The Cleveland parents asked permission yesterday to intervene in a lawsuit that seeks to block the 4-year-old voucher program from resuming this fall. 

The request is pending.

“If plaintiffs are successful in this lawsuit, (the parents) may be unable to send their children to the schools of their choice,” attorneys for the parents wrote in a motion filed with the federal court. 

The lawsuit, filed July 20 by a group of educators and others, contends that the voucher program violates the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state.

Based in Cleveland, Ohio’s program provides mostly low-income parents with tax-financed vouchers of up to $2,250 for tuition at private and parochial schools.

In May, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the program does not violate First Amendment provisions for separation of church and state.

Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery has vowed to defend the voucher program in the federal court challenge. 

The Institute for Justice, a Washington, D.C. based law firm that helped defend the program in the Ohio Supreme Court, is representing the five parents, including Amy Hudock. 

Hudock, a lab technician, said she wanted to join the legal battle because she needs vouchers to keep her 1 l-year-old daughter, Amber Angelo, in a Catholic school.

“If she loses the scholarship [voucher], I will have to get another job” Hudock said. 

“She’s not going back to public school.”  

Hudock said the Cleveland school district bused her daughter to a building in an unsafe neighborhood. 

“I didn’t even like going there to get her report card,” Hudock said.

The other four parents trying to intervene in the case are Senel Taylor, Johnnietta McGrady, Christine Suma and Arkela Winston.