Utah Board of Education leaders took their first crack Wednesday at hammering out rules for implementing Utah's new $9.2 million private school voucher law — the most wide-ranging and expensive of its kind in the country.

Those rules will need to detail myriad aspects, including telling parents how their children can qualify for the money if they choose to send them to a private school and how the Utah Office of Education can patrol the program to ensure public schools don't suffer.

"We tried to give equal concern to the choice — that is clearly the prime directive of this bill — but also public accountability," said Larry Shumway, state director of educator quality. "Our direction as we've done this was to write a rule that implements the state statute in an honorable way."

The Parents for Choice in Education Act provides Utah families a private school tuition voucher ranging from $500 to $3,000 per student, scaled to income based on who qualifies for federal reduced-price school lunch.

Board members voted Wednesday to continue working on the implementation rules until their April meeting. Final implementation is due by May.

Even as those rules are being formed, however, the future of the voucher law may be a little shaky.

Last week, Utahns for Public Schools, a newly formed group comprised of members of the Utah Education Association, Utah School Boards Association, NAACP, Utah PTA, filed for a referendum petition that could land a final decision on vouchers in the hands of voters in the 2008 general election.

The referendum is only the first move in possibly a series of attacks on the new voucher law, including possible legal action alleging the voucher law is unconstitutional. To use public money to further private education violates the Constitution, the group claims.

Even before the bill was signed into law this session, state education leaders started working on rules of implementation. They will also hire two staff members this month to oversee the program.

A second supplemental voucher bill that surfaced in the last days of the Legislature was signed into law Tuesday, giving the Utah Office of Education an additional $100,000 to run the voucher program. HB174 also requires teachers at private schools that accept vouchers to have background checks and requires the state to perform an audit of the program in five years.

The draft rules detail how the Utah Office of Education can audit families and private schools who apply for voucher use, a provision Shumway said was a top priority for state leaders. Under the legislation and the board's drafted rules, students become eligible for an education voucher if the student:

• Has a parent who resides in Utah

• Is school age

• Has been admitted to an eligible private school

• Meets at least one of four criteria including: born after Sept. 1, 2006, enrolled as a full-time student as of Jan. 1, 2007, moved to Utah after Jan. 1, 2007, or has a household income of less than 100 percent of income level for reduced lunch.

Private schools are eligible if they are financially stable, physically located in Utah and meet certain academic requirements.

"The notion is that it's parent choice, but at some point there's a public accountability issue for the money," Shumway said.

One of those accountability measures included in the draft rules is to require private schools receiving vouchers to conduct annual assessments on all of its students. Those tests would compare students with national norms, and the results would be available to the public.

"For parents to make an informed choice they should have some data. This will provide for schools a level of accountability and for parents a piece of information," Shumway said.

Carol Lear, director of school law and legislation for the Utah Office of Education, said those selected to oversee the program have a sizable job and not a very big budget. The legislation allows for $200,000 in annual administration expenses, she said.

They will verify applicant incomes, approve eligible students, determine the amount of individual vouchers, provide quarterly payments to the private schools, cross check residency for students new to the state and make sure participating private schools have the required health and safety codes in place.

The Utah Office of Education will also be charged with actually cutting the checks, which are made out to individual parents, but delivered to schools. Shumway estimates between 2,500 and 3,000 students could take advantage of the voucher program in its first year, totaling about 14,000 checks made on quarterly payments.

"There's an issue of just managing the flow of the scholarships out, of pushing that money out," Shumway said.

Private schools can apply for the voucher program by June 15, and parents can apply to the list of eligible private schools by July 15. In future years, schools will apply by April 1, and parents will have until June 1 to apply.

"We've got a real compressed time frame this year," Lear said.

Contributing: Tiffany Erickson