Are you aware that there are over 1 million Arizona students who are not in the Arizona public school system? Most are enrolled in private schools and many more are homeschooled. Many of these children can get private music lessons at no cost to their families. When I tell my students' families that they can get lessons free they had no clue.
How is this possible you may ask? It is called the Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Account. The ESA pays for music lessons including voice lessons and activities with certified, approved teachers like myself who accept ESA students.
How did this program begin? The AZ Empowerment Scholarship program began as a means to assist with special needs families who felt their child was not receiving the education services they deserved in the public schools. The homeschool program has expanded to serving 10,000 families in 2022 most of whom are not enrolled in special education program. ESA pays for all kinds of resources for homeschool families including educational tutoring. Included under tutoring are private music lessons! Many families don't realize that private music lessons and community music activities are covered under this little known program.
How do you ensure the teacher or tutor is certified through the program? ESA does not provide a list of tutors and teachers to families. As a parent you are expected to find this out on your own! Each teacher providing services through the ESA must be registered and certified with the agency and provide all necessary credentials to meet their approval list. The program does not allow relatives or family friends to teach any related student.
How do families hire teachers or tutors? All teachers working in the program must provide credentials to the ESA. The student's application must be approved first. When the family selects a teacher the teacher's credentials must be attached to their request form. Even though a teacher is registered and approved by ESA the family must be redundantly attach the teacher's credentials to each and every student's application - including siblings.
Who can apply? To apply the student must have attended public school for the first 100 days of school the prior year. After that original 100 day public school enrollment parents can continually renew the scholarship annually without any prior year public school attendance.
Are you interested in the scholarship? If you are interested in finding out more about the ESA program please visit the following link https://azed.gov/esa and help your child explore their musical world!
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