Arizona ESA Funds: How to Use Your Empowerment Scholarship for Homeschool, Tutoring and Classes

Our family is an ESA family. Leeann homeschools our five kids, and she is the one who sat at the kitchen table two winters ago, looked up from the laptop and said, “There is a learning curve here.” There was. She climbed it, and I’ve watched her walk a lot of other parents up it since, because our studio is also an ESA vendor and every fall the same questions come through the front desk. So this is the page I wish we’d had. What the Arizona ESA is, who gets it, how much it is, how to apply, how to actually spend it, and how families use it here. Plain language, no forms required to read it.

One honest note before we start: the program changes every year, and the numbers below are what the Department of Education published for this school year. When a number matters to your family, confirm it at azed.gov/esa before you count on it.

What is the Arizona ESA?

ESA stands for Empowerment Scholarship Account. Reduced to its simplest form, it is an account. The State of Arizona takes most of the money it would have spent educating your child in a district or charter school and puts it into an account in your child’s name instead, and you direct it to the education you choose: a private school, homeschool curriculum, tutors, online programs, therapies, and enrichment classes like the ones we teach. The money is not taxable income, and what you don’t spend rolls over while your student stays in the program.

It isn’t new. Arizona started the ESA in 2011 for students with disabilities and a few other groups. In 2022 the legislature opened it to every K-12 student in the state, which is why you’re suddenly hearing about it from everyone at church and the park.

Who qualifies for the Arizona ESA?

Everyone. Under what the Department calls universal eligibility, every Arizona resident in kindergarten through twelfth grade can apply. There is no income limit, no requirement to have attended public school first, and no geographic limit; a family in Wickenburg qualifies exactly like a family in Scottsdale. Preschool students qualify only with a documented disability.

Two rules trip people up. Your student cannot be enrolled in a public or charter school at the same time, not even part-time, and you cannot take an ESA and a private school tuition tax credit scholarship in the same year. Pick one.

When you sign the contract you agree to four things: to provide instruction in reading and grammar, math, science and social studies; to release the school district from its obligation to educate your student; to take no other scholarship; and to spend the account only on approved educational expenses. That’s the whole deal.

Arizona ESA amount: how much do students receive?

For this school year, a general education student in grades one through twelve receives about $7,000 a year, and a kindergartner about $4,000. Students with an IEP, a 504 plan or a qualifying disability receive more, sometimes a great deal more, depending on the category. The exact award is set by the Department each year from the state’s per-pupil formula and shown in your student’s account. Money arrives in quarterly deposits into ClassWallet, and unused funds carry forward.

For a family with three homeschooled kids, that is roughly $21,000 a year of curriculum, lessons and classes that used to come out of the grocery budget. It changed what our kids get to do, and it is the reason this page exists.

How to apply for the ESA in Arizona

Applications are open all year on the Department’s ESA portal, and most families apply under the heading “Universal.” Ours was processed in a little over two weeks; the Department says to allow several. Here’s what to have on hand.

• Your student’s birth certificate. The applying parent’s name has to be on it, or you’ll need the documentation that connects you.
• Proof that you live in Arizona. A driver’s license or state ID, a utility bill, a lease or mortgage statement, a property tax bill, a pay stub or a bank statement all work. We sent a water bill.
• The IEP or 504 plan, if your student has one, because it changes the award.

Once the application is approved you’ll get an email with a contract to sign. Read it. Signing it is your legal agreement to the four items above. Then there is a short wait while the account is funded, which for us was quick.

One thing homeschool families miss: an ESA student is not a homeschooler in the eyes of the law. You do not file the homeschool affidavit with your county, and if you already filed one, you may need to withdraw it. Call your county superintendent’s office and ask; it takes five minutes.

If you get stuck anywhere in the process, the ESA Support Line is 602-364-1969, weekdays 8 AM to 8 PM and Saturday mornings, and there is a help desk on the portal. Leeann has called it enough times that they should know her by name. They are patient people.

How to use ESA funds: ClassWallet, the debit card and reimbursement

Every dollar moves through a platform called ClassWallet, which you reach from the ESA portal or from ClassWallet directly. If you have more than one ESA student, they each get an account and you switch between them from the welcome menu. There are three ways to spend.

1. Pay a vendor inside ClassWallet. Schools, tutors, curriculum companies and studios that have registered as ESA vendors can be paid straight from the account, either through the marketplace or by choosing the vendor and entering the amount. Nothing comes out of your pocket.
2. The ESA debit card. You can request a card for each student’s account and use it anywhere a card is taken, including our front desk. This is the route most families end up preferring because the vendor gets paid on the spot. It cannot be used for private school tuition; that goes through the portal.
3. Buy it yourself and get reimbursed. Pay with your own money, upload the receipt, and the account pays you back. Slower, but it works for anything a vendor hasn’t set up a listing for.

