When the Oklahoma Tax Commission recently released data on Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit (PCTC) program applications for the coming 2026-2027 school year, the total number of children served increased, but there was a modest decline among families with incomes below $75,000.

School leaders suspect the enrollment shift may be an unintended consequence of moving up the deadline for application to June 15.

School leaders say many lower-income families do not make the decision to shift a child from public school to private school until closer to the start of the school year and warn that many working-class families are not aware of the tax-credit program until they begin exploring their options.

“I thought June 15 was a weird date for that,” said Kelly McCoy, superintendent of Hillsdale Christian School, a rural private school near Enid. “I was like, (better) July 15 or even August 15, because a lot of people don’t make those decisions until mid-summer.”

“I’ve consistently seen that there is an element of a lack of awareness in families, particularly at the lowest income bracket, that are in public schools,” said Tiffany Rinas, school superintendent for Owasso Preparatory Academy. “I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with families who said, ‘I didn’t even know. I was looking for something different and didn’t even realize that there was this thing called the Parental Choice Tax Credit.’ They just had no awareness whatsoever.”

Morgan Shillow, who served as head of school at St. Paul’s Community School in south Oklahoma City until recently, observed similar trends at St. Paul’s, which particularly caters to lower-income students.

“In our community, I feel like families are not thinking about school until the spring or summer,” Shillow said. “And so we have to do a lot of educating and hand-holding.”

The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program provides refundable tax credits of $5,000 to $7,500 per child to cover the cost of private school tuition. The largest tax credits go to those with the lowest incomes, and families with incomes of less than $150,000 per year are prioritized.

Even though the maximum credit is far less than the $15,111 in per-pupil revenue provided to Oklahoma public schools, the program still allowed nearly 40,000 students to access private schools in the 2025-2026 school year. The majority came from low-income or middle-class families.

The program was capped at $250 million annually, but lawmakers voted to increase the cap to $275 million due to surging demand. However, the additional $25 million in credits will not become available until August.

At the end of the 2025-2026 school year, Oklahoma Tax Commission reports show that 39,587 students used the school-choice program. So far, that figure has increased to 40,055 for the 2026-2027 school year, and additional applications are still pending.

However, among families with incomes of $75,000 or less, or those who qualify for state benefit programs, the number of applicants had declined by 867 as of June 8.

According to a Tax Commission spokesperson, approximately 1,700 applications are still pending. The commission expects the additional $25 million in tax credits will cover all remaining applications when funding becomes available on Aug. 13.

That would mean participation could grow to 41,755 children in the 2026-2027 school year.

Based on anecdotal information, school leaders suspect a larger share of the remaining 1,700 applications are children from families earning $150,000 or less.

Of 145 students at St. Paul’s Community School, Shillow said 77 have not yet indicated receiving PCTC approval, and 49 are from families with incomes of $75,000 or less.

Last year, Rinas said between $200,000 and $350,000 in parental choice tax credits were awarded to families at Owasso Preparatory Academy between June 15, 2025, and Jan. 1, 2026. Roughly 40 families applied during that time.

“The vast majority of those families came to us as first-time-to-Christian-school families, and the vast majority of them transferred from public schools,” Rinas said.

Even so, critics have cited the shift in low-income participation as a reason to repeal the program.

“Now we see proof that almost a billion dollars’ worth of entitlements have gone to rich parents to send their kids to rich private schools,” said state Sen. Mary Boren, D-Norman.

“The latest data from the Oklahoma Tax Commission confirms what many Oklahomans already suspected: Oklahoma’s tax credit voucher scheme is overwhelmingly benefiting families who were already paying for private school, while middle- and lower-income families are being left behind,” said state Sen. Mark Mann, D-Oklahoma City.

Despite those claims, Oklahoma Tax Commission data show the majority of children in the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program are from lower-income and middle-class families.

Nicole Duncan, a single mother of two living in a Tulsa suburb, is among them. Her child received the maximum $7,500 credit, allowing Duncan to shift her daughter from public school to private.

“I’m going to be out zero dollars for her to go to private school, and she’s receiving a whole lot better education,” Duncan said.

Duncan said her son, who has graduated from public school, faced major challenges starting in sixth grade as things “just all started going downhill.” Today, she said her son likely reads at around a sixth-grade level.

“My son ended up being one of those public-school statistics,” Duncan said. “They just kept passing him on even though he shouldn’t have been passed.”

Duncan wanted a different path for her daughter, who is six years younger than her son. Duncan recalled telling herself, “Once she gets out of elementary, I will figure out a way to put her in private school. I don’t know how I’m going to pay for it, but I’ve got five years to figure that out.”

The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program was created in time to help Duncan achieve that goal.

When Duncan’s daughter was tested last spring, she performed at an eighth- or ninth-grade level as a sixth-grade student in private school.

Those attacking the PCTC program are, ultimately, taking aim at families like Duncan and her children.

“You’re trying to take a tax credit away from someone like me who wouldn’t be able to put my child in private school and wouldn’t be able to give my child a better education without this tax credit,” Duncan said.

Thanks to examples like the Duncan family, most lawmakers view the program as a success.

“The Parental Choice Tax Credit was created to expand opportunity and give Oklahoma families more control over their child’s education. Every time a parent chooses the PCTC, per-pupil funding in public schools increases. We intentionally structured the tax credit this way in 2023 to provide choice while protecting funds for public education,” said House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow. “While some champions of the status quo continue to cherry-pick numbers to criticize the program, Oklahoma has received national attention for becoming a universal school choice state and giving parents more options to find the best fit for their children.”

State Rep. Chad Caldwell, an Enid Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, noted roughly 60 percent of school-choice tax credits have gone to families with income of $150,000 or less each year since the program’s creation, and that remains the case today.

Critics have consistently opposed school-choice programs for any children, regardless of income, he said.

“If you can’t support education choice for homeless students, I don’t think your concern is truly income levels,” Caldwell said. “Their concerns stem from protecting a system that is favored by their political supporters.”

He said lawmakers may need to shift the application deadline to better aid the lowest-income families.

“Lower-income families have tended to apply later in the process, so I do think the earlier deadline this year had some impact on that,” Caldwell said. “It’s something that the Legislature may need to look at, moving that deadline back a month or two to accommodate those families.”

Duncan, and other parents like her, have a simple message for lawmakers: The PCTC program is changing children’s lives.

“The tax credit has been very, very beneficial to me,” Duncan said. “That’s the reason why my daughter goes to private school.”