Congratulations Treasurer Pack and the WVSTO Team; Promise Made and Promise Kept
The Number 1 Reason Parents Choose Hope is to Provide Their Children a Religious-Based Education
This is the type of email we all want to receive first thing in the morning.
Yes; the system of legislators, parents, pastors, students, educators and all the other believers in a parent's right to choose the best education for their children worked together tirelessly but the people who made it happen were the great people in the West Virginia State Treasure's Office and we all thank you!!
West Virginia State Treasurer Larry Pack and Governor Patrick Morrisey announced in March that all West Virginia children in grades K-12, including existing private school and traditional homeschool students who have not previously been eligible for the Hope Scholarship Program, are now eligible to apply to participate in the State’s Education Savings Account program that provides funding, beginning August 15, to students exercising school choice in lieu of attending public school full-time.
Since January, nearly 29,000 students have started Hope Scholarship applications for the 2026-2027 school year. Of those applications, more than 25,000 student accounts will receive the first round of funding with 1,485 active providers for families to access high-quality educational resources.
On August 6, Treasurer Pack announced that funding would actually be two days early. “Our Hope Scholarship team continues to set the gold standard for government by prioritizing speed, efficiency, responsiveness, and outstanding customer service. Their commitment to serving West Virginia families has put us ahead of schedule, allowing us to distribute the first quarterly payments early so parents can confidently prepare for the upcoming school year,” Treasurer Pack said. “What is truly amazing is that the Hope Scholarship has become what may be the largest school district in West Virginia due to expanded eligibility. As more students apply for the program, we will continue to help families access educational opportunities that best meet their child’s needs.”
Hope must be graded by the parents who use it.
“Since I took office, it has been our goal to better understand why parents are choosing the Hope Scholarship for their children,” Treasurer Pack said about the Hope Scholarship Parent Satisfaction Survey that went out to parents this spring. “It is clear parents are taking advantage of additional options within our education system to find the best fit for their child’s unique needs – and we want to learn more about that. We truly believe this data can be beneficial to conversations we are having with policy makers, the media, and the public.”The survey includes 12 multiple choice questions and one open-ended question for families to provide detailed feedback of their experience with the Hope Scholarship Program. The overwhelming opinions of parents of children participating in the Hope Scholarship were very positive and the number 1 reason is that they wanted to provide a religious based education. The WVSTO Survey data closely parallels a Pew/NCES study which says 75% of those surveyed who chose homeschooling for their children over public schools was to provide moral instruction and 53% said to provide religious instruction.
According to Michelle Penaloza, Hope Scholarship Program Executive Director: "As of the end of day on August 13, Hope stands at Non-public schools: 12,800, IIP: 10,062 Not chosen at this time: 2513".
The New TheoPay system
Hope Scholarship families have the unique experience of shopping for qualifying expenses online! TheoPay is the tool that Hope Scholarship account holders use to make purchases for educational supplies from approved external websites using their students’ Hope Scholarship funds. Once your student’s account has been funded, the TheoPay yellow tile will be activated on your dashboard in the Hope Scholarship online portal. Families now have more than 250 TheoPay vendors whitelisted in the Hope Scholarship program to help find high-quality educational resources for their students!
New TheoPay Orientation
To be more efficient and provide better customer service to the more than 25,000 participating families receiving funding this month, the Hope Scholarship Program has launched TheoPay Self-Serve for purchases with an online cart total of $75 or less. This feature eliminates waiting in a queue for the Hope Engagement Center to fulfill your online orders. TheoPay Self-Serve lets you shop from approved external websites and pay with a one-time digital payment card connected to your student’s Hope Scholarship funds.
Instead of submitting your TheoPay order through TheoPay Fulfillment, eligible purchases are completed by you. You control the entire shopping and order process, including receiving information about shipping, tracking updates, and completing returns.
You may opt out of TheoPay Self-Serve at any time by submitting to the fulfillment team.
IMPORTANT: When using TheoPay Self-Serve, click on Unlock Payment (orange button) to process payment for allowable items. Only click on the yellow highlighted "Or submit for fulfillment" if you would like to revert to a manual order fulfillment through the Hope Engagement Center.
The Hope Scholarship program recently hosted a webinar to showcase the new updates to TheoPay for the 2026-2027 school year. The webinar was recorded for future reference and can be accessed below or at hopescholarshipwv.gov.
Participating Hope Scholarship families now have the option to use TheoPay Fulfillment or TheoPay Self-Serve for all of their students’ educational supplies. When using TheoPay Fulfillment, you do not check out and make purchases using your own payment card information. Instead, you scan your online cart, and then the order goes to the Hope Engagement Center where a representative will manually place the order and have the items sent directly to your student. This process may take up to 14 days to receive your purchases during peak funding times around August 15, October 15, January 15, and April 15.
We must all be good stewards of the opportunity that Hope provides our children.
To those of you who are new to Hope like our family, Hope is a blessing and so are the other Hope users who are willing to share their knowledge and experiences. Katie Switzer manages the Facebook group for Hope users and offers these tips:
Please be aware that the money that was deposited into your account today must be used for only the purposes for which we agreed to accept it- our children' s education. So here is a check list for what you need to look for
- Do not rely on Student First Technology ( the Hope software provider), the AI cart scan or the fulfillment team to ensure your purchase is a qualifying academic expense!
- It does not matter if the order is an honest mistake on your part, and that it was approved by SFT; we all know that online ordering sometimes makes errors.
- YOU, the account holder, will ultimately be held responsible to return that funding if a purchase is identified during an audit and determined to be a non-qualifying expense.
- You do not want this to happen to you and the WVSTO Staff may freeze your account while they audit and get to the bottom of it. You may have to justify yourself at an appeal board hearing. And, ultimately, if you have to pay it back they will make you do that or be on a payment plan before your marketplace access is restored.
We are all in this together and everything that each of us do reflects not only on us and our children but the entire Hope Scholarship Program.
Many families spent hours driving to the Capitol in February of this year, some day after day, to defend Hope in the House Finance Committee. Thanks to dozens of families who showed up with their kids and hundreds of emails and calls to legislators to support Hope in it’s current form, it stayed as the premier Education of Choice funding system in the US and prevented irreparable harm to our kids' educational funding access.
Every purchase you make is an opportunity to show that we are good stewards of our children's Hope Scholarship funding. So please consider the headlines before you make a questionable purchase because some of the media loves to hate Hope.
Do you want your family's Hope headlines to be, "Family gives their child amazing opportunities for music/athletics and quality curriculum?" Or do you want your family's Hope headline to hurt us all with, "Hope Family Buys Witchcraft Items, $3,000 computer for a kindergartener, enough T-Shirts to start a commercial printing business, and Books about Marijuana growing with Their Funds!!!"
Please, for the love of Peter Pan... help your family and 25,000 other kids keep their Hope funding with judicious and reasonable academic purchases with Hope funds. Avoid grey area and put real consideration into the "excessive quantities" and "age appropriate" line in the NQE
HGN Staff
His Good News magazine seeks to unite and empower parents, educators, legislators, and voters in West Virginia to support and advance Christian education, religious freedom, and conservative values. By fostering a strong Jesus-based foundation within our communities, we can influence legislation, protect religious freedoms, and ensure that our children receive a quality Christian education.
