Utah Fits All Curriculum, Tutoring, and Therapy Expenses: What's Approved

Curriculum and Textbooks: The Core Category

Curriculum purchases are the most straightforward scholarship expense. The program approves spending on core academic subjects — math, science, language arts, history, foreign languages — whether you're buying physical textbooks, workbooks, or complete curriculum packages.

Religious curriculum is also approved, with one condition: the program must include non-sectarian academic subjects alongside the religious content. A Bible-based reading comprehension curriculum that teaches literary analysis qualifies. A devotional study guide with no academic component doesn't.

Online curriculum platforms and educational software subscriptions count too, as long as they serve an explicit educational purpose. Subscriptions to platforms like IXL, Khan Academy premium features, or subject-specific course providers are approved. General entertainment subscriptions that happen to have an educational section are not.

What falls outside the category: general school supplies (pencils, paper, binders) aren't classified as curriculum. Lab equipment and science kits typically qualify if they're tied to a specific curriculum unit. Art supplies sit in a gray area — if they're part of a structured art curriculum, they're approvable. Random craft supplies are not.

Tutoring: Approved With Conditions

Private tutoring is one of the largest spending categories across all scholarship families. The program approved $10.6 million in educational services, therapies, and tutoring during the 2025–26 year alone.

To use scholarship funds for tutoring, the tutor must meet two requirements:

1. They cannot be the parent of the scholarship student. Scholarship funds cannot pay a parent to teach their own child. Ask Odyssey about other family members before hiring them as providers.

2. All instructional personnel must pass criminal background checks. This is required under Utah Code § 53F-6-407 for any qualifying provider. Individual tutors can register through the Odyssey portal's provider onboarding process.

Tutoring through the Odyssey marketplace is simplest — the platform handles provider verification and spending controls automatically. For tutors outside the marketplace, you'll submit manual reimbursement claims with itemized receipts showing the tutor's name, dates of service, subjects covered, and hourly rate.

Music Lessons: A Tricky Category

Here's where it gets specific. Musical instruments are expressly prohibited under the HB 455 amendments — you cannot buy or rent a piano, guitar, violin, or any other instrument with scholarship funds.

But music instruction itself — lessons with a qualified teacher — falls under educational services, which is an approved category. Piano lessons from a background-checked instructor are approvable. The piano itself is not.

Voice lessons, music theory courses, and composition instruction follow the same rule: the teaching is approved, the instruments and equipment are not.

This creates a practical split for music-focused families. You can use scholarship funds for qualifying music instruction, online music courses, and theory workbooks. The instrument itself must be purchased out of pocket.

Educational Therapies: What Qualifies

Scholarship funds cover therapeutic services when they serve an educational purpose and are provided by licensed professionals:

• Speech therapy from a licensed speech-language pathologist
• Occupational therapy focused on educational functioning — fine motor skills for writing, sensory processing that affects classroom participation
• Behavioral therapy from licensed providers, particularly for students with autism spectrum disorder or other behavioral needs that affect learning

The program doesn't adjust award amounts based on disability status, but families with children who need specialized therapies often find these services consume a significant portion of their annual award. A child receiving weekly occupational therapy at $150 per session spends $6,000 to $7,000 per year on therapy alone — more than the elementary-age home-based award.

Therapists need to be registered as qualifying providers through the Odyssey platform or provide documentation that satisfies the manual reimbursement requirements: licensed credentials, itemized invoices showing dates and services, and a clear connection between the therapy and the student's educational needs.

Spending Caps That Affect These Categories

Core curriculum and tutoring have no percentage cap — you can spend your entire award on textbooks and private tutoring if you want. But two adjacent categories do have caps:

Extracurricular activities — 20% of your annual award. If music lessons are classified as extracurricular rather than core instruction, they fall under this cap. The classification depends on how the expense is categorized in the Odyssey system. A music theory course labeled as an academic subject sits outside the cap; a recreational guitar lesson classified as extracurricular counts toward it.

Physical education — a separate 20% cap. PE-related expenses like martial arts classes, swim instruction, or gymnastics programs have their own 20% ceiling on top of the extracurricular cap.

For a $6,000 award, the extracurricular cap is $1,200 and the PE cap is another $1,200. Everything else — curriculum, tutoring, therapy, testing — draws from the remaining balance with no percentage restriction.

Get the Full Expense Breakdown

The Utah Fits All Scholarship Parent Guide includes a complete approved-expense index with category-by-category rules, the exact spending caps and how they interact, and documentation strategies that get reimbursement claims approved on the first submission.

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