Idaho School Choice Tax Credit: Third-Party and Multi-Developer Curriculum Rules

What Changed With HB 934

For tax year 2025, the original statute was ambiguous about whether families needed a single comprehensive curriculum package to qualify for the credit. Many parents interpreted this as requiring an all-in-one program from one publisher — something like Abeka, BJU Press, or Sonlight's complete package.

House Bill 934 (passed during the 2026 legislative session) settled the question. The amended statute explicitly allows families to assemble their core curriculum from multiple independent developers. You can use Saxon for math, IEW for writing, Apologia for science, and Notgrass for history — and every purchase qualifies individually, as long as each one covers a core academic subject.

The Four Core Subject Requirement

Regardless of how many publishers you use, your curriculum purchases must cover the four statutory core subjects: English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. Keep itemized paid records that show how the claimed materials cover these subject areas.

Each paid receipt or invoice needs to make the subject alignment clear. A workbook titled "Saxon Math 8/7" identifies its subject. If a bundle invoice does not identify the items and core-subject coverage, request itemized documentation from the publisher; a separate mapping document can supplement, but does not replace, the paid receipt.

How to Document Multi-Developer Purchases

When you're buying from three or four different publishers instead of one, the documentation load increases. Each vendor generates its own invoices, order confirmations, and shipping records. Here's what you need from each:

• Publisher or vendor name and contact information
• Exact title of each item purchased
• Date of purchase and amount paid
• Which core subject each item addresses
• Proof of completed payment (zero balance)

Keep a running spreadsheet that maps every purchase to its subject. When the Tax Commission reviews your records — whether during initial processing or a later audit — they want to see that you covered all four core subjects through qualified third-party materials.

What Doesn't Count as "Curriculum"

The multi-developer rule expands what you can buy, not what categories qualify. These remain outside the statute:

• General supplies: notebooks, pencils, art supplies, and craft materials
• Technology hardware: computers, tablets, and printers (unless bundled into a school's mandatory fee structure)
• Internet service: your home broadband bill doesn't qualify
• Non-core subjects: standalone music lessons, art classes, PE equipment, and foreign language materials outside the core four
• Parent instruction fees: your own teaching time, regardless of your qualifications

Mixing Publishers With Online Courses and Tutoring

The multi-developer rule works alongside the separate tutoring and testing categories. A family might use print curriculum from two publishers for two subjects, then add academic tutoring from a non-family instructor in a core subject. An online course or co-op class is not automatically qualified; its cost must fit a listed category, such as tuition or mandatory academic fees at an eligible nonpublic school, microschool, or learning pod, or qualifying core-subject tutoring.

This layered approach often gets families closer to the $5,000 per-student cap than a single comprehensive program would, because it lets you optimize spending across the categories that match your actual educational approach.

The Idaho Parental Choice Tax Credit Parent Guide includes a qualified expense matrix that maps common homeschool purchases to the statutory categories, plus sample multi-developer budgets for different grade levels and teaching styles.

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