HB 2532

ON APRIL 13, 2026, THE HOUSE ADOPTED AMENDMENTS #8, 2, 3, AND 9, AND PASSED HOUSE BILL 2532, AS AMENDED. AMENDMENT #8 prohibits an eligible student from receiving an education freedom scholarship if the student is enrolled in a private school that promotes or advocates for the support, adoption, or implementation of any foreign law, legal code, or system, i n this state that, if adopted or implemented, would violate rights guaranteed by the Tennessee Constitution or United States Constitution. This prohibition will be an exception to the present law provision that a private school that enrolls recipients is n ot required to alter its creed, practices, admission policies, hiring policies, or curriculum in order to accept recipients. AMENDMENT #2 rewrites this bill to change from 40,000 to 35,000 the maximum number of education freedom scholarships that may be awarded to eligible students in the 2026-2027 school year, removes the requirement that the governor elect to participate in the federal education tax credit program created in The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act, and makes the following additions and changes to present law concerning education freedom scholarships: (1) Present law provides a formula for providing additional funding to an LEA if the LEA's TISA allocation is less than the LEA's baseline funding. Present law also provides a mechanism for providing additional funding to an LEA that received a TISA al location less than the allocation for the preceding school year and the LEA experienced disenrollment. This amendment changes the allocation for an LEA that experienced disenrollment to the amount of the average per pupil state funds received by the LEA in the immediately preceding school year for each student who disenrolled from the LEA for the immediately preceding school year and received, for the immediately preceding school year, an education freedom scholarship; provided, that the sum total of any s uch additional funds received by an LEA must not exceed the LEA's TISA allocation for the immediately preceding school year. This amendment also requires the department to award additional funds to such an LEA under whichever provision results in the LEA r eceiving the greatest amount of additional funding; (2) Present law provides five levels of priority for awarding education freedom scholarship acts. The first level of priority is students who received a scholarship in the immediately preceding school year. For the fourth through fifth levels of prior ity, but not the first level, present law requires that the scholarships are awarded in the order the department received completed applications. This amendment makes awards in the first level of priority also subject to the requirement that scholarships a re awarded in the order that the department receives completed applications; (3) This amendment clarifies that, under the five levels of priority for the award of an education freedom scholarship, awards may only be provided to a student in the second or succeeding level(s) if scholarships remain after all eligible students in t he preceding level(s) have received a scholarship. This amendment also requires that, for each level of priority, scholarships must be awarded in the order in which the department receives completed scholarship applications; and (4) This amendment requires the department of education to annually report to the education committee of the senate and the committee of the house of representatives having jurisdiction over K-12 education the number of eligible students who applied for a scholarship, disaggregated by: (A) The number of applications received from each county; (B) The number of eligible students who, at the time of submitting a completed scholarship application, were enrolled in a public school; (C) The number of eligible students who, at the time of submitting a completed scholarship application, were not yet enrolled in school, but who were applying for a scholarship for kindergarten enrollment; and (D) To the extent such data is available to the department, the number of eligible students whose annual household income is within the priority levels used in awarding the scholarships. AMENDMENT #3 makes the clarification and new requirement to the scholarship priority levels, as described in (2) and (3) of the summary for House Amendment #2, effective beginning with the 2027-2028 school year. AMENDMENT #9 revises the hold harmless provisions under TISA for LEAs that experienced disenrollment, as described in (1) of the summary for House Amendment #2. For the 2026-2027 and 2027-2028 school years, if an LEA's TISA allocation for the current school year is less than the LEA's TISA allocation for the 2025-2026 school year, and the LEA experienced disenrollment, then this amendment requires the department to allocate additional funds to the LEA in the amount of the average per pupil state funds received by the LEA in the immediately preceding school year for each student who disenrolled from the LEA in the immediately preceding school year and who, at the t ime of the student's registration or enrollment in the LEA provided the LEA with the student's Social Security number. This amendment adds a requirement that, in order to receive such funds, LEAs report to the department the reason each non-virtual stude nt disenrolled from the LEA in the immediately preceding school year, regardless of whether the student provided the LEA with their Social Security number at the time of the student's registration or enrollment in the LEA. Beginning with the 2028-2029 school year, if the LEA's TISA allocation for the current school year is less than the LEA's TISA allocation for the 2025-2026 school year, and the LEA experienced disenrollment, then this amendment requires the department to allocate additional funds to the LEA in the amount of the average per pupil state funds received by the LEA in the immediately preceding school year for each student who disenrolled from the LEA for the immediately preceding school year and received, for t he immediately preceding school year, an education freedom scholarship. Under either of the foregoing provisions, the sum total of any additional funds received by an LEA must not exceed the LEA's TISA allocation for the 2025-2026 school year. ON APRIL 16, 2026, THE SENATE SUBSTITUTED HOUSE BILL 2532 FOR SENATE BILL 2247, ADOPTED AMENDMENT #5, AND PASSED HOUSE BILL 2532, AS AMENDED. AMENDMENT #5 makes the following changes:  Requires the department of education to allocate additional funds to a local education agency (LEA) for the 2026-2027 school year, if an LEA's TISA allocation for the current school year is less than the LEA's TISA allocation for the 2025-2026 school year and the LEA experienced disenrollment. Such additional allocation must be equal to the amount of the difference between the LEA's TISA allocation for the current school year and the LEA's TISA allocation for the 2025-2026 school year.  Requires the department of education to allocate additional funds to an LEA for the 2027-2028 and 2028-2029 school year if an LEA's TISA allocation for the current school year is less than the LEA's TISA allocation for the 2025-2026 school year and the LEA has experienced disenrollment. Such additional allocation must be in the amount of the average per pupil state funds received by the LEA in the immediately preceding school year for each student who disenrolled for the LEA in the immediately preceding school year and, at the time of the student's registration or enrollment, provided the LEA with the student's social security number.  Requires the department of education to allocate additional funds to an LEA starting with the 2029-2030 school year if an LEA's TISA allocation is less than the LEA's TISA allocation for the 2025-2026 school year, and the LEA experienced disenrollment. Such allocation must be in the amount of the average per pupil state funds received by the LEA in the immediately preceding school year for each student who disenrolled from the LEA for the immediately preceding school year and received an education freedom scholarship.  Requires each LEA, as a condition to the receipt of any additional funds, to report to the department the reason for disenrollment provided by each non-virtual student who disenrolled in the immediately preceding school year.  Clarifies that the sum total of any additional funds received by an LEA pursuant to this bill must not be greater than the difference between the LEA's TISA allocation for the current year and the LEA's TISA allocation for the 2025-2026 school year.  Clarifies that an LEA may only receive additional funds through one available mechanism.  Provides that "disenrollment, as used in this bill, means that the LEA's non-virtual average daily membership for the current school year is lower than the LEA's non-virtual average daily membership for the immediately preceding school year."