Hundreds of Bibb public school students approved for school choice vouchers

With students heading back to school next month, 582 students in Bibb County’s public schools were approved to receive $6,500 to help pay for enrollment in private schools or home school programs using the state’s new Promise Scholarship program, according to the Georgia Student Finance Commission.

It was unclear how many of the students use the scholarship to leave their respective public schools.

The Promise Scholarship awards money annually to students enrolled at any one of the dozens of attendance across the state with at least one school that’s been identified by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement as being in the lowest-performing quartile. 

All Bibb County Schools students are eligible for the scholarship because every attendance zone in the county has at least one school in the bottom 25% performing schools. 

Most schools in the Bibb County School District — 22 of 33 — made the lowest-performing list and 582 of 866 students who applied for the scholarship were accepted.  

Those 582 students represent 2.75% of the 21,146 students enrolled in the Bibb County School District, according to enrollment counts released by the Georgia Department of Education in March.

The scholarship announcement comes as the school district continues to grapple with yearslong concerns about low student enrollment. The school board spent about a year studying possible school closures as a cost saving measure, but ultimately decided against closing any schools.

The state student finance commission received scholarship applications from 15,300 students across the state. 

The Bibb County School District is monitoring enrollment as it approaches the start of the school year.

“We’ll continue with the school year as planned,” said Stephanie Hartley, a spokesperson for the district.

Across the state, about 64% of eligible students selected a private school as their intended place of study, according to the state release.

In Bibb County, private school tuition ranges from $5,100 per year for pre-school at Central Fellowship Christian Academy to $21,400 per year for high school at Stratford Academy. The lowest high school tuition offered by a Macon private school is $9,000 per year, according to 2024 tuition numbers.

A new federal program signed into law earlier this month under President Donald Trump’s giant tax and spending bill offers tax credits to students who enroll in private schools.

States have to opt into the bill and it remains to be seen whether Georgia will choose to adopt the new federal program when it already has the Promise Scholarship in place.