Robert Topik was the first to the microphone when Epsom voters recently took up “open enrollment,” Republican-backed legislation that would give the state new control over local schools and school budgets.
“Can we get the CliffNotes version on that?” Topik asked the school board at the district’s annual deliberative session. “The simplified version?”
Good question. Here’s our try at it.
At its most basic, open enrollment does two things. It allows New Hampshire students to attend any public school in the state – and take their community’s tax dollars with them to pay for their learning. And it requires districts to enroll and teach students who come from other districts.
While New Hampshire has long allowed students to use open enrollment to switch school districts, it’s been rarely used: only two districts appear to have ever participated. But an October ruling from the New Hampshire Supreme Court in October introduced a massive change that could introduce what one superintendent called a “wrecking ball of chaos.”
The court said – for the first time – that school districts must pay for their students’ education, including paying other school districts who take their students. The amounts would be tied to a district’s per-student spending. That could equate as much as $18,000 per student for the Manchester School District and $40,000 per student for the Waterville School District.
That ruling has spurred a rush now underway, – with school districts and voters hurrying to set limits on open enrollment to protect their budgets, and Republican lawmakers fast-tracking bills to override those limits and make it easier for students to attend school anywhere they want. That could happen soon if Gov. Kelly Ayotte signs the House or Senate version of the legislation in the coming weeks.
School district leaders are asking Ayotte to reject those bills and sign a different one that would study open enrollment options over the next year. Lang’s legislation, they said, comes with sweeping mandates and financial risks and few details on how to manage either.
“There's a lack of clarity as to exactly what it means, so there’s a lot of us devoting a lot of time that could better be spent educating our kids trying to figure out what the state is up to and what the implications are going to be,” said John Shea, Somersworth School District’s superintendent.
Even Lang, one of the leading cheerleaders for open enrollment in the State House, knows his proposal is causing confusion for school districts – and voters like Topik in Epsom.
“This is the most misunderstood bill of the term,” he said.
School choice or a ‘wrecking ball of chaos?’
For many Republican lawmakers, open enrollment – like earlier initiatives, including charter schools and school vouchers – would give parents and students more choices if they decide their own public schools aren’t a good fit. A student might prefer a school with a more robust music program or higher academic outcomes. They may want to switch districts to play basketball for a coach with a winning record or join a school with a diverse student body.
Lang said his legislation simply acknowledges that every student is unique.
“And every school is unique in the way it teaches,” he said.“So let's try to marry these things up instead of trying to force a round peg into a square hole.”
However, Democratic lawmakers and many school district leaders see something else in Lang’s legislation: an attack on public schools, a state takeover of local control, and a threat to local school budgets.
“It is just a wrecking ball of chaos right now,” Shea of Somersworth, said. “There's no other way to look at it.”
Republican lawmakers like Lang argue that 43 other states already have open enrollment, but public education advocates said that overlooks differences in how states fund education. A new study from Reaching Higher NH found that many states don’t require school districts to pay the district their student chooses.
In New Hampshire, local taxpayers – not the state – fund most of their school costs, and set their budget based on the number of students in their community and their needs. School district leaders say Lang’s legislation would make that far more challenging to do.
They could not predict enrollment, control where their tax dollars go, or turn students away from outside the district. The budget implications would be different for every district because their payments are tied to what they spend on their schools – and they do not spend equally.
For example, Bedford spends on average $20,000 per student. If a student from Manchester enrolled, that district could send Bedford as little as $14,400, leaving Bedford with a shortfall, according to a new calculator published by Reaching Higher NH Friday.
Bedford Superintendent Michael Fournier said that amounts to a “discounted rate to go to a school where residents are paying more.”
While Lang’s bills would require parents to make up the difference in a situation like that, they do not say whether school districts could refuse to enroll a student until a parent pays.
A group of nearly 30 other superintendents studied open enrollment options this summer. Grantham School District Superintendent Christine Downing, who led the study, said the group did not oppose open enrollment, but recommended that lawmakers write a bill that protects school districts from financial implications. Lang’s legislation does not, she said.
“What we're saying is there's better ways to do this and get it done and get it done so that it's consistent and sustainable,” Downing said. She has urged Ayotte to reject Lang’s legislation and support a different bill that would require lawmakers, school leaders, and parents to study open enrollment options over the next year.
Ayotte told WMUR that Lang’s legislation “needs work.” She has not responded to NHPR’s multiple messages seeking clarity on what she wants changed.
Voters are rejecting open enrollment. That may not matter.
Voters in nearly 40 communities have responded to the state Supreme Court ruling by crafting policies that would prohibit their students from switching to a new district. And they are setting different limits on the number of non-resident students they allow to enroll.
There are districts that want to limit outside enrollment to a certain number of students or for certain programs. The Goffstown School District’s proposed policy would allow up to five non-residents to enroll, but only in kindergarten. The ConVal School District would enroll up to 35 non-resident students, but only in its German language classes. In Windham, up to four students in grades 11 or 12 could participate in a certificate program for businesses or global leadership. The Exeter and Mont Vernon school districts want to prohibit any non-resident students altogether.
Meanwhile, districts that have declining enrollment are approaching it differently, such as the Pembroke School District, which wants to accept up to 324 students, mostly at the high school.
Proposed enrollment caps won’t be final until voters head to the polls in March or vote at their annual school district meeting. They also may be moot. If either of Lang’s open enrollment bills became law, it would overturn the caps voters are crafting now.
Lang especially wants to prohibit school districts from preventing their students from moving to another district.
“I don't think any school district should create barbed wires around their district to keep their taxpayers in if they want…a better school for their child,” he said. “Remember, we're talking about public education dollars for public education.”
Sweeping mandates, few details
Lang’s legislation would allow school districts to set some limits on non-resident enrollment. But to do that, schools would have to first determine the capacity of each classroom and could turn away students only if they can show they have no “vacancies.”
“The idea…is filling unfilled seats that could be filled without having to hire a teacher, without having to build new buildings, you know, that kind of thing,” Lang said.
But Lang’s legislation does not say how capacity and vacancy would be determined. He said that would be up to school districts. For example, if a district’s budget accounted for 20 students in first grade classes, and there were only 15 students, the school would have to enroll up to five non-resident students.
“It doesn't force them to take more students than they can handle,” Lang said.
That has not reassured Downing of the Grantham School District.
“Capacity could be on my physical space like square footage,” she said. “Capacity could be on educator to student ratios. Capacity could be just class size.”
There are important details missing too, Downing said.
School districts with vacancies could turn away students who’ve been expelled by their district or have had "chronic absenteeism” or a history of “significant” disciplinary issues. The legislation does not specify what constitutes a “significant” disciplinary issue.
Students would have to find their own transportation to their new school, but the district would have to explain the transportation options. That could include taking the district's school bus if the student could get to a bus stop on the route.
A student’s home district would have to pay a student’s special education costs but the new district would be providing them. Downing said she is obligated to have a special education administrator at all meetings where the student's educational services are discussed. She said that’s a cost to her district that Lang’s legislation does not address.
It does, however, allow school districts to negotiate what they would pay their student's new district. They are expected to pay the same amount they are spending on each student. However, they could pay as little as 80 percent to cover fixed costs that remain after a student leaves, such as electricity or transportation.
Lang’s legislation does not say what counts as a fixed cost or what a district needs to show to “demonstrate the need for a lower tuition rate.” That worries Downing.
“Can the receiving district say to me, ‘I don't agree with your analysis. We're still going to charge you the 100 percent’?” Downing said. “And where do we go from there? We go to court.”