{"id":1758883,"date":"2022-12-01T18:33:52","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T23:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1758883"},"modified":"2022-12-01T18:33:58","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T23:33:58","slug":"vermont-agrees-to-stop-excluding-religious-schools-from-tuition-assistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/vermont-agrees-to-stop-excluding-religious-schools-from-tuition-assistance\/","title":{"rendered":"Vermont Agrees To Stop Excluding Religious Schools From Tuition Assistance"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fvermont-agrees-to-stop-excluding-religious-schools-from-tuition-assistance%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1758883&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In a major legal victory for a group of parents, Vermont has agreed to stop excluding religious <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/education\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">schools<\/a> from the state\u2019s tuition assistance program.<\/p>\n<p>Families who live in Vermont towns where there is no local public school will now be able to receive tuition assistance to send their kids to Catholic or other faith-based schools, according to court documents filed Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The victory marks the end of a 20-year legal battle after a\u00a0group of parents and the\u00a0Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Burlington, Vermont, sued the state\u2019s education secretary Daniel French and several Vermont school officials in a <a href=\"https:\/\/adflegal.org\/sites\/default\/files\/2022-12\/EW-v-French-2022-11-30-Stipulation-Of-Dismissal.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pair<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/adflegal.org\/sites\/default\/files\/2022-12\/AH-v-French-2022-11-30-Stipulation-Of-Dismissal.pdf\">lawsuits<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The parents and archdiocese were represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which <a href=\"https:\/\/adfmedia.org\/case\/ew-v-french\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced<\/a> the victory on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll parents should be able to send their kids to schools that are the best fit for them, and the First Amendment protects parents\u2019 right to choose religious schools,\u201d said Paul Schmitt, ADF legal counsel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor more than two decades, Vermont unlawfully excluded religious schools and their students from public benefits, essentially eliminating school choice for many parents in the state,\u201d Schmitt said.<\/p>\n<p>In June, the Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion about Maine\u2019s tuition assistance program, ruling that Maine cannot exclude students at religious schools.<\/p>\n<p>Schmitt said that the Supreme Court\u2019s decision showed that \u201cthe government cannot eliminate families\u2019 benefits just because they choose to use those benefits at religious schools that provide religious instruction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As part of the settlements, Vermont agreed that in light of the Supreme Court\u2019s decision, its exclusion of religious schools is\u00a0unconstitutional and unenforceable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSchool districts may not deny tuition payments to religious approved independent schools or religious independent schools that meet educational quality standards,\u201d Vermont\u2019s Agency of Education <a href=\"https:\/\/education.vermont.gov\/sites\/aoe\/files\/documents\/edu-letter-tuition-payment-to-religiously-affiliated-approved-independent-schools-13092022.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote<\/a> in a letter to school districts.<\/p>\n<p>Requests for tuition assistances for students who attend religious schools must be treated the same as those for secular schools, the education agency wrote.<\/p>\n<p>The state\u2019s\u00a0\u201cadequate safeguards\u201d requirement was the subject of both lawsuits. In 1999, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that school districts could not pay tuition at religious schools unless there are \u201cadequate safeguards\u201d against the funds being spent on religion. In response, Vermont banned religious schools from receiving state tuition money.<\/p>\n<p>Now that the \u201cadequate safeguards\u201d requirement has been scrapped,\u00a0Vermont has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2022\/dec\/1\/vermont-agrees-pay-religious-school-tuition-where-\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">updated<\/a> its list of schools eligible for tuition assistance and now includes several Catholic and Christian schools.<\/p>\n<p>ADF attorneys filed to dismiss the lawsuits on Wednesday in light of the settlement.<\/p>\n<p>The attorneys said the settlement also means the families who requested tuition for religious schools, but were denied by their\u00a0school districts will be reimbursed for the tuition they paid out-of-pocket.<\/p>\n<p>The state of Vermont and the school districts will also pay the families\u2019 attorneys\u2019 fees, the attorneys said.<\/p>\n<p>Public school districts and school boards have become a battleground for parents rights and school choice over the last several years, especially since the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Many parents frustrated with their public school districts on a litany of issues, including inappropriate curriculum content and school safety, have turned to private or religious schools. Some have simply pulled their children out of school in favor of homeschooling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a major legal victory for a group of parents, Vermont has agreed to stop excluding religious schools from the state\u2019s tuition assistance program. Families who live in Vermont towns where there is no local public school will now be able to receive tuition assistance to send their kids to Catholic or other faith-based schools, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":1758886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1758883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1758883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1758886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1758883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1758883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1758883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}