“The more it looks like you’re just trying to send your kid to private school and get subsidized by the state... I think that’s when you start getting into unconstitutional territory,” said Deputy Attorney General Cori Mills.
Families enrolled in state-funded homeschool programs in Alaska can use their student funding allotments to pay for some private school classes, according to an opinion released Monday by the state Department of Law.
Mills said the goal of student funding allotments is to supplement public education, not to replace it with private school. For example, a homeschool student whose district doesn’t offer Latin might take it at a private school.
“Constitutional questions are often murky,” she said. “We’re trying to provide at least the absolute yeses and absolutely nos, and then what framework can you work within in those gray areas. Ultimately we just want to help school districts and the department best implement this program.”
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