A Florida-based virtual school could receive Texas taxpayer funds through the state’s new $1 billion private school voucher program, despite provisions in the law meant to block out-of-state schools from joining the program.
State records show that the Texas Comptroller’s office approved NFC Academy — North Forest Baptist Church Academy based in Tallahassee — to participate in the voucher program on March 13. The school, which teaches a biblical worldview to students in grades K-12, had been “pursuing approval” for the Texas program, according to its website.
Texas vouchers can go to different providers, including private and virtual schools, pre-K programs, homeschool materials and other vendors, like therapists or tutors.
Vendors and private schools have different eligibility requirements. But NFC Academy appears to have entered the program through a potential loophole between how the two categories are defined — allowing out-of-state schools to receive state funds if they are “acting as a vendor.”
The school was only allowed on the program as a vendor — not as a virtual school — and therefore is not eligible for the full funding amount of $10,500 for private schools, according to the Texas Comptroller’s office. However, it is still listed as an online school on the state’s map.
Dee Carney, director of the Texas Center for Voucher Transparency, said the Florida school’s approval goes back to a key question she has been asking about the voucher program: “Who’s benefiting: private entities or the Texas public?”
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Experts say the law leaves a gray area for out-of-state schools that join Texas’ program as online vendors.
Carney also said approving an out-of-state school “doesn’t seem to follow legislative intent that it needs to be located in the state.”
The Texas Education Code under Section 29.358 states that the comptroller may only approve an education service provider located in Texas or “a vendor of educational products registered to do business in this state.”
NFC Academy is not technically a vendor of educational products, but it applied to the Texas Education Freedom Accounts as a vendor and was approved as a “private school acting as a vendor of educational products or services,” according to state data. The school is registered to do business in Texas, according to the school’s director, Rick Fielding.
Pillow with the comptroller’s office said that while NFC Academy is listed as an online school on the state’s school map, they are only authorized to provide services that a vendor could provide, such as online courses or tutoring. He said all private schools need to follow the rules established by the comptroller’s office, which require schools to have “a physical location in the state of Texas.”
For virtual schools, “they need to be registered to do business in the state and, at a minimum, have an administration office that employs at least one Texas resident and attends to their business with the TEFA program,” the rules say. “They also need to show that their accreditation and other qualifications to participate in the program cover their Texas operations.”
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When state senators debated the voucher program in April 2025, the participation of out-of-state schools came up.
State Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, was discussing a proposed amendment to clarify that schools could not be located outside of Texas. Former state Sen. Brandon Creighton — a Republican from Conroe and the primary author of Senate Bill 2, also known as the Texas Education Freedom Act — ensured that the amendment stayed in the next version of the bill, saying that the bill’s intent was not to allow schools from other states to “siphon funds” from the program.
“The bill still requires all participating schools to be physically based in Texas so out-of-state virtual chains cannot come in and siphon funds,” Creighton told Menéndez.
And yet here we are. The most straightforward answer I can come up with is that the Comptroller made an incorrect decision, and the least they can do is review it. I doubt they’re likely to do that without feeling some pressure, and it’s not clear to me where any pressure that they would feel would come. They’re not going to care if Democrats carp about it. So don’t expect anything to happen here. But do expect this to happen again.