CINCINNATI — The meeting with staff members of Cincinnati Christian Schools began with a prayer. Then they told Mike Grimmer and Linda Kelly that their granddaughter could no longer attend the private school.
Annabelle Kelly had enrolled there three months earlier, in August 2025, in a program specifically for students who struggle in mainstream classrooms. Annabelle, 15, has Rett syndrome, a genetic condition accompanied by significant cognitive and developmental delays. Her grandparents, who took legal custody of Annabelle when she was 5, believed that the small, faith-based setting of CCS would be a better fit than the local public school. She received a voucher from the state through a school choice program specifically for students with disabilities, which authorized paying CCS up to $29,750 for Annabelle to attend tuition-free.
But at the meeting in November, Kelly said, the school’s director of academic support services told her and Grimmer that Annabelle’s physical and educational needs were too extensive for her to continue at CCS. If they wanted her to stay, Annabelle would need an aide to work with her one-on-one, and her grandparents would need to pay the additional cost, roughly $25,000 per year.
Disability advocates warn that as private school voucher programs spread, more parents will find themselves in similar straits. Federal protections for students with disabilities don’t apply to private schools, and neither the schools nor voucher programs like the one Annabelle qualified for are required to inform parents that they waive certain rights when they leave the public school system. When Congress passed legislation last year establishing the nation’s first federal voucher program, it did not include language that disability rights groups had lobbied for that would have required private schools receiving federal funds to follow the law known as the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act.
“If there are public funds being spent, public protections need to be afforded,” said Chris Roe, director of state policy at the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a policy advocacy organization that provides training and guidance in special education law. “At the very least, states that provide voucher programs should be required to inform parents of the rights they are giving up.”
Kelly said the decision from CCS came despite the family being transparent about Annabelle’s needs when they applied to the school: They shared medical information, copies of her academic evaluations and her learning plan from the public school she attended. The then-eighth grader attended three trial days at the school before enrolling, and several previous conferences with teachers had gone well, her grandmother said.
“We were blindsided by the school’s decision,” said Kelly.
Raymond Kochis, superintendent of Cincinnati Christian Schools, declined an interview but said in response to written questions that the costs of educating Annabelle exceeded what had been determined initially. “When a student’s needs evolve,” Kochis wrote, “the school works with the family to determine the most appropriate level of support.” (According to Kelly, Annabelle’s needs had not changed, and school officials quickly dismissed any alternative solutions she proposed.)
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Private school voucher programs have proliferated in the United States in the last decade. The number of students with disabilities in these programs has grown too: In the 2025-26 school year, Annabelle was one of more than 200,000 students nationwide either using vouchers meant specifically for students with disabilities or enrolled in the country’s largest voucher programs, compared with more than 180,000 the year prior.
The federal school voucher program goes into effect next year. After failing to persuade Congress to include language stating that voucher programs and participating private schools must comply with IDEA protections, COPAA and other disability rights groups are focused on pressing states that choose to participate in the program to enforce the IDEA even for private schools.
Signed into law in 1975, the IDEA states that everyone ages three to 21 with a disability must be provided a free public education that meets their particular needs. In collaboration with parents, public school districts must develop an individualized education program, or IEP, establishing learning goals and plans appropriate for the student. The law also states that students with disabilities must be taught alongside children without disabilities “to the maximum extent appropriate.” Today, 8 million public school students are served by the IDEA.
While voucher programs like the one Annabelle received, Ohio’s Jon Peterson scholarship, are publicly funded, participating private schools like CCS control their own admissions and enrollment decisions. Students using a private school voucher are considered “parentally placed,” and private schools are not required to follow an IEP or uphold any IDEA protections. Families that use these vouchers sacrifice key civil rights afforded by the IDEA, including protection against discrimination and removal from the school based on a disability.
Kelly doesn’t remember, when filling out the scholarship application and enrolling Annabelle at CCS, being told that the rights and protections that apply to students with disabilities in public schools do not extend to private schools. Since students must have an IEP to qualify for the Jon Peterson scholarship, she assumed that the IDEA’s rules and policies would be followed.
In a response to written questions, a spokesperson for Ohio’s Department of Education and Workforce said there are multiple safeguards for students with disabilities who attend private schools. The department’s website never explicitly states that private schools are not required to comply with the IDEA’s mandates and regulations. But it does mention on a page of regulations that if a student is enrolled in a school that is not public, it is “not obligated to provide the child” with a free appropriate public education. Ultimately, the private school is not required to follow the IDEA, and parents have little recourse if the school chooses not to.
