SAN ANTONIO – Approximately 25,000 applicants were marked ineligible or denied for Texas Education Freedom Accounts in the first year of the program.
Tasha Barreda applied for TEFA for her 13-year-old daughter, Emma, but was one of the applicants denied.
Emma has Down syndrome and goes to River City Christian School on the North Side.
“It’s expensive, but they were so good,” Barreda said. “She went from being non-verbal to now she speaks.”
The Barredas rely on family assistance and scholarships to afford the school.
“My son, he used to help me pay for the school because we couldn’t afford it,” Barreda said. “It was so expensive. This last year, I got a scholarship.”
For the upcoming school year, the Barredas were banking on Texas Education Freedom Accounts, considering they are in the Tier One priority group based on their income and Emma’s disability.
However, Emma’s application was denied because of a missing tax form that Tasha Barreda said she is not required to submit.
“I am 100% disabled veteran,” Barreda said, “and so we do not file income taxes.”
TEFA Spokesperson Travis Pillow said there is an appeals process for those who were denied.
“We have held back about 10% of our total funding so that we can accommodate any family who submits an appeal,” Pillow said. “So that’s another $90 million in accounts that we will be able to fund in the coming weeks.”
Barreda said her appeal was denied, however. She said someone at the comptroller’s office told her to submit the income tax form she typically is not supposed to file.
When Barreda resubmitted the form with the appeal, the comptroller’s office denied her appeal and told her she needed to submit the form during the regular application process and to try again next year.
“It would have been a huge difference, and it was going to be like finally a relief,” Barreda said about the possibility of receiving the funding.
Barreda also told TheTXLoop she was an advocate for Texas Education Freedom Accounts from the beginning.
“I was one of the people who was calling the governor. I was calling all the legislators, and I was right there, right there with them,” Barreda said, “and so yeah, it really hurt because this was so important to me. … I can’t understand how such an important government program would not allow or give us options for veterans.”
Pillow said anyone who wishes to appeal the comptroller’s decision for their child’s Texas Education Freedom Accounts application can email their appeal to help.tx@withodyssey.com .
“We certainly want to make sure that, particularly the military families who are in unique circumstances, that our application process acknowledges the unique challenges that they face in terms of providing certain documentation,” Pillow said.
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