“Hope” is a word that has been used over 130 times in the Bible, give or take, depending on translation. I find it appropriate that same word is also coined to identify the newly established Hope Scholarship that launched this year, resulting from the passage of House Bill 2013 from the 2021 West Virginia legislative session.

To provide a bit of technical information, the Hope Scholarship will now provide West Virginia parents with flexibility and individualized choices on how to educate their children. The scholarship is not income-based, so there is no minimum or maximum income threshold that must be attained. It is an Education Savings Account (ESA), which allows the state to distribute a portion of state-allocated educational dollars that follows each child for use on an individual educational path.

To take a closer look at the numbers, in Jefferson County, the funds vary on the amount of per-pupil expenditures (School Aid Formula), based on the school attending and whether that respective school is classified as a Title I institution given its district. Moreover, the yearly funds allocated for each student in Jefferson County ranges from $9,942 to $15,081, with the average amount expended per child is $12,039.04 a year. This amount is assigned to each student and provided to the county board of education for funding, regardless of whether said student is enrolled in the public school system or not. Thus, for a parent who is homeschooling her child, or for a parent who has entrusted a private school to instruct her child, the child’s public school district is receiving her allocated funds, even though the child has never stepped foot through the doors of the public school system.

The Hope Scholarship simply takes a portion of the $12,039.04 (utilizing Jefferson County figures) and allows parents to make individualized educational choices for their children. To crunch the numbers (using Jefferson County data) for this fiscal year, the Hope Scholarship allocates $4,300 out of the total $12,039.04 to be applied, so families can independently make school choice decisions. Jefferson County would still receive the balance of $7,739 of that grand total to be applied to the public education system, even though the student is not enrolled in public school.

I have entertained so many arguments from Hope opponents, stating how the scholarship will damage our public education system and there will be no oversight in private school settings, among other fruitless claims. The reality is, our public education system has been failing for years, and the one positive aspect resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic was that the school closures allowed parents to realize they have more options and greater resources available to educate their children through other means than the one-size-fits-all public education system.

Further, other Hope challengers claim private schools do not employ teachers with certified teaching certificates and thus, students will not receive quality educations from certified teachers. That futile argument is countered when compared to the professors and adjunct professors teaching at colleges and universities. As a former university adjunct professor, like so many others instructing at the collegiate level, I instructed classes with an advanced degree held in a particular area of study and experience in the respective field. Teachers who are employed at private schools hold bachelors degrees, advanced degrees and specialized certifications. Look at the history of apprenticeships — does one think the masters in their specialized fields had teaching certificates? No. Rather, they had expertise in their trades and disciplines. A mere teaching certificate given to anyone in the education field to teach a broad range of disciplines certainly does not deem one person more qualified to teach than another, who has a degree/experience in a particular field of study coupled with a passion to teach.

The personal decision I made to send my children to a Christian private school was not a decision taken lightly, given the cost of tuition and the sacrificed time driving to and from the school in a neighboring county. For my family, the decision resulted from wanting more than just a quality education, but placing a priority in having our children receive a Christian education based on God’s truth.

To have hope is to have expectation, trust and confidence, and thus, to dub the Hope Scholarship with that name, provides an optimistic outlook for the future assurance of all children receiving a quality and choice-based education. I encourage every family with school-age children to conduct their own research on what the Hope Scholarship is, its provisions and what resources it may offer to their families.

Alissa J. Meeks, of Charles Town