Mother sues Oregon school district over anti-Christian reimbursement policy

A Christian homeschooling mother in Oregon has sued the Hillsboro School District, alleging it denied her reimbursement for religious curricula through a taxpayer-funded homeschool program while approving payments for secular materials.

“Religious families who choose to homeschool aren’t second-class citizens, yet Oregon treats them as such by denying them a public benefit available to other families,” said Kate Anderson, ADF senior counsel and director of the Center for Parental Rights.

Tessa Bulzan, a mother of five, enrolled her two oldest children in the district’s Homeschool Partnership program, which reimburses parents for curricula and offers supplemental in-person classes. Bulzan was told by the partnership program’s representative that she could use any curriculum, including a religious one, if it covered academic content, but that was later contradicted by district officials.

According to the complaint, filed Sept. 22 in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, Bulzan chose Abeka and Classical Conversations curricula, along with classes through the Firmly Planted Hillsboro co-op, because they reflected her Christian faith. 

When she went to submit her reimbursement requests, they were denied by the district, which cited the Oregon Department of Education’s policy against using public funds for religious curriculum, even though the complaint says portions of the materials met or exceeded state academic standards and contained no religious content.

Bulzan appealed the denial through the district’s four-step discrimination complaint process, but officials, including the program’s administrator, the school principal and an assistant superintendent, upheld the denial at each stage, maintaining that materials with a “Christian and biblical worldview” could not qualify.

The complaint says the district approved reimbursement for other materials, including the children’s books “Julian Is a Mermaid” — which promotes cross-dressing — and “We Are Water Protectors,” which presents a Native American spiritual approach to caring for the environment. For the 2026-27 school year, the district asked parents to sign a new agreement requiring them to acknowledge that program funds “may not be used to purchase or reimburse any materials, curriculum, classes, or activities that are religious in nature.”

The lawsuit brings four claims under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, namely, the free exercise of religion, the fundamental right to direct a child’s upbringing and education, free speech, and equal protection. The suit argues the school district’s policy singles out religious viewpoints for exclusion from a public benefit otherwise available to all families in the program.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Bulzan, asserts the district’s policy runs afoul of recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent barring states from excluding religious options from otherwise generally available public benefits. 

“Mrs. Bulzan, like every other parent, should be free to choose the best education for her children,” Anderson added. “Hillsboro School District is right to offer homeschooling families a much-needed stipend, but it’s wrong—and unconstitutional—to deny that benefit to those who choose curriculum from a Christian and biblical worldview.”

The Hillsboro School District has not issued a public statement on the lawsuit as of this writing.

The case is part of a wave of ADF-backed lawsuits over parental and religious rights in Pacific Northwest schools. 

Zeale News reported this month that a Washington father, represented by Anderson in a separate case, sued the Lake Washington School District after it denied most of his requests to excuse his son from LGBT-related instruction. 

“Parents have the fundamental right to direct their children’s religious upbringing and education, even at school,” Anderson said in that case.