However, as states expand their voucher programs, more are aiming to serve students with disabilities. States including Florida, Indiana and Ohio award more voucher money to these students to account for the additional costs of educating them. Texas’ Education Freedom Accounts program gives priority to students with disabilities and their siblings. As of June 2026, more than one in four Texas students awarded a voucher for the coming school year has a documented disability.
Ohio is one of at least nine states that have created voucher programs specifically for students with disabilities. On paper, the policies of Ohio’s Jon Peterson scholarship, established in 2012, seem more rigorous than others. For example, schools receiving scholarship funds are expected to employ staff with special education training and credentials. If a school formally declines to enroll a child, it must provide the scholarship applicant with a reason in writing. Schools receiving scholarship funds are also expected to provide the student’s assigned public school district with records of how the IEP was implemented and how the student is progressing toward its goals. But there are no consequences listed for schools that do not follow these rules.
Data published by the state Department of Education and Workforce suggests that many students only use Jon Peterson scholarships for a short time. In 2025, 8,680 students received a scholarship. Just over half of those students had participated in the program for three years or more. Reasons students might leave the program include transferring to a different voucher program, moving to a different district, graduating, or returning to public school.
Voucher rules for students with disabilities vary dramatically nationwide. For example, Florida’s program for students with disabilities — which has the most participants of any program in the country (140,147 in 2025-26) — does not require students to have an IEP to access the program: A valid diagnosis from a medical professional is also accepted. Oklahoma’s scholarship for students with disabilities requires participating schools to provide services and accommodations for those students, but it does not require private schools to document IEP implementation or hire appropriately credentialed special education staff.
A January 2026 report by COPAA outlined challenges it said private school choice programs raise for students with disabilities, many due to a lack of regulations and oversight. Most states do not require private schools to keep data on whether they are effectively educating students with disabilities, the report noted, and, according to Roe, states do not have to publish data on voucher programs, which could provide an opportunity for accountability.
Roe, lead author of the report, said these programs might initially appeal to families that have struggled to get public schools to follow their children’s special education plans. “Parents are enticed by the idea that they don’t have to fight their public school anymore for what they should be getting under the law,” he said. “But then they realize there are few schools that will take a child with nonverbal autism or with Down syndrome.”
When Kate White, who is now 11, started preschool at her local public school in the suburbs of Cincinnati, her mother, Nicole White, noticed she wasn’t developing many communication skills. Kate has Down syndrome and has had chronic ear and airway complications since birth, which were affecting her ability to learn.
Nicole White worried the local public school couldn’t provide the support Kate needed and began looking around for alternatives. Eventually she found the St. Rita School for the Deaf. When she asked school administrators if they could help a student with Down syndrome who was learning American Sign Language, White recalled, “They said ‘absolutely;’ they didn’t bat an eye.” She enrolled Kate at St. Rita in 2019 with support from the Jon Peterson scholarship. At first, White said, “it was phenomenal.”
But as Kate got older, White wanted a more traditional curriculum for her daughter that emphasized numbers, letters and colors alongside ASL. White was also concerned that the environment at St. Rita did not include students of all learning types and abilities. “I wanted her to be exposed to what the world is like,” she said.
Kate’s IEP called for occupational and physical therapy, but St. Rita eliminated those services before her third year. School administrators told White that school budget cuts were to blame. In 2022, Kate returned to her local public school district, which for her mother seemed like the least bad choice. “I was looking at the students ahead of her at St. Rita’s and there were four students in the graduating class. I didn’t want that for Kate, but I wanted the support that St. Rita’s gave its students. So what do I do? Where do I go?”
In a response to written questions, Angela Frith, president of St. Rita, said that the Jon Peterson scholarship does not cover the full cost of educating a student at the school. Families now have to pay a third-party clinic out of pocket or use private insurance or Medicaid if they want to get occupational and physical therapy on site.
COPAA’s Roe said he worries experiences like White’s will become more common. Private schools meant for students with disabilities can provide valuable support, he said, but students sacrifice an opportunity to learn among nondisabled peers. “If parents are looking for an inclusive environment, private schools are problematic,” Roe said. “There are a lot of barriers.”
Annabelle did not attend school for several months after CCS did not welcome her back, but eventually Kelly enrolled her in ninth grade at Princeton High School, her local public school. She says Annabelle is happy there. “I made assumptions about Princeton based on what I knew about the school 20 years ago,” Kelly said, “back when special education was completely segregated.”
Her granddaughter is now making progress on her IEP goals, Kelly said. Annabelle reports that her favorite class is gym, which she takes with a diverse group of other high school students. Said Kelly: “Annabelle is now where she needs to be.”
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at preston@hechingerreport.org.
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