A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Texas to extend the application deadline for private school vouchers until March 31 due to the state's exclusion of Islamic schools from the program.
The extension comes after four Muslim parents and three Islamic private schools sued Texas leaders earlier this month, arguing state leaders discriminated against their religion by excluding them from the program.
The order from U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett prevents the state from considering which families will receive school voucher funding until after the new deadline. It also requires the state to update its voucher application website to reflect the new deadline and provide the schools that filed the lawsuit an opportunity to register for the program. It does not require the state to add them to the list of approved schools.
The lawyers representing Islamic schools and families want the judge to extend the temporary order until the next hearing in late April, when they plan to argue for further relief. Bennett cannot extend the order until the current one expires.
Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock — Texas’ chief financial officer who manages the voucher program — has prevented Islamic schools from participating in the program over claims that some are associated with foreign terrorist organizations.
Hancock has said schools accredited by the company Cognia hosted events organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group that Gov. Greg Abbott recently designated a terrorist organization. CAIR has sued Abbott over the label, calling it defamatory and false. The U.S. State Department has not designated the organization a terrorist group.
Another Cognia school, Hancock claimed, “may be owned or controlled” by a group linked to the Chinese communist government. Hancock did not cite evidence supporting his suspicion.
Before the court order, the application window for Texas’ school voucher program was set to close at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday for families who want to use public funds to pay for private school or home-school during the 2026-27 academic year.
The comptroller’s office confirmed Tuesday that it received the order and updated the website to reflect the new deadline.
“This two-week extension will give families an additional opportunity to apply for the first year of school choice in Texas,” Hancock said in a statement. “We look forward to building on the record-setting demand for educational options that we have seen over the first six weeks.”
As of Tuesday, families had submitted applications for more than 229,000 students, more than what $1 billion in available state funding can pay for. More than 2,200 private schools have opted in to accept voucher students, according to the comptroller’s office.
So far, at least 71% of Texas voucher applicants come from families whose children attended a private school or home-school during the 2024-25 academic year, according to data released earlier this month and confirmed Monday by the comptroller.
The comptroller in late February denied a public records request from The Texas Tribune asking how many applicants currently attend private school or home-school, saying the office did not collect that data during the application period.
Most participating families with children in private schools will receive about $10,500 annually. Home-schoolers can receive up to $2,000 per year. Children with disabilities qualify for up to $30,000 — an amount based on what it would cost to educate that child in a public school.
The comptroller will use a lottery system to determine how the state will divide $1 billion among eligible students. Applicants will be considered in this order:
- Students with disabilities in families with an annual income at or below 500% of the federal poverty level, which includes a four-person household earning less than roughly $165,000 a year.
- Families at or below 200% of the poverty level, which includes a four-person household earning less than roughly $66,000.
- Families between 200% and 500% of the poverty level.
- Families at or above 500% of the poverty level; these families can receive up to $200 million of the program’s total budget.
Families must still find private schools — which are generally not required to make special education accommodations — to accept their children. Parents do not have to have their children enrolled in a school until July 15. Private schools will then confirm enrollment with the state by July 31.
Early data from the comptroller shows 35% of students come from households that make at or below $66,000 per year for a family of four. Thirty-seven percent make between $66,000 and $165,000 per year. Students in households making more than $165,000 annually comprise 28% of the application pool.
The data also shows:
- Nearly 80% of applicants plan to attend a private school next year, while the remaining applicants say they plan to home-school.
- Most families applied to receive vouchers for pre-K, though half of them do not meet the eligibility criteria.
- Most applicants reside in the Houston region, followed by the Richardson, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin regions.
Before Tuesday’s court order, the comptroller’s office said it planned to release finalized data from the application pool later this week.
In court filings, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office argued the comptroller has not “denied” any private schools from participating. Cognia-accredited schools require independent review, the state argued, due to the company “erroneously” listing schools as accredited without completing final steps. The Islamic schools suing the state, the lawyers noted, are accredited by Cognia.
The comptroller’s office cannot reject schools, the attorneys said, until it decides their eligibility by July 15 — the deadline for parents to select a school. The state also argued “it would be fundamentally unfair” to extend the application deadline and “disrupt” the educational plans of hundreds of thousands of parents.
The families that sued argued the state’s decision to exclude Islamic schools forced parents to decide whether to apply for voucher benefits without their preferred schools listed, “abandon the religious educational choices they would otherwise make for their children, or to forgo applying for the benefits of the Program altogether."
“Without emergency relief, the Program’s initial implementation will proceed while Islamic schools remain excluded,” the lawsuit said. “Once the March 17, 2026 application deadline passes and participation decisions are made, the effects of Defendants’ unlawful exclusion will be fixed in the Program’s first year before this Court can determine the legality of Defendants’ actions.”
The voucher program’s first year has also been marked by confusion over rules on funding for children with disabilities. Some families did not know they needed a special education evaluation from a public school to qualify for additional voucher money. Obtaining legal documentation proving a child received the evaluation can take months, while the original voucher application window lasted only 41 calendar days.
The comptroller recently clarified its interpretation of the voucher law, saying it believes families of students with disabilities can still apply for the funding boost next year.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
