Bowling Green schools plan §25F scholarships for dual-credit and AP costs as Kentucky's SGO filings reach 17

Another Kentucky public school district is lining up for the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit (§25F), and this one came with a price list. On October 21, Bowling Green Independent Schools Superintendent Gary Fields told the legislature's Commission on Race and Access to Opportunity that his district “intends to partner with the Kentucky Education Fund and begin accepting donations in January 2027,” according to the slides he presented. Its first priorities are dual-credit tuition and Advanced Placement exam fees. “If it can help our kids, we're going to do it,” Fields told the commission, as quoted in a Senate Majority release. The fund is the statewide SGO that Logan and Russell counties signed agreements with in September.

Why those two costs. Fields's slides say state legislative changes for the 2026-27 school year cut Kentucky's Dual Credit Scholarship and ended the subsidy for standard AP exams. A student now pays $297 for each dual-credit course after the first, and a standard-fee AP exam went from $34 in 2025 to $99. This year 844 students at the high school are taking at least one AP course, and 595 of them have to pay the exam fee, which the district counts as more than $38,000 in new out-of-pocket costs. More students are enrolled in dual credit, but the number taking more than one course fell 21.5%, with the biggest drop in second math classes. The high school estimates $34,000 would bring dual credit back to last year's levels, and its slides price career-tech gaps too: $16,000 for the HVAC program and $3,465 for welding. Bowling Green Independent has 4,933 students, 64% of them economically disadvantaged and 20% English learners.

The paperwork is the real work. Fields was plain about what partnering asks of a public school: student-specific invoices, helping families apply, managing payments. “Every expense requires documentation,” his slides say. Because public-school fees are small next to private tuition, and districts are still waiting for final guidance on allowable expenses, the slides predict Kentucky public schools “will likely leave funds unspent.” A statewide fund is built to carry that load. The Kentucky Education Fund's own presentation says it handles donations and student applications in cloud-based software, awards the scholarships and does the required reporting, while Kentucky's 15 area development districts connect schools, donors, businesses and community leaders in each region and recommend regional members for the fund's governance.

Two more boards this week. Two days before the commission met, on Monday, October 19, the East Bernstadt Independent Board of Education voted in a special-called meeting to join the program, the Sentinel-Echo reported, after Superintendent Vicki Jones walked the board through it. The board talked about forming its own SGO but hasn't made plans. The same night, Will Hodges, who advises the Kentucky Education Fund, pitched it to the Elizabethtown Independent Schools board, according to The News-Enterprise: “We are a Kentucky group and want to form true partnerships with schools. We do not want to be an SGO in name only.” That board hasn't voted, and the fund hopes to have its district partnerships finalized by the end of November.

Kentucky's field has doubled. The Secretary of State's office, which builds Kentucky's SGO list, told the commission in its slides that 16 organizations had filed SGO declarations as of October 12. Michael Wilson, the office's director of business services and deputy general counsel, updated the count to 17 as of the morning of the meeting. When we first looked at who had filed, on September 21, there were eight. Declarations are due November 30 under the proposed regulation, 30 KAR 1:060, with an IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter and a $15 fee, and Kentucky law has the Secretary of State send the state's first list to the IRS by January 1, 2027. The regulation is still moving: a public hearing on October 27, written comments through October 31, then a statement of consideration and legislative review that the office expects in December. A listed SGO will also file an annual independent CPA audit by November 30, starting the year after it first appears on the IRS list.

Both sides of the program, one meeting. Hodges, a former Green County Schools superintendent, put the local case to the commission this way: “I do feel like my local school system and my community school will do a better job of managing those dollars than Washington, D.C., does.” Gregory Ross, president and head of Louisville's West End School, described the other use. Every West End student is on a full scholarship, and the school raises roughly $5 million a year to keep it that way. “When we talk about the importance of something like an SGO, it's a lifeline for us,” Ross said.

What the rules allow. A Bowling Green student qualifies if household income is at or below 300% of area median gross income and the student is eligible to enroll in a public school. Qualified expenses are the ones described in section 530(b)(3)(A) “and any guidance thereunder,” in the words of Treasury's proposed regulations. That list covers “tuition, fees, academic tutoring” and books and supplies incurred in connection with a student's enrollment or attendance at “a public, private, or religious school.” It doesn't name AP exams or dual-credit courses specifically, and Treasury's separate section 530 expense guidance, which it calls a high priority, hasn't been issued. Logan County's agreement lists dual-enrollment costs and academic testing on the same basis, pending that guidance. Our guide to qualified expenses tracks what's settled.

For a Kentucky district weighing the same step, Bowling Green, Logan and Russell show the partnership route: a statewide SGO carries the 501(c)(3) status, the 10-student multi-school test and the reporting, and the district identifies the costs its own students face. A district foundation that wants to run its own SGO has until November 30 to file its declaration, IRS determination letter in hand. Follow the state on our Kentucky page, see how to file on how to become an SGO in Kentucky, read what §25F means for public schools, and work through formation in the free SGO Builder.