Denver's school foundation and Las Vegas-area public schools are drawing up plans to use §25F scholarships

Update, October 1, 2026: Treasury's rules, released a day after this report, leave the expense list and the meaning of "school" to separate section 530 guidance that Treasury calls a high priority, so the fee model is still an open question. The proposed regulations do set how money moves: tuition and fees a school charges must be paid directly to the school, other providers can be paid directly only if they are verified and not related to the student, and families can be reimbursed only against a receipt. How scholarship money can be paid.

Some of the most detailed §25F planning right now is happening on the public school side. A national report by Erica Meltzer and Melanie Asmar in Chalkbeat, published September 30, 2026, describes what it calls "a small but growing set of organizations," including school districts, charter schools, public school foundations, start-up nonprofits, and after-school providers, working out how to turn the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit into tutoring, after-school programs, and enrichment for public school students.

In Colorado, the Denver Public Schools Foundation, which raises money for the state's largest district, hopes to use tax-credit dollars for tutoring and after-school scholarships. "Critics would say this wasn't created for us," its president and CEO, Sara Hazel, told Chalkbeat. "I believe there's money on the table, and public school students should benefit from that." Colorado is in the program because Gov. Jared Polis opted in, and Chalkbeat reports the state has become a hot spot for planning, including one idea aimed at the roughly 130 Colorado districts on four-day school weeks: scholarship-funded programming on the fifth day.

In Nevada, Chalkbeat reports that Clark County's public schools and the Public Education Foundation in Las Vegas are exploring a model proposed by Marguerite Roza, who leads the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. She calls it the K12 Plus Plan: a district puts together a fixed package of services, such as tutoring, arts, sports, or counseling, charges a fee for it, and scholarships cover the fee. The Las Vegas partners hope to build a package that local donors will find compelling. Nevada entered the program when Gov. Joe Lombardo opted in in January.

The report names others. Deb Gist, a former superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools, launched Future School Fund as an SGO to help district and charter schools pay for enrichment and education services. The Southern Education Foundation, which opposes the credit and supports repeal, decided after internal debate to launch a tutoring-focused SGO of its own. New York charter leader Ian Rowe argues a school's role is to connect families to trusted providers, from SAT prep to aviation programs.

None of this is a stretch of the statute. §25F scholarships pay for "qualified elementary or secondary education expenses," which the statute defines by reference to section 530(b)(3)(A), the Coverdell education savings account rules. That definition reaches well past tuition, to tutoring, books and supplies, and educational technology, and the law expressly lets students in public and charter schools receive scholarships. It is the same structure Kentucky districts are using: Logan County and Russell County signed agreements with an approved SGO so their own students can apply.

The open question is how far the rules let the fee model go. Not everyone in public education likes it. "We will never make up fees and then go pay for those fees with the scholarship," Shannon Hancock, chair of the Colorado School Foundations Association, told Chalkbeat. Roza herself calls it "certainly a circuitous route," though she believes it is legal. Treasury's rules, which cleared White House review on September 29, are expected to settle some of this, though Chalkbeat notes they likely won't answer every question. Public school groups have been pressing their case directly: the National Association of Education Foundations, whose members are foundations like Denver's and Las Vegas's, met with OIRA on the rules on September 25.

For a district or school foundation weighing this, the structural point from Kentucky applies everywhere. A school district is a unit of government, not a 501(c)(3) public charity, so it cannot be an SGO itself. A district foundation that qualifies can form one, or the district can partner with an existing SGO. Either way the state has to have opted in and the SGO has to be on the state's list. Check your state on the states page, see who is already operating in the SGO directory, and if your foundation is forming its own, our free SGO Builder covers each step.