Leanna Decicco

To the committee members, I am a mother of 3 children. My oldest son attends private school, my middle son is disabled with an extensive IEP, and my youngest daughter will hopefully be attending the same private school as my oldest next year. The ETC scholarship as well as the EFA are integral to our oldest son staying in his current private school where he is thriving and excelling academically. While I understand that some may view any school choice law as taking from the many to give to a few wealthy families this simply is not the reality. We are a single income household, my husband works blue collar in a wearhouse and I am a stay at home mom. We live in a very modest house and paycheck to paycheck. The ETC is a scholarship that has academic and attendance requirements. The EFA funds are educational tax dollars following the child. They are two separate entities. To say a child cannot receive the benefit of their parents tax dollars while also receiving a scholarship is absurd. Could you imagine is UNH said a NH resident could not receive the in-state tuition rate if they also received a private or school based scholarship? There would be screaming from the peak of Mt. Washington. However, when it comes to K-12 education there seems to be a disconnect when a family opts out of the public system. All children are entitled to benefit of the tax spent in there state and all children are entitled to take advantage of any scholarships they qualify for through their merit. The ETC and EFA coexist for the benefit of all children that qualify for them. They take nothing from others, rather they allocate existing funds to the place that the child receives their education.