Mid Vermont Christian School is challenging the state’s sweeping education reform law, arguing that it discriminates against religious schools by excluding them from receiving public dollars through the state’s tuitioning program.

That program allows students who live in a town where there is no public school to use taxpayer money to go to a school of their choice. But the new law, Act 73, outlines stricter criteria for private schools, known as independent schools in Vermont, to receive those dollars.

First, they must be located in a school district that does not operate a public school for at least some grades. And secondly, at least 25 percent of their students must have been publicly funded during the 2023-24 school year. Independent therapeutic schools, which typically serve students with severe behavioral or mental health challenges, are exempt from meeting the criteria.

The provisions were intended to ensure that public dollars go primarily to private schools that have historically filled gaps in more rural parts of the state, where there are often few public school options.

The new eligibility requirements, which went into effect on July 1, mean just 18 non-therapeutic private schools — none of which is religious — still qualify for public funds. More than 30 others, some religious and some not, will no longer receive public dollars.

The bill does include a “grandfather clause” for students who were already using state dollars to attend those schools until they graduate.

“The State has gerrymandered-out all religious approved independent schools in Vermont, and acted with hostility towards religious schools,” Mid Vermont said in court documents filed on Friday. It’s represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a high-powered conservative legal advocacy group that has filed multiple lawsuits in Vermont.

The new filings are an attempt to amend a lawsuit the Quechee school initially filed against the state in November 2023 after it was banned from participating in school sports for forfeiting a basketball game against a team with a transgender player. A federal appeals court ruled in September that the school should be allowed to compete in games governed by the Vermont Principals’ Association while the case plays out. The group’s executive director, Jay Nichols, said the school has since been let back in.

In the motion to amend its original complaint, Mid Vermont challenges the new law, which it claims “seeks to weed-out and exclude religious schools from receiving public benefits.” The court filing states that Act 73 “directly injures” the plaintiffs, which include several Mid Vermont Christian students, “by excluding them from town tuition, dual enrollment and early college program funds.”

(A spokesperson from the Vermont Agency of Education said that all current students attending schools excluded by Act 73 for public funding are still able to access taxpayer dollars for early college and dual enrollment, which allows students to take two college courses free of charge while still in high school.)

Mid Vermont’s motion argues that the “new law and new facts” necessitate that the complaint be updated. Therefore, it states, the court should allow the school to add the challenge to Act 73 to its original lawsuit.

The Vermont Agency of Education declined to comment on pending litigation, which also names the State Board of Education and Vermont Principals’ Association as defendants. Court filings indicate that the state opposes Mid Vermont’s request to amend its complaint.

Nine of the non-religious schools in the Vermont Independent Schools Association will also lose out on public tuition dollars under Act 73, according to Oliver Olsen, an advisor to the group. But he said in an email that his organization does not support a challenge to the eligibility rules in the law.

It is unclear how long it will take for Mid Vermont Christian’s case to wend its way through the legal system. Its October 31 motion states that the parties in the case “have not moved passed (sic) the initial pleading stage” and that “defendants have not answered the first complaint, no schedule has been set, and discovery has not started.”

Alliance Defending Freedom did not respond to a request for comment.

Read the new court filing below: