Oklahoma’s Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for Students with Disabilities (LNH) program allows students to use state tax dollars to pay for private-school tuition. The LNH program serves children with special needs who have an individualized education program (IEP), adoptive children, and foster children.

Throughout the LNH program’s existence, which began in 2010, critics have argued that few private schools will willingly serve many students with special needs.

But the number of private schools signing up to serve LNH students only continues to grow, despite the private schools receiving less funding from LNH, on average, than what public schools receive for the average student.

At the State Board of Education’s July meeting, members approved the applications of three more private schools to serve students who receive scholarships through the LNH program.

The application for the Redbud Farm School, located in Oklahoma City, stated that officials at the school collaborate “closely with families to create individualized learning plans for students with disabilities. They provide accommodations such as curriculum modifications, tailored teaching strategies, adjustments to the classroom environment, specialized assessments, and access to assistive technology and additional resources as required. RFS also partners with professionals to assess and support students both during and outside of class time.”

The application for Global Harvest Christian School, located in Ardmore, noted the school provides “services for all types of disabilities and needs.”

In their LNH application, officials at the For Heaven’s Sake Christian Child Development Center in Yukon wrote that they provide “specialized education services through a dedicated Special Education teacher who conducts testing and offers support in a classroom environment.” Students also receive one-on-one assistance and can access private tutoring for reading through the school. The school also partners with the Oklahoma Pediatric Therapy Center, “which offers comprehensive Speech, Occupational, and Physical Therapy services.”

In September 2010, after the bill creating the LNH scholarships was signed into law, the program launched with only 13 private schools participating. That number has steadily increased in the years since.

According to the Oklahoma State Department of Education, there were 87 schools participating in the LNH program prior to the addition of the Redbud Farm School, Global Harvest Christian School, and the For Heaven’s Sake Christian Child Development Center.

Fending Off Hofmeister Regulations

The number of schools serving LNH students has significantly increased in recent years after officials were able to fend off a regulatory attack that would have made participation unattractive to many private schools.

As enacted in 2010, the LNH law includes a provision mandating that participating private schools cannot discriminate “on the ground of race, color, or national origin.”

However, during the administration of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister, the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) unilaterally rewrote LNH regulations to also bar discrimination based on sexual orientation and religious affiliation.

The revised regulations effectively required private religious schools who adhere to traditional Christian teaching to nonetheless hire atheists as teachers and/or abandon student and faculty code-of-conduct requirements regarding sexuality and marriage, or else forgo serving LNH students.

Hofmeister did not relent until the office of then-Attorney General Mike Hunter issued an official opinion on Dec. 3, 2020, which concluded that the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s LNH revisions were illegal.

The attorney general opinion stated that “as a straightforward textual matter, private schools that seek to participate in the Henry Program must not discriminate on the basis of ‘race, color, or national origin.’ Nothing else is required … with respect to nondiscrimination.”

Hunter’s opinion also concluded the OSDE rule “misinterprets both federal law and the statute authorizing the Henry Program, and was therefore beyond the authority of the Department to promulgate under the Administrative Procedures Act. Accordingly, the rule is not enforceable to the extent it adds to the requirements set forth in statute.”

Since the Hofmeister rule rewrite was jettisoned, private-school participation in the LNH program has exploded.

Average LNH Scholarship Is $7,968 

Private schools have embraced the LNH program and the special-needs students it benefits even though the average LNH scholarship is significantly less than the average per-pupil funding provided to public schools.

In the 2022-2023 school year, the most recent for which data are available, the LNH program provided $10.1 million in scholarships to 1,274 students (after deducting students who qualified but withdrew from the program or declined assistance).

That means the average LNH scholarship that year was $7,968 per student, which is substantially less than the per-pupil average in public schools that same year.

According to Oklahoma State Department of Education data from the Oklahoma Cost Accounting System, public school district expenditures in 2023 totaled $9,538,453,992, and enrollment in the 2022-2023 school year totaled 701,066 students. That means Oklahoma public schools had an average of $13,605 per student that year.

Thus, the average LNH scholarship in the 2022-2023 school year was about 59 percent of the per-pupil average in public schools, yet private schools are readily accepting LNH students, whose learning challenges may require greater support measures than what other students require.

The actual amount spent on LNH scholarships has proven to be far less than what program opponents predicted when the scholarship was created in 2010.

During House floor debate on the creation of the LNH program on May 21, 2010, then-state Rep. Fred Jordan, R-Jenks, stated, “We have 1,954 students on IEPs (in the Jenks school district), a weighted-average-daily-membership cost in Jenks of $14,196. Members, if 10 percent of IEP students in Jenks take this scholarship, the Jenks district is going to be paying and writing checks for $2,768,220.”

After leaving the Legislature, Jordan became a contract lobbyist for the Jenks school district.