Many states offer ESA, scholarship, and microgrant programs that aim to ease financial barriers for families. Outschool is an approved vendor for eligible online classes through these programs in a variety of states. This guide explains what teachers need to know when learners enroll using public funding.

Here’s how public funding enrollments differ from standard Outschool enrollments:

Teachers may be able to identify third-party bulk enrollments by looking for enrollment timing and meeting patterns:

Use the sections below to review the main setup steps teachers can complete before families enroll with public funding.

Each state with a public funding program has its own rules about which classes and teachers are eligible. In some states, families may only use ESA, scholarship, or microgrant funds for specific classes or with credentialed teachers. Uploading your credentials can help make your classes eligible for more families.

Note: Public funding program requirements can change. Outschool is not able to provide guidance on eligibility for specific classes or credentials.

Outschool teachers can upload their credentials through the Educator Dashboard. Providing this information helps Outschool list qualifying classes for parents using ClassWallet and other ESA (Education Scholarship Account) marketplaces in participating states. Be sure to complete all required fields when entering your credential details.

Teachers within Seller Organizations can upload credentials at outschool.com/teach/credentials. Admins can view uploaded credentials at outschool.com/organization/credentials.

If your organization wants to be listed as eligible for a state program that requires credentials, all teachers in your organization must hold at least one of the required credentials and upload them to Outschool.

Class eligibility can be viewed on the class summary page, in the section labeled Approved Programs.

Some states require that classes end by a specific deadline (e.g., all meetings must be complete before Dec 30) or require an approval window (e.g., the first meeting must be at least five days from the order date). Parents may report that they cannot enroll in their desired section due to these parameters.

If a parent is having trouble enrolling in a class that you expect should be eligible, please have the family write directly to the support team, and we will help troubleshoot.

Families that are using funding other than those on this list may ask teachers to provide a copy of their credentials to submit to their state program, scholarship, or other funding source. In these cases, it is up to the teacher's discretion if they would like to provide this information. Guidelines for sharing credentials can be found here.

ClassWallet is a funding marketplace where eligible families can use scholarship or public funding money to purchase approved educational expenses, including eligible Outschool classes. Teachers do not need or create ClassWallet accounts to receive public funding enrollments.

Learners who have paid with public funding can be transferred between sections of the same class, and the payments tied to the original enrollment will be transferred to the new section. At this time, families using public funding do not have access to the transfer request button and will need to message the educator directly to request a transfer to a new section.
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ClassWallet and other public funding payment methods do not change how teachers cancel remaining lessons. If a learner will not attend future meetings, teachers should use the cancellation options available for that class or enrollment.

Payments made by ESAs for week-after-week classes are for consecutive weeks and are tied to a specific end date. Enrollments with ESA funds cannot be extended for make-up classes, and teachers will need to issue refunds for any canceled classes.
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Public funding Tutoring enrollments can work differently from standard Tutoring enrollments when teachers need to add, change, or cancel meeting times.

Families are welcome to use one-time private meeting links to enroll in Tutoring classes. Please note that private links for Tutoring classes are only active for 7 days. If the link expires before the enrollment is approved, parents may receive an error.

Also, private meeting links where the educator has selected 'until I cancel' are not currently compatible with ClassWallet enrollments. This article outlines how parents can add additional meeting times to an enrollment.

At this time, teachers cannot add meeting requests for Tutoring classes since families must place orders through their ClassWallet account. If a parent would like to add additional meetings in a Tutoring class, they may need to do so from the section meetings tab.
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For Tutoring classes, teachers do not withdraw learners. Instead, teachers can cancel individual meetings or future scheduled meetings. When a teacher cancels a Tutoring meeting, the family is automatically refunded for the canceled meeting.

Self-paced public funding enrollments can look different from standard self-paced enrollments while the family’s order is being processed.

If you notice self-paced courses with no learners and random start dates on your calendar, this is due to a pending ClassWallet enrollment. Here's what happens:

To keep your calendar accurate, manually check for upcoming start dates and enrollments in the "Upcoming Classes" section on your Educator Dashboard.

Use these resources for more specific public funding information: