Much of the debate on school vouchers has focused on how they might affect public schools.

But on the other side of the equation are private schools. Since they aren’t required to take voucher students, how willing will private schools be to accept them?

So far, the response from a number of private schools in South Florida sounds very much like a polite no thank you.”

If a family comes with a voucher, the question is: What is attached to it?” said John Harrington, director of admissions at Pine Crest in Fort Lauderdale.

A voucher, or “opportunity scholarship” as it is called in two bills making their way through the Legislature, is in effect a gift certificate for students who want to flee a failing public school.

If vouchers become law this year, families will be able to take about $4,000 in tax money in the form of a voucher or tuition credit and shop for a private school. That amount would vary by county, and is equivalent to the amount of state tax money it takes to teach the average Florida student per year.

Under the current draft of the House bill, scheduled to go before the full House on Wednesday, private schools must meet these requirements: They cannot discriminate, must meet health and safety laws, and must pick students on a random and religion-neutral basis. They must be accredited, and they may not force a student to pray.

The Senate version goes before the education committee on Monday.

The object of vouchers, backers say, is to offer students a variety of ways to get a good education.

The bills also would allow parents to move children to better-performing public schools, if those schools were not crowded.

Opponents, including some unions and public education officials, say vouchers will destroy public schools by bleeding them of public money.

The strongest objections of private school administrators center on maintaining control of what they teach.

Public schools are required to take all comers, but private schools often put parents and students through a rigorous admissions procedure: entrance exam, interview, recommendations and other methods of selection.

By carefully picking their students, they can often end up with high test scores and near-perfect college acceptance rates, which in turn attract more good students. They are not likely to water down admission standards.

“We are certainly not interested in participating in anything that is going to have a negative impact on our independence or support anything that is going to undermine the public schools,” said Sid Rowell, associate headmaster at St. Andrews, a highly regarded prep school in Boca Raton.

If students can’t meet certain academic and behavior standards, the private school can turn them away. And according to the Senate version of the bill, the voucher student cannot be forced on a private school.

Then there are the intangibles:

“They would have to demonstrate that they would be adding something special to the school,” Rowell said. “It’s most important to us that the student is right for St. Andrews.”

St. Andrews boasts a 100 percent acceptance rate of its graduating seniors by colleges, including Ivy League and other top-rated institutions, he said.

Tuition also can be an obstacle. A $4,000 voucher would not go far at many local private schools; most charge more than that in tuition. Tuition at David Posnack Hebrew Day School in Plantation ranges from $5,000 to $8,000 a year, depending on grade. Pine Crest charges $9,400 to $11,500. St. Andrews charges $12,900 to $13,900 per year.

If a voucher student were accepted but unable to make up the difference in tuition, private school officials said they would help them get financial aid or loans — just as they would any needy student.

Special-education students also present problems for public schools. Public schools are required by law to provide the extra services special-education students need. Private schools can take special students, but are not obliged to do so.

The Senate bill has added pilot programs in four counties, including Broward, that would offer vouchers to students with disabilities, no matter how good the public school.

Leo Orsino, headmaster of Coral Springs Christian School, said he might have to recommend that a student with learning disabilities or a gifted student would be better off at some other school. The decision would be based on whether the student could fit into regular classes at the private school, which often are more demanding than similar classes at public schools.

And then, of course, there is the issue of religion. Private religious schools are wary of any restrictions on their practicing or teaching religion.

“[The voucher law] must not have a religious component,” said Larry Freedman, headmaster of Posnack. “If we were to eliminate religion, we would be defeating the purpose of the school.”

Religion is much more than symbols on a wall or religious services, he said. It is woven into the academics, through Hebrew language and Jewish history courses.

Pine Crest, though not linked to a particular religion, has a chapel and invites a variety of clergy to conduct services.

“Religion is a major part of life,” Harrington said. “And we will not ignore it.”

There must be no religious strings attached, especially those that might interfere with any religious slant in the teaching of regular academic courses, Orsino said.

“God and the word of God is part of everything we do. We could not separate God from what we teach. We teach that not just in Bible class, we teach that in social studies and science,” he said.

In those cases when applicants’ families did not agree with that approach, they decided not to attend Coral Springs Christian, Orsino said.

Most private school officials say they are confident that their students would excel on any standardized test, proving their academic fitness.

But religion may rear its head even on the test issue. Orsino would like to see the standardized tests before he agrees to let his students take them. He worries that the information students might be tested on would conflict with what his school teaches.

Evolutionary science, for example.

“We believe God created the world and we teach the Book of Genesis for creation.”