Local family hopeful legislation will help with daughter's tuition

Coupon clipping and fundraisers have become a necessity for a Center Grove area family if they want to continue sending their daughter to private school.

Rose and Brian Myers started sending 9-year-old Eva Myers to SS. Francis and Clare Catholic School about three years ago. The day before Eva’s first day at her new school, Brian Myers lost his job with a speaker manufacturing company in Indianapolis.

That dropped the family’s annual income from about $92,000 to about $12,000, but because Eva hadn’t felt challenged by her assignments in public school, her parents were committed to affording the annual $4,300 cost of private school. So for the past three years, they’ve clipped coupons to save money on groceries, kept their thermostat set at 60 degrees in the winter and 75 degrees in the summer and haven’t taken a family vacation.

Currently, the family, which runs the Pilsung martial arts studio in Greenwood, makes $38,400 to $48,000 per year. That amount would qualify them for one of Indiana’s school choice vouchers, which would pay for half of Eva Myers’ tuition. But under the requirements of the program, because she was enrolled in private school before the voucher program was launched in 2011, the Myers family can’t get a voucher unless Eva Myers leaves SS. Francis and Clare and re-enrolls in public school for one year — a move the family is considering.

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