Hope Scholarship Renewal Walkthrough

1. What "renewal" actually means

Once your child is awarded a Hope Scholarship and becomes a participant, they can continue in the program from one school year to the next without filing a new application. What the program requires instead is an Annual Continued Participation Confirmation (CPC) — a per-student confirmation submitted through the Hope Scholarship portal (powered by Theodore) at app.hopescholarshipwv.com, operated by Program Manager Student First Technologies.

Alongside the CPC, the student must keep meeting the statutory continuation requirements — West Virginia residency, the parent agreement, and annual academic/attendance reporting to the county superintendent (covered in section 7).

Two things renewal does not require:

• A new application. That's only for first-time students — or students whose participation lapsed and who are coming back (see section 4).
• A new Notice of Intent (NOI). The NOI is a one-time requirement. You only submit an updated NOI if you move, change educational pathway (private school ↔ IIP/homeschool), or change grade level through acceleration or retention.

If you have multiple Hope students, you can manage all of them under one portal login — but the CPC is filed per student, each student has their own designated account, and funds are never shared across students.

2. The 2026-27 renewal window

For the 2026-27 school year, Continued Participation Confirmations were accepted from January 5 through June 15, 2026. Confirmations are not accepted after the June 15 deadline — there is no late-filing grace period. Where that leaves you depends on which group you're in:

• You filed the CPC by June 15: your student is on track for 2026-27. Section 3 covers what to expect next.
• You missed the deadline: your student's account closes and the re-application path in section 4 applies — but you can still recover most of the year's funding if you act before September 15.

The window for the 2027-28 school year hasn't been announced. For 2026-27 the window ran January 5 – June 15, and the Board publishes each year's dates on HopeScholarshipWV.gov — check there rather than assuming the same dates will repeat.

3. Renewed on time? Here's what happens next

After you submit the CPC, your student is conditionally eligible for the upcoming year until the WV Department of Education verifies that the June 8 Year-End Academic/Attendance Reporting requirement was met. Once verified, funding follows.

The full 2026-27 award is $5,435.62, and — new for 2026-27 by statute — it now arrives in quarterly deposits instead of one lump sum:

To catch a given quarterly deposit, two things must be true by 4:00 pm on the cutoff date: the student's application must be in "Approved" status, and a valid NOI must be on file with the county board. Miss a cutoff and that quarter's funding rolls forward to the next quarterly distribution — it isn't lost, just delayed.

There's no periodic expense report to file. Spending is controlled up front instead: payments go electronically through the portal to Board-approved providers — tuition through the school-connection flow, services (like tutoring) through the closed Marketplace, and goods through the TheoPay open marketplace. Out-of-pocket reimbursement exists only for the narrow cases in the Board's Reimbursement Policy — most commonly off-the-shelf curriculum — and must be requested within 90 days of purchase with itemized receipts showing the student's name.

4. Missed the window? Here's your path back

If you didn't file the CPC by June 15, 2026, three things happen:

1. The account closes, and all remaining funds — including any carryover you'd built up — are returned to the State.
2. Your student must apply as a new student, meeting all new-student eligibility requirements at the time of application. Late confirmations are simply not accepted.
3. A new Notice of Intent is required, since the old one was deactivated when participation ended.

Wait longer and the award keeps shrinking — the full schedule is in the next section.

5. The 2026-27 proration table

Proration is based on when the application is submitted. It applies to new applicants — including former Hope students re-applying after a missed CPC. Students who renewed on time always receive 100%.

Prorated deposits are assigned to the first semester of participation and are generally deposited monthly after approval, as feasible. The award amount itself changes yearly — it's set at 100% of the prior year's statewide average net state aid share allotted per pupil and published on the program website before the initial August 15 funding date.

6. Rollover rules and what happens when an account closes

One of the strongest reasons to renew on time: unspent funds roll over. Unused money in a student's account carries forward and stays available in subsequent school years, as long as the student remains eligible and the CPC is filed by June 15.

The flip side: if the account closes for any reason — a missed CPC, withdrawal, or loss of eligibility — remaining funds are returned to the State. One exception: if a student returns to public school after October 1, the county board may request the account funds be transferred to that county to fund the student's education for the rest of that year.

Participation ends mid-stream if the student enrolls full-time in public school, moves out of West Virginia, graduates, or turns 21 — or if the Board suspends or terminates the account for noncompliance. You must notify the Board within 5 days of a disqualifying event and stop spending immediately; Hope funds spent while a student is enrolled in public school are subject to repayment.

7. The June 8 academic reporting requirement

Filing the CPC is only half of renewal. Every year, each Hope student's Year-End Academic/Attendance Reporting must reach the county superintendent by June 8. What that looks like depends on the student's pathway:

The consequences are serious: failing to meet the June 8 requirement terminates participation and the account for the following school year, and failing in multiple years may disqualify the student from any further participation in the program.

8. Twelfth graders: the automatic freeze

Senior-year families have one extra rule to know. Twelfth-grade accounts are automatically frozen and closed on June 16 each year — unless the CPC indicates the student hasn't yet completed graduation requirements. The Board may request documentation to support that.

Once a student graduates, spending must stop immediately, and the Board must be notified within 5 business days. Families may not delay awarding a diploma in order to keep spending Hope funds.

9. Universal eligibility and what it means for renewing families

Effective July 1, 2026, Hope Scholarship eligibility expanded to every West Virginia child enrolled, eligible to be enrolled, or required to be enrolled in kindergarten or a public elementary or secondary school program. The old requirement of prior public school attendance (45 days or the full prior year) is gone. Existing private school students and traditional homeschool students are eligible to apply for the first time in 2026-27.

For renewing families, here's the key point: nothing changed in your renewal path. You file the same CPC in the same window, and your rollover funds carry forward under the same rules. The universal expansion only affects who may file new applications.

The scale of the change is real: as of June 8, 2026, the Treasurer's office reported 25,675 applications in process for 2026-27 — 13,298 returning students and 12,377 new. We found no lottery, cap, or priority rules in the statute, handbook, FAQ, or press releases — funding is enrollment-based, and the only timing consequence is the proration schedule.

10. Common renewal mistakes

• Treating the CPC as optional because "we're already in." Continuation is automatic-ish, but only if you file. Miss it and the account closes, carryover funds and all.
• Confirming one child but not the others. The CPC is per student. One portal login can cover the whole family, but each student needs their own confirmation.
• Forgetting the June 8 reporting deadline. The CPC (due June 15) gets the attention, but the academic/attendance reporting is due to the county superintendent a week earlier — and failure terminates next year's participation.
• Filing a stale NOI pathway. If you switched between private school and an IIP, or your student skipped or repeated a grade, submit an updated NOI — county boards can't enter year-end reporting that doesn't match the NOI on file.
• Missing a quarterly cutoff. "Approved" status plus a valid NOI by 4:00 pm on August 1, October 1, January 2, or April 1 is what triggers each deposit. Miss one and the money is delayed to the next quarter.
• Sitting on reimbursements. Where reimbursement is allowed at all (mostly off-the-shelf curriculum), you have 90 days from purchase to request it, with itemized receipts showing the student's name.

Frequently asked questions