In January 2004 President Bush authorized the DC School Choice Incentive Act, an initiative funded at $14 million that created a scholarship program providing 1,700 low-income Washington, DC, children the opportunity to attend participating K–12 nonpublic schools in the district. In addition to offering opportunities to participating children, the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program opens a door for examining the implications when more families are given the opportunity to select private schools for their children. This article reviews the results of a qualitative assessment aimed at understanding how families experienced their first year in the program. Referencing direct quotes from families that took part in focus groups, we address the following areas of participants' experience: reaction to the choice opportunity, motivation for participation, what was valued in schools, how information was received, selection of final school, reaction to new school environment, parent responses to new challenges, student–school responses to new challenges, financial policies, and overall satisfaction. Each section contains family responses juxtaposed with popular literature on school choice. This report is the first in a series that will monitor the experiences of families during the first 5 years of this program. We gratefully acknowledge the valuable assistance of the following project contributors: Darnita Akers, David Banks, Ph.D., Jessica Boccardo, Donald Brown, Marlo Crandall, Rachel Greszler, Daniel Hoople, Elizabeth Rutzick, Benjamin Traster, and Ashley Zollinger. We also benefited immensely from the comments of Howard Fuller, Laura Hamilton, Jeffrey Henig, and Mark Schneider on an earlier draft of this article. Nevertheless, the claims made and any remaining shortcomings in this article remain our sole responsibility. This research was funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation through a grant to Georgetown University.We thank them for their support but acknowledge that the findings and conclusions presented in this article are ours and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the foundation or the university. Finally, we are extremely grateful for the voluntary participation of the Parent and Student Voices families, school administrators, and staff of theWashington Scholarship Fund for cooperating with this study. Consistent with our promise to participants, their names will remain confidential.