Parents from Tennessee are reporting issues when applying for school vouchers in the state as demand significantly exceeds the program's availability.
The situation comes as the school voucher program originally opened on May 15, 2025. Some parents reported that they received confirmation emails with the first name and last name of another person's child while others did not receive any confirmation email at all.
Tennessee School Voucher Program Issues
One parent, Jennifer Shinall, said she was initially impressed by the relative ease of applying for a Tennessee private school voucher. She reported that it only took her 20 minutes to complete her application.
The school voucher was designed for the 2025-26 school year and will give eligible students a $7,295 fund to use for tuition and school fees. It is limited to use in registered Category I, II, or III non-public schools across the state.
For this particular school year, there are 20,000 scholarships available for residents to apply for. Half of the openings are for any students in the state, but the other half are specifically given to families who qualify under a specific income formula, according to WSMV.
One example of this is a family of four making less than $173,000 every year to qualify. Shinall said that she received a confirmation email shortly after applying for the program. However, she got a second email a few hours after the first one.
The parent said the second email told her she applied for a child, whom she said she never heard of and is not related to. The message wrote the first name and last name of a child she did not know, causing her to worry about what other information could have been sent somewhere else.
Supporting Parents With Children's Education
Shortly after the Tennessee school voucher program was launched, it quickly received more than 33,000 applications. Despite the issues, Gov. Bill Lee called the wave of applications a success, Chalkbeat reported.
Lee made enacting private school vouchers a key campaign promise starting from his first run for governor in 2018. Legislators finally passed the universal program following a special legislative session earlier this year.
Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds added that the state's response to universal school choice has been an "overwhelming success." She said that Tennessee families embraced the opportunities they were given in support of students.
The recently launched program is the latest iteration of a private school voucher program in the state, but it is the first version to actually apply to all of the region's 95 counties. In 2019, the Education Savings Account was established, which started in the 2022-23 school year, as per the Commercial Appeal.
