After the Invest in Kids Act expired at the beginning of the year, parents and school administrators are facing uncertainty for what comes next.
The controversial Invest in Kids Act was first passed in 2017 as part of an agreement between then-Gov. Bruce Rauner and former Speaker of the House Mike Madigan.
It allowed individuals or businesses in Illinois to donate scholarship funds in exchange for a 75% income tax credit. Scholarships were awarded to students whose annual family income didn’t exceed 300% of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, that’s just under $80,000 a year.
It was set to sunset after five years, but was extended during the pandemic. Republican lawmakers attempted to extend it again as part of the fiscal year 2024 budget, but they were unsuccessful. The program expired Jan. 1 of this year.
Proponents of the legislation said it gave parents from low-income households the opportunity to attend private schools. Opponents said it took money which could otherwise go to public schools. The program cost the state up to $75 million a year in tax credits
Parents face new decisions
Orville Skinner’s two kids currently attend St. Mark’s on partial scholarships. He said he initially grappled with the decision to send his kids to private school.
He had attended public school, but his wife had gone to St. Mark’s. He said he believes they still would’ve chosen St. Mark’s even without the scholarships.
“I didn't mind spending the money out of my own account every month just to make sure my kids are getting a quality education,” Skinner said. “Not that you can't get it at public schools. But I always say that the private schools is kind of like the old school way of teaching things. You go to school, you get education, you're not there to mess around and play around.”
Skinner’s son is currently in seventh grade and he has a daughter in kindergarten.
He said his oldest child is a senior at Notre Dame High School and will be getting much of her college tuition paid for due to good grades.
He said they paid the full tuition before the act was passed, but the law helped alleviate some of their financial stress. Skinner said he doesn’t know if his children will be able to attend St. Mark’s next year without the scholarships.
“It definitely was a conversation that my wife and I had together, you know, ‘what do we have to cut out? Or what can we do to make it happen?’ he said. “And it was a discussion with our son to say, ‘hey, buddy, we may not be able to do this this year.’”
Michelle Botha’s son is in second grade at St. Mark’s. He has disabilities which impact his eyesight. He received a scholarship for full tuition.
“I needed him in a place where there's very small classrooms, extra attention, and you know, he doesn't need extra stress to have. I want him in a place where he can grow,” she said.
Read more: Peoria private schools advocate for extension of state's Invest in Kids scholarship program
Botha said attending St. Mark’s has helped her son grow as a student.
“I just feel like in the school that he has been in, he has his group of friends, he's grounded, he's rooted in being comfortable,” she said. “And he's able to travel up and down to the school. I mean, we still have a long way to go with trying to treat his eyes and trying to get him to actually see, even with him wearing glasses and stuff like that he really cannot see very well.”
Botha said she does not believe her son will be able to continue at St. Mark’s without the scholarship. She’s applied for a boundary waiver through Peoria Public Schools District 150 to get him in a school that would best meet his needs.
“He's a very smart kid. Very intelligent,” she said. “So I would need him to go to a school that's going to continue to give him that stimulation, so he's not getting bored in class, but he's still able to grow.”
School administrators look to mitigate budget impacts
Noreen Dillon, principal at St. Mark’s, said the school had 69 students receive scholarships for the 2023-24 school year. Students could receive a scholarship for 50%, 75% or 100% of the tuition cost, dependent on income.
St. Mark’s has a total enrollment of 177 students. Tuition is around $5,400, with discounts for families with multiple students enrolled.
She said they’re preparing for students not to be able to return next year, but also looking to provide different types of financial assistance.
“We have a diocesan scholarship that might be available for families,” she said. “Again, it's based on eligibility and income. We have searched out for some other outside resources, but much of what we do for our students' tuition is raising money at specific fundraisers in order to do that.”
She said she’s hopeful people will still donate without the tax credit, but knows that even those who continue to donate will most likely decrease their donation amount.
Two Catholic schools in the Chicago-area announced in January they would close due to the loss of income from the program.
Dillon said with rising costs there is always the fear that school closures could happen in Peoria. With the possibility of parents not being able to afford tuition, those fears have only gotten worse.
“I think that is a real reality for a lot of our schools is that we're all looking at that in a serious way, so that we can determine for what goes on now and what's going on next year, and then years to come in order to build sustainable, strong schools to support our families and students,” she said.
Christopher Wilson, executive director at Peoria Academy, said as of right now they aren’t expecting any major change due to the loss of income from the scholarships.
The private school had eight students receive scholarships for the current school year. Seven were for the full cost of the school’s almost $14 thousand tuition.
Wilson said their Board of Trustees recently approved a flexible tuition program for families who may need financial assistance. He said they’re also working to raise money to help fill the gap left by the Invest in Kids Act sunsetting.
“We've also reached out to the rest of our community just to explain that this program has sunset, but that we know that they are committed like we are as an institution to ensuring that access is an important part of who we are and our mission,” he said. “So we hope that our donors will step up.”
Peoria Academy has a total enrollment of 139, meaning the eight scholarships don’t make up as much of their revenue as some other schools. But Wilson said they’re still preparing to deal with a more than $100,000 decline in revenue.
“For us, it's about looking at every line item and making sure that it is absolutely necessary,” he said. “Maybe putting off some projects that are discretionary. We might not redo our landscaping this year. We might have to look hard at whether some of our positions can be full or part time.”
There are some renewed hopes in Springfield that the Invest in Kids Act could be revived. Multiple Republican lawmakers have filed legislation to extend the act as is.
But Democrats in both chambers have expressed concern over the $75 million price tag, especially with the state facing a potential deficit.
A group of Democratic representatives from the Chicago-area filed legislation in October to renew the act. That proposal would lower the cost of the program to $50 million.
“I, of course, would be in favor of anything that is done that could help move towards a program, like what we have had up until this winter,” Wilson said. “ I would say that a smaller tax credit will naturally mean a lower scholarship amount and less access. And so that's the kind of conversation that I think we need to be having as a state and as a community to say, what level of support do we think is important?”
