Opinion ID: 2823788
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Background and Logistics of the CSP

Text: Â¶3Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The facts of this case, as found by the trial court following a three-day injunction hearing, are largely undisputed. In March of 2011, the Douglas County School Board approved the CSP for the 2011â12 school year. The CSP operates on parallel tracks: In order to receive scholarship funds, students must not only apply for a scholarship through the District, but they must also gain admittance to a participating private school, labeled a âPrivate School Partner.â In order to qualify as a Private SchoolÂ Partner, the private school must satisfy certain requirements and must allow Douglas County to administer various assessment tests. The private school need not, however, modify its admission criteria, and the CSP explicitly authorizes Private School Partners to make âenrollment decisions based upon religious beliefs.â Â¶4Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The CSP funds itself through education revenue that it receives from the State. To accomplish this, the CSP requires scholarship recipients to enroll in the Districtâs Choice Scholarship Charter School (âthe Charter Schoolâ), even though they in fact attend private schools. The Charter School is not actually a school in any meaningful sense; the trial court found that it âhas no buildings, employs no teachers, requires no supplies or books, and has no curriculum.â But because the Charter School is nominally a public school, the District includes all students âenrolledâ at the school as pupils in its report to the State, which then provides education funding to the District on a per-pupil basis. 3 For the 2011â12 school year (the year at issue when the trial court conducted the injunction hearing), this per-pupil revenue was estimated at $6,100. Â¶5Â Â Â Â Â Â Â For each scholarship recipient enrolled at the Charter School, the District retains 25% of the per-pupil revenue to cover the CSPâs administrative costs. The District then sends the remaining 75% of the per-pupil revenue ($4,575 for the 2011â12 school year) to the studentâs chosen Private School Partner in the form of a restrictively endorsed check made out to the studentâs parent. 4 The parent must then endorse the check âforÂ the sole purpose of paying for tuition at the Private School Partner.â Â¶6Â Â Â Â Â Â Â In theory, then, the CSP operates as a simple tuition offset. The District awards money to the parent of a qualifying student, and the parent then uses this money to pay a portion of the studentâs tuition. The trial court found, however, that the CSP âdoes not prohibit participating private schools from raising tuition after being approved to participate in the [CSP], or from reducing financial aid for students who participate in the [CSP].â And in fact, the trial court cited one instance where a Private School Partner slashed a recipientâs financial aid in the amount of the scholarship. 5 Â¶7Â Â Â Â Â Â Â In the CSPâs pilot phase, up to 500 Douglas County students were eligible to receive scholarships. At the time of the injunction hearing, 271 scholarship recipients had been accepted to one of twenty-three different Private School Partners. The trial court found sixteen of those twenty-three schools to be religious in character. At the time of the hearing, roughly 93% of scholarship recipients had enrolled in religious schools; of the 120 high school students, all but one chose to attend a religious school. 6