New app helps Arizona ESA families check purchases, avoid fraud accusations

ESA parents wondering whether a purchase will get them flagged for fraud can now check before they buy.

A new app called Pathfinder shows families whether items are permitted under the Empowerment Scholarship Account program’s guidelines.

The state’s ESA program allows families to use public education tax dollars for private school or homeschooling expenses. It had over 100,000 enrolled students at the end of the 2025-26 school year.

Arizona’s ESA system has been criticized for lacking oversight and allegedly issuing payments for unallowable and potentially fraudulent purchases.

The app allows parents to scan or search an item and see if it is allowable for purchase using ESA funds.

It also keeps track of each purchase, including receipts, so families can provide proof of purchase to the Arizona Department of Education if there is suspicion of fraud.

“With a lot of the quote-unquote fraud cases, it’s just a lot of the time either missing documentation or parents don’t always know for every transaction what documentation they need. And so that’s why we help with that, preparing the curriculum, helping them flag to them when they need an attestation or vendor credentials and actually helping them obtain those,” said Amaan Ahmad, Pathfinder’s co-creator.

Ahmad said Arizona is the “vanguard” of school choice, so it made sense to launch the platform here.

“We even take the specific granularity of like ‘is this allowable’ for specific special needs contracts versus the universal contracts and so on. We spent a ton of time both with real historical data, the handbook, experience ESA parents on the ground to build this to be a reliable tool before we released it,” he said.

Pathfinder also offers a charge card that fronts money to ESA families who can’t afford items out of pocket. The company is repaid when the state Department of Education reimburses parents for the purchases.

The Arizona Treasurer’s Office is responsible for the financial aspects of the ESA program, which is operated by ADE.

In March, Yee announced her office would review the ESA marketplace platform and ask program vendors for suggestions on how to improve the payment system.

Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee announced in June she is working with the ESA program’s financial vendor to add new technology to its platform to make the process easier for families and help prevent fraud as well.

Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.

Subscribe to the KTAR Eyes on Education newsletter to get our top education stories, exclusive guest interviews and more to your email inbox.

Related

Dining hall workers suing ASU over First Amendment right to protest working conditionsArizona ESA accountability proposition must be rewritten to be included on the ballot, judge rulesArizona health officials urge heat safety as students return to schoolBetter pay would be a start for fixing Arizona’s teacher shortage, but it’s not the only solutionPhoenix students set to receive free meals with zero eligibility requirementsHow did Arizona wind up with a decade-long teacher shortage — with no end in sight?