DC School Choice Bill Extends Program to 2032, Adds Pre-K Funding, and Shifts Reporting Focus from Grades to Discipline

The SOAR Act Improvements Act is less about creating a new program and more about giving a major tune-up—and a much longer lease on life—to the existing Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) program in the District of Columbia. If you’re a parent, a teacher, or just someone who pays attention to where tax dollars go, this bill matters because it locks in the program’s funding through Fiscal Year 2032, expands who can use the scholarships, and significantly changes how the program is watched and evaluated.

More Years, More Flexibility, More Money

One of the biggest takeaways is longevity: the bill extends the authorization of appropriations for SOAR until FY 2032 (Sec. 8). That’s nearly another decade of operation. For schools currently receiving grants, the bill offers a huge stability boost. Five-year grants can now be renewed for another five years without going through a full competitive application process. The catch? The Secretary just needs to decide the extension is “best for keeping the program running smoothly” (Sec. 2). That’s a pretty vague standard, and it hands a lot of discretion to the Secretary to rubber-stamp renewals without requiring the same level of scrutiny a fresh application would.

For families, the scope of the scholarship is expanding. Funds can now be used for pre-kindergarten instead of just starting at kindergarten (Sec. 4). This is a big win for early childhood education access. The bill also explicitly allows grant recipients to use funds for tutoring and student academic assistance, prioritizing those services for students who previously attended the lowest-performing public schools (Sec. 4). This aims to provide targeted support where it’s needed most. To help cover these expansions, the total funding cap is being bumped up slightly, from $2 million to $2.2 million (Sec. 4).

The Accreditation and Admissions Fine Print

If you run a private school that relies on SOAR funds, the bill offers some clarity on accreditation. Schools already participating just need to maintain their existing accreditation. New schools wanting to join the program get a five-year window after they start participating to become fully accredited (Sec. 3). This provides a necessary ramp-up period for compliance.

There’s also a subtle but important change regarding admissions. The bill clarifies that the grant application process cannot mess with a school’s established, normal admission standards (Sec. 2). Essentially, schools can’t be forced to change who they admit just because they are applying for this specific federal funding.

Swapping Grades for Discipline in Reporting

Here’s where things get interesting for transparency. The bill modifies what schools must report annually to the government. Currently, schools have to report the aggregate academic achievement of other, non-scholarship students at the school to provide context. The SOAR Act Improvements Act removes this requirement (Sec. 7). In its place, the report must now explicitly list any incidents of school violence, student suspensions, and student expulsions.

This shift means less transparency on the overall academic environment of the scholarship schools. Stakeholders lose the ability to easily compare the academic performance of scholarship students against their peers at the same school. Instead, the focus shifts entirely to safety and discipline metrics. While reporting school safety is important, removing the academic context metric reduces the public’s ability to gauge the overall academic health of these schools.

Changes to Program Evaluation

The evaluation process itself is getting a makeover (Sec. 6). The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) now has the authority to administer standardized tests specifically for evaluation purposes. The evaluation schedule is also changing; the next report is due by January 1, 2027, and then every seven years after that. The evaluation must still compare the academic progress of scholarship students against a similar group of students in D.C. public schools and public charter schools.

Crucially, the evaluation requirements drop the mandate to assess parent and student satisfaction with their choices (Sec. 6). Instead, the focus shifts to satisfaction with the program itself. This might seem minor, but it moves the focus away from assessing the value of school choice options and centers it on the administrative success of the scholarship program, which is a different measure entirely.