Vermont Families Win Settlement Against State Over Using Education Aid Money at Religious Schools

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A federal court has approved a settlement between a group of Vermont parents and state education officials, finally putting an end to a two-year legal battle over whether the government can deny families of education aid money just because they use the money at religious schools.

Under the terms of the agreement (pdf), signed off Thursday by a U.S. District Court judge, Vermont will no longer exclude religious schools from its tuition benefit program, reimburse families who have wrongly denied tuition, and pay attorneys’ fees.

Vermont’s tuition program, one of the oldest of its kind in the United States, provides education vouchers for students living in towns that are usually too small or sparsely populated to have a public school. Designated “sending towns” receive the money and pay tuition directly to the school of the student’s choice, which can be public, secular private, or home school in or outside Vermont.

The case was brought in September 2020 by Michael and Nancy Valente, whose son Dominic was attending a private Catholic school, which meets all the qualifications for the tuition assistance program except that it’s not a secular school.

Citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision that summer, the Valentes argued that it’s unconstitutional for them not to be able to support their son’s education using benefits they’re entitled to just because of their religious affiliation.

In June 2020, the high court ruled 5–4 that the state of Montana can create a tax-credit scholarship program for private schools, even if most of the money would be used at religious schools. This effectively killed all state constitutional provisions blocking tax money from going into religious education.

“A State need not subsidize private education,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

In a follow-up to the Montana case, the Supreme Court in June 2022 ruled that the state of Maine may not exclude students who attend otherwise qualified religious schools from the state-run education aid program. In light of that ruling, Vermont’s education department in September 2022 sent a letter (pdf) to all district superintendents, telling them that qualified religious schools “must be treated the same” as their secular counterparts when it comes to tuition payment requests.

The Valentes welcomed the outcome of the lawsuit. “Not every Vermonter has access to a local public school,” said Michael. “Now families like mine have the ability to pick the best school for their children, regardless of whether the school is religious or not.”

Institute for Justice (IJ), a non-profit libertarian legal group representing the Valentes and two other families that joined later, said the settlement will bring Vermont in line with the Supreme Court rulings.

“This settlement guarantees that any Vermont family eligible for tuition benefits can use those benefits to find the best education that meets their kids’ needs,” IJ Attorney David Hodges said in a statement. “Vermonters will no longer have their civil rights violated when they send their children to schools that happen to be religious.”