By Rosemary McAtee |

Secrecy, control, and parents without a voice. These factors apparently comprise the current motto of Superintendent Tom Horne and John Ward, head of the ESA department. As a six-year veteran parent in the ESA program, I know what I am talking about. Over the past two years, the changes I have seen have been nothing short of appalling, frustrating, and alarming. Instead of empowering parents with trust and the ability to make free choices in educating their students, the current Superintendent has done all he can to rob parents of the freedom granted in the lawmakers’ legislative intent in the historic bill that was passed in 2020.

I could spend hours sharing all the abuses that parents have experienced at the hands of Tom Horne. To save us all a bunch of heartache, I’ll leave it at one major concern: the ongoing development of the most recent edition of the parent handbook. As a longtime shareholder, I can tell you the current protocol of closed-door meetings and a handpicked handbook committee led by a non-ESA parent has never been the norm of this program. Even under former Superintendent Kathy Hoffman, a clear opponent to the program, parents were offered townhalls to make their voices heard.

This year, despite the State Board of Education’s President demanding that Superintendent Tom Horne offer a townhall, Superintendent Horne has remained silent for months. Instead, prior to the last State Board of Education meeting, Mr. Horne sent an email to parents, demanding they sit down and shut up.

I quote, “This email is particularly directed to ESA users who have been in disagreement with the proposed handbook: We received some concern from state legislators. We therefore agreed to postpone the vote on the handbook until the June meeting to give us a chance to sit down with the legislators and hopefully reach mutually acceptable agreements. We therefore respectfully request that those who have signed up to speak on this issue wait until the June meeting and not come to the meeting next Monday. The handbook will not be on the agenda, and once agreement is reached with legislators, any objections you have might be solved. It is best to come to the meeting when you know what the final proposal will be in June.”

Clearly Superintendent Horne has no interest in listening to the concerns of the parents.

Now, let us explore some major issues in the handbook itself. A large portion of the parental outcry has primarily been against the mandated caps in different spending categories. While the caps seem to be contrary to the law, I firmly believe they are merely a diversion from the real agenda of the ESA department. Take a moment to examine two critical footnotes.

For the second time in the last two years, we see a footnote that an acceptable expense category is as follows: “Any fees that may be levied by the Department to cover the costs of managing of the Empowerment Scholarship Account program” (pg 15, footnote 10). This means that the ESA department really wants to pull fees out of students’ accounts to cover administrative fees. Students already only receive 90% of the funding they would in public schools – and now the department wants to steal money from the kids to cover their own expenses?

Even more concerning is footnote 22 on page 52, which says: “The Department may ask for repayment of any items approved in error, if items are improper or unallowable under your ESA contract, state law, administrative rule, program policies, or this ESA parental handbook.”

For the first time in my experience as an ESA parent, Superintendent Horne and John Ward have approved auto approvals of expenses in the ESA program. Before this, every single purchase had to be approved, thus protecting tax dollars from being used improperly. However, because the current ESA department cannot be run efficiently or effectively (despite the program being handed over to Mr. Ward with turnaround times being 24-48 hours for every single order), they now want the buck to stop with the parents, not themselves as the lawful administrators of the program. This leaves parents in a position that if rules change or future ESA parent handbooks remove categories, the state can demand repayment. This has nothing to do with improper spending, but everything to do with bureaucratic inefficiency.

It is clear that Tom Horne is no advocate for school choice and no advocate for making the voices of parents heard. We parents have had enough. We will scream until our voices are hoarse, because we are the primary educators for our children and we should have a say in the proposed ESA parent handbook.

Rosemary McAtee is a home-educating parent of 7 students and a 6-year veteran of the ESA program.