Fifty-plus New Hampshire public school superintendents and hundreds more school board members are opposing a fast-moving legislative effort to enact universal open enrollment throughout the state.
The bill, if it becomes law, would allow students to attend public school in any New Hampshire community, no matter where they reside. If a Somersworth student, for example, chooses to attend school in Portsmouth, Somersworth would have to send the money it spends per student to Portsmouth, too.
Funding, budgeting and staffing concerns are cited by the coalition of school leaders in an open letter sent to Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte and state lawmakers.
Christine Boston, superintendent of the Dover school district, pointed out that New Hampshire is ranked last in the nation in state public education funding per pupil, and this bill adds to dire funding issues.
“If it’s not the final blow, it’s a major kick when we’re down,” Boston said. “I don’t know if it’s the final blow because I don’t know how many parents can and will avail themselves to this (sending students to other towns), but it definitely does not put us in a position to budget and provide equal access to all kids.”
Boston is joined by numerous greater Seacoast superintendents in signing the open letter, including John Shea (Somersworth), Lois Costa (Hampton), Christopher Andriski (Exeter area/SAU 16), Robert Shaps (Oyster River), Meredith Nadeau (Winnacunnet/SAU 21) and Zachary McLaughlin (Portsmouth). Many School Board officials in these communities and more signed the letter, too, as did six Rochester School Board members, including chair Matt Pappas.
The letter calls for further analysis of open enrollment.
“Collectively, these gaps shift operational risk, legal exposure, and political accountability onto local boards and SAUs, forcing districts to absorb consequences they did not design and cannot control. Proceeding without resolving these questions places districts in an untenable position by design and puts students at risk,” the letter states.
Boston said it’s possible Dover schools could receive more students at Dover High School and the district’s Regional Career Technical Center if the bill becomes law, resulting in increased tuition revenue. But that’s only a possibility, and her concerns far outweigh that potential.
“It’s not tuition or revenue that we can count on because there are no guardrails on enrollment timelines or length of enrollment to any of the legislation that I have personally seen,” Boston said. “It really appears to let kids move back and forth at will.”
Without a public hearing, universal open enrollment was approved by Republican members of the New Hampshire Senate in late January, setting up a House vote soon on the amendment to House Bill 751. Because the proposal was added as a floor amendment to an unrelated bill, it advanced without a public hearing in a state Senate committee, drawing criticism from Democrats and many school leaders.
What does the public school universal open enrollment proposal say?
Each New Hampshire public school district would be required to determine the “capacity” to take in new students at each grade level at every school in its system.
“Each school district in the state shall report annually to the state commissioner of education the number of transfer applications, acceptances, denials and the reason for each denial,” HB 751 states. “The department of education shall publish the data annually on its web site and provide reports to the senate and house education committees, and the state board of education.”
The bill calls for sending school districts to pay the school district receiving the student between 80% and 100% of the sending district’s average cost per pupil, as determined by the New Hampshire Department of Education. In addition, the sending district would need to pay special education expenses, though no guidelines for those additional costs are included.
Parents or guardians of the transferring student would make up any difference in cost between the sending and receiving districts average costs per pupil. That difference would be paid as tuition to the receiving district.
“Sending districts may pay less than 100 percent of the sending district’s average cost per pupil provided that the sending district demonstrates the need for a lower tuition rate relative to fixed costs,” the bill adds. “If the transferring student’s resident district average cost per pupil is less than the receiving district’s average cost per pupil, such difference shall be charged as tuition and paid by the pupil’s parents or guardians to the receiving district prior to the start of each semester.”
Critics have opposed the bill’s language about tuition costs, arguing local taxpayer dollars would be sent out of their home district to support other public schools. Proponents say it supports parental choice in public schooling.
State Sen. Tim Lang says students would not ‘flee’ hometown schools
State Sen. Tim Lang, R-Sanbornton, who presented the amendment last month, said he believes universal open enrollment would do little to shift the current makeup of New Hampshire’s public schools. In an interview, Lang stated maybe “1% to 2%” of existing New Hampshire students would move to a different public school district.
He called it a “flawed argument” to say “people would flee” their hometown schools.
“This bill is balanced to be able to take in students to make up for losses and allow for parents and children to get the best education,” Lang said.
Lang and Timothy Broadrick, superintendent of the Alton, Barnstead and Prospect Mountain Schools, wrote a joint letter in support of expanding open enrollment throughout the state.
Prospect Mountain High School became an open enrollment institution in 2023 and has since accepted 62 out-of-district after opting into the state’s existing policy.
Lang and Broadrick emphasized the decision on how many non-resident students to potentially accept lies with local district school boards.
“The program also offers opportunities for school districts,” Lang and Broadrick wrote. “This is a chance for public schools to stand out, to tell success stories about public programs, and to be more responsive to families’ needs. One district might concentrate on STEM and become a magnet for students who want to excel in math and science. Another could invest in arts programs, drawing talented students from the surrounding area. Every child is unique, and each school can’t offer everything. Expanding options across ZIP codes lets the public school system meet more students’ needs, even when they don’t live in the same district. Our focus should be on students.”
SAU 16 in Exeter area asks voters to accept 0 students
According to Lang, a public school district could set its capacity for new students at zero.
In SAU 16, the Exeter Regional Cooperative School District, school officials are attempting to do exactly that, recommending voters approve a warrant article in March.
Article 3 on the district’s school warrant asks whether voters approve admitting zero non-resident students into the district’s middle and high schools, in addition to not allowing any students to leave SAU 16 for other schools.
Andriski, Exeter’s superintendent, says some out-of-district students may want to come to Exeter for its Division I athletics programs, but SAU 16 is considering its own budgeting processes, and the impact open enrollment may have on smaller school systems.
“Our local residents are being asked to do more with less, and I’m not sure that that can be sustainable for a long time,” he said.
NH public education funding falls far short of judge’s ruling
An August report from the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute found the state ranks last in the United States for public school education funding. In fiscal year 2024, per the institute, New Hampshire allocated $4,629 per full-time student, compared to the national average of $11,683 per student.
State Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Stratham, reports state public education funding has dipped further to roughly $4,100 per pupil. Last year, in response to a lawsuit challenging the state’s public education funding, Rockingham County Superior Court Judge David Ruoff ruled that the “conservative minimum threshold amount” the state should pay per pupil is $7,356.
Altschiller criticized the open enrollment proposal, saying educators and school staff will be burdened, administrators will experience budgeting woes and local taxpayers will be asked to foot the bill.
“This is setting up our public school system to be starved and failed,” she said.
Altschiller expects a House vote on open enrollment before the end of February.
A Democrat-backed bill in the House proposes a commission to study open enrollment, though the legislation has been referred to the House’s Education Policy and Administration Committee.
Somersworth superintendent says bill ‘fundamentally doesn’t make sense’
Shea, superintendent of the Somersworth school district, said he supports parental choice in education. But he is an outspoken critic of HB 751.
He is concerned the bill is moving fast toward passage in the Republican-majority House. If it becomes law, Shea said, the state must increase public education funding.
“There’s no getting around the fact that you’re asking the neighbors of the kids who opt out of the school district to pay more taxes so the kids can go to a different school. It just fundamentally doesn’t make sense,” Shea said.
Shea recently wrote an opinion column stating the bill could be the “knockout punch” and “death knell” for public education in the Granite State.
Shea is concerned smaller communities with a lower value tax base would lose students to property-rich communities, and would not attract students to make up for those losses. Wealthier families who can find a way to get their kids to another town could jump ship and seek out a new school district for a more intensive curriculum, athletics or arts programs.
Shea worries about those left behind in sending districts that don’t have the funds to invest more into their staffing, programming and facilities.
“People need to understand that we’re sinking the ship without regard to who is still left on it when it goes down,” Shea said. “That is the part I think people are missing.”
Dover, Portsmouth superintendents question open enrollment proposal
Some local superintendents are raising questions about how universal open enrollment would affect long-term tuition agreements with other school districts.
Students from Barrington and Nottingham attend Dover High School under district tuition agreements. Should all the existing students from the two neighboring towns remain at Dover High School, but choose to do so under open enrollment, the absence of the tuition agreements would equal a roughly $500,000 loss for SAU 11, according to Boston. If all the Barrington and Nottingham students were to attend other high schools and leave Dover, Boston estimated a combined $5 million loss.
“I don’t want to represent that they all would leave. I don’t think that’s the case at all,” she stated. “It’s really all the unknowns that worry me. We could be sending Dover taxpayer funding to a completely different district.”
The Portsmouth school district has a similar agreement with SAU 50, for students from Greenland, New Castle, Newington and Rye to attend Portsmouth High School.
That tuition agreement has been in place for decades, noted Portsmouth Superintendent Zach McLaughlin.
“This shared experience has shaped what it means to be a Clipper and what Portsmouth High School represents as a regional institution,” McLaughlin wrote in an email. “I worry about what would happen to the cultural fabric of our greater community if an agreement that all of these towns deliberately entered into in the 1970s were effectively washed away without careful thought or planning.
“In the current moment, it is not even clear whether that would occur. The proposed legislation does not clearly explain how existing (tuition) agreements would interact with statewide open enrollment, which creates uncertainty not only for Portsmouth, but also for SAU 50 itself,” McLaughlin added.
Boston largely opposes universal open enrollment with a straightforward outlook on the proposal: “New Hampshire is a state of local control and Dover taxpayer money should fund Dover public schools.”
“Even though Portsmouth might appear, on the surface, to be better positioned than some districts, we believe the current proposals would be destabilizing for Portsmouth, disruptive to regional collaboration, and ultimately harmful to public education across New Hampshire if implemented without further study and refinement,” McLaughlin said.
Public education advocates cite concerns for taxpayers, educators
The New Hampshire School Boards Association and the New Hampshire School Administrators Association are also opposing the