of the student's work in the five required subjects (reading, math, language arts, science, and social studies).
To assess progress, teachers typically ask for a minimum of 5 - 10 pieces of work in each of the five required subject areas from throughout the school year, or access to review grades in an online educational platform plus a reading list.
The licensed teacher must certify that the student is, "making academic progress commensurate with his or her age or ability." You might wonder why it doesn't say grade level. This is to accommodate the many special needs kids who have chosen Hope for more adaptable education and access to tailored tutoring.
HOPEschooling students must take a nationally normed standardized test. Tests that are generally accepted include the IOWA, Stanford, and CLE tests.
It should be noted that the West Virginia Summative Assessment given to students in grades 3 - 8 is not nationally normed and only includes ELA and Math (plus science in grades 5 and 8, so it does not meet Hope standards for academic progress testing.
Public school students in K5 - 2nd and over 8th don't take the General Summative Assessment, they have other testing that is determined by their individuals schools and typically is not nationally normed.
Hope students are tested or reviewed by a licensed teacher to higher standards than public school students, and they have far greater consequences (losing funding!) for not meeting those standards.
There are a couple of reasons why it doesn't make sense to require Hope students to take standardized testing:
1) Requiring standardized testing is discriminatory against special needs students.
Many of these students do not take standardized tests as public school students. A portfolio review options allows a licensed teacher to review the student's work, "in accordance with the age and ability of the student," which better reflects their academic progress.
2) Hope students who were behind in the public schools need time to catch up and recover.
One of the top reasons Hope account holders say they chose Hope over their local public schools is because they felt their child was behind and/or felt the quality of education was inadequate.
These students need time to catch up, and some of them have test anxiety that would not reflect their actual academic progress.
3) Standardized testing required for Hope Students is not comparable to the public school standardized testing.
The West Virginia Summative Assessment given to students in grades 3 - 8 is not nationally normed and only includes ELA and Math (plus science in grades 5 and 8, so it does not meet Hope standards for academic progress testing). Hope students are required to test in all five required subjects (when available for their grade).
Public school students in K5 - 2nd and over 8th don't take the General Summative Assessment, they have other testing that is determined by their individuals schools and typically is not nationally normed.
There is not standardized testing available in all five subjects available to compare public school student performance to Hope student performance.
Additionally, comparing Hope students' scores from tests that are nationally normed against West Virginia public school students' scores in a state that is normed across some of the worst academic performance in the nation is unfair to the Hope students.
The Hope Scholarship program is managed by the State Treasurer's Office.
The Hope Scholarship Board is responsible for managing the programs, determining policies, and general oversight. The board members include:
(1) The State Treasurer, or his or her designee;
(2) The State Auditor, or his or her designee;
(3) The State Attorney General, or his or her designee;
(4) The State Superintendent of Schools, or his or her designee;
(5) The Chancellor of Higher Education, or his or her designee;
(6) The Director of the Herbert Henderson Office of Minority Affairs, or his or her designee; and
(7) Three members appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate who are parents of Hope Scholarship students, or for the initial appointments of board members following the effective date of this article, parents who intend to apply for the Hope Scholarship on behalf of eligible recipients, to be appointed as follows:
The Hope Board Staff also contracts with a private company to administer the program. This company manages applications, portal, providers, and purchasing. The provider contracted with has been Student First Technologies since June 2024.
Fraud and abuse are prevented by:
1) Requiring residency verification for students applying and annually for continuing participating in the Hope Scholarship Program.
2) Board staff review and approval for qualified expense compliance for every service or product offered in the Closed Marketplace.
3) Both AI and human fulfillment team member review for qualified expense policy compliance for every service or product purchased using TheoPay.
4) Requiring all Educational Service Providers (ESPs) to sign a provider agreement which includes agreeing to never refund funding directly to parents and not to pay themselves with their own child's funding.
5) Regular auditing of Hope accounts for compliance.
6) The ability to require repayment or remove students and account holders from the program if they do not comply with law and policies.