Backers of Douglas County’s stalled school voucher program say it may have new life after a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday.

The justices said the Colorado Supreme Court must reconsider its 2015 ruling that the Douglas County voucher program was unconstitutional.

“It’s our hope that a decision now by the Colorado Supreme Court will allow us to put kids into the conversation about the best way to deliver the best education possible for them,” said Meghann Silverthorn, president of the Douglas County School Board.

A Monday decision by the nation’s highest court was also cheered by pro-voucher groups in Colorado. The court held that churches could not be excluded from a state grant program for playground surfaces that was open to other charitable organizations.

The policy was based on a provision of the Missouri constitution that prohibits public money from going to religious institutions. The high court ruled that the exclusion violated the First Amendment rights of churches, at least when the money is meant for non-religious purposes.

Colorado has a similar constitutional provision that was the basis of the court ruling against the voucher program.

Both rulings appear to favor the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program, started in 2011 but blocked by legal challenges, say proponents. But there is no guarantee the program will be reinstated.

“Every time I’ve tried to predict what the (Colorado) Supreme Court will do, I’ve been wrong,” said Silverthorn. “They (the justices) may find something else they are dissatisfied with.”

School choice advocates have waited two years to see if the U.S. Supreme Court would take up the case after the Colorado ruling, said Ross Izard, senior education policy analyst for the Independence Institute, a right-leaning advocacy group.

Specifically, they wanted the justices to answer long-standing questions about the Blaine clause in the Colorado Constitution. The so-called Blaine amendments to several state constitutions have been attacked as a 19th-century holdover meant to isolate Catholic schools during a time of heightened Protestant prejudice.

The justices did not address the Blaine clause head-on but they did come out strongly against religious discrimination in public benefits programs, said Izard.

Douglas County’s voucher program would have provided publicly funded scholarships to 500 students who want to go to private schools, including those offered by churches, said Izard.

“We now have a chance to revisit the flawed 2015 ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court and arrive at a conclusion that would allow Colorado students to access the educational options they need in the absence of religious discrimination,” Izard said.

There is no indication when the Colorado high court will reconsider the case.

Taxpayers For Public Education, which fought the Douglas County vouchers, said Tuesday the prohibition of public money to pay for private religious education is not in any way “bigoted.”

“To the contrary, it upholds the vital principal, enshrined in the anti-establishment clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, that the government cannot and should not be involved in the support of any religion,” said the group’s Cindy Barnard.