North Carolina House Speaker Pro Tem Paul “Skip” Stam of Wake County issued the following news release Friday. For decades Stam has been a champion of providing parents with more freedom to choose where and how their children are educated. To that end, he is also the champion of the Opportunity Scholarship program, which provides low-income parents with an option to send their kids to a private school that better serves their needs. Progressives are using the legal system to try and take away this opportunity.
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North Carolina Supreme Court to Decide on Opportunity Scholarship Appeal
Raleigh, NC – Today the North Carolina Supreme Court on its own initiative issued an order stating that it will take responsibility for the appeal of a decision by a Wake County judge regarding the Opportunity Scholarships. The case was pending before the NC Court of Appeals. The NC Supreme Court will now decide the case. All parties should be delighted with this development because the case was ultimately headed for the NC Supreme regardless of the decision by the NC Court of Appeals. This will expedite the decision regarding this appeal case.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals previously issued an order that allowed the scholarship money to be disbursed to the 1,878 applicants who accepted Opportunity Scholarships through the Opportunity Scholarship Program. The provision for new applicants for the spring semester of 2015 is still on hold. These parents and students need to know before the end of this year whether they will be able to attend the school that best suits their needs.
We are grateful for the decision. We thank the nearly 300 schools that continue to work with parents to allow students to attend the school of their choice while waiting for the distribution of scholarship money. We remain confident the Opportunity Scholarship program will be permitted to expand, allowing more parents to send their children to the school of their choice.