Receipts are the whole game. Keep them, file them by student, and upload them promptly, because a card with too many missing receipts gets switched off. The Department loosened the receipt rule for some categories in the current handbook, so check which purchases still need an upload before you assume.

What can ESA funds be used for? The allowable list

More than most families expect. The Department publishes the full allowable-expense list in the parent handbook, and these are the categories that matter to most homeschool and private school families:

• Curricula, and the supplemental materials a curriculum requires or recommends
• Educational materials and reading books
• Online learning programs and educational subscriptions
• Tutoring in the core subjects: reading, grammar, math, science, social studies
• Tutoring in specific subjects: PE, music, art, karate, gymnastics and the like, which is where acting classes live
• Instrument rental, national standardized testing, and uniforms required by a school or co-op
• Private school tuition, and services purchased from a public school
• Post-secondary tuition and expenses
• For students with a qualifying disability: educational therapies, evaluations, assistive technology, paraprofessionals and vocational tuition

Yes, ESA funds can pay private school tuition. Yes, they can pay for piano, swim, drums, ballet and acting. Our oldest has done all five on his account at one time or another.

How to use ESA funds for curriculum: where to start

This is Leeann’s list, not mine, and she’s been homeschooling since our oldest was in kindergarten. It is a starting point, not a verdict; a weekend of reading will turn up dozens more, and the beauty of the ESA is that you can afford to try one and switch.

• All-in-one boxed curriculum: Memoria Press, My Father’s World, Sonlight, Simply Charlotte Mason, A Gentle Feast, Teaching Textbooks, Ambleside Online
• Math: Beast Academy, Math-U-See, Horizons Math, Saxon
• History: Story of the World
• Reading: All About Reading
• Language arts: Brave Writer, Logic of English
• Spelling: Traditional Spelling, Spelling Workout
• Science: Science in the Ancient World, Apologia

Most of these publishers are registered vendors, so they can be paid inside ClassWallet; the rest go on the debit card or through reimbursement. Latin, logic, Shakespeare, Spanish and poetry have all become central in our house, none of them required, all of them allowable. Part of what makes homeschooling work is that your kids get more hours for the things they care about most. Which brings me to ours.

ESA vendors in Arizona: how to find and pay one

An ESA vendor is any business or teacher that has registered with ClassWallet to be paid from ESA accounts. Search the marketplace by name or category and you’ll find the big curriculum houses, most private schools, and a growing list of tutors, music teachers, gyms and studios around Phoenix. If a provider you love isn’t listed yet, you are not stuck: pay them with the debit card or with your own card and submit the receipt, as long as what you bought fits an allowable category. Ask them for a receipt that names the student, the service and the dates. It makes the upload painless.

Using ESA funds for acting classes at Dearing Acting Studio

Dearing Acting Studio is a registered ESA vendor, and our kid and teen programs are an approved use of Empowerment Scholarship funds under tutoring in the arts. Kids and teens run the same curriculum as our adults, script one night and improv another, every class on camera and on tape so a parent can watch what happened. Nobody gets dumbed down here. Three ways to pay:

1. In ClassWallet, choose Pay Vendor and search for Dearing Acting Studio.
2. With the ESA debit card, at enrollment or at the front desk, like any other card.
3. By reimbursement: enroll normally, keep the receipt we email you, and upload it.

If you’d rather talk it through first, call or text the studio at 480-313-9901 and we’ll walk you through whichever route your family uses. Here are the classes.

Kid and teen classes at Dearing Acting Studio

Both kid classes together are $230 a month, and both teen classes together are $370, which is less than taking them separately. Kids are 5 to 11, teens 11 to 17. Everything meets in Phoenix.

Arizona ESA questions we get asked most

Can ESA funds pay for private school?

Yes. Tuition at a private school is paid through the ClassWallet portal to the school directly, not with the debit card.

Can I use ESA funds for acting classes?

Yes. Acting, music, art, dance, martial arts and gymnastics instruction fall under tutoring in specific subjects on the allowable list. Our classes are paid for this way every month.

Do I still file a homeschool affidavit?

No. An ESA student is an ESA student, not a homeschooler, under Arizona law. If you filed one before joining, check with your county about withdrawing it.

Can I take the ESA and a tuition tax credit scholarship?

No. It is one or the other in a given year.

What if I have more than one student?

Each student has an account and an award. In ClassWallet, use the welcome menu to switch between them, and keep receipts filed by child; every purchase has to be tied to the student it was for.

That’s the guide. If you take one thing from it: apply, even if you’re not sure yet what you’ll use it for. The account is your child’s, the decisions are yours, and there are more good options out there than one family can use in a lifetime. We’re glad to be one of them.