Bill Analyses and Ratings

Rating: –1

Bill Summary:

Senate Bill 1025 significantly expands Idaho’s Empowering Parents Grant Program by increasing available funds, widening eligibility, and altering program structure. The bill raises the per-student grant cap from $1,000 to $5,000 and the household cap to $15,000. It extends eligibility to children as young as 3 years old and allows grants to be used for private school tuition, pre-K programs, and educational services including therapy, curriculum, technology, and public school programs offered for a fee.

The bill also imposes numerous requirements on participating nonpublic schools and service providers, including:

• Accreditation by an agency recognized by the Idaho State Board of Education (for secondary schools),
• Student learning portfolios (for elementary schools),
• Mandatory standardized testing and performance tracking,
• Criminal background checks for employees,
• A non-discrimination requirement that bars consideration of religion or disability in admissions,
• A requirement to honor parent requests for “reasonable accommodations.”

The bill also creates a parent advisory panel and revises the income-based prioritization tiers for distributing funds, with 75% reserved for households earning under $60,000. The expanded program is set to sunset on July 1, 2030.

Reason for Rating:

Although S1025 expands financial access to education alternatives, it does so at the cost of undermining the Idaho Republican Party Platform’s core principles of religious liberty, local control, and limited government. By imposing state-mandated accreditation, performance tracking, and admissions requirements on private and religious schools, the bill effectively extends public education regulations into the private sector. It forces schools to choose between financial support and institutional independence.

In particular, the bill endangers the autonomy of faith-based schools by requiring them to accept students regardless of religious alignment and provide costly accommodations, which many smaller schools are not equipped to do. Additionally, the accreditation clause excludes many classical Christian and rural schools from participation altogether, creating an unfair playing field.

Rather than enabling true school choice, S1025 centralizes educational authority and coerces compliance through funding, violating the platform’s support for parental rights in education without government interference. For these reasons, the bill receives a negative rating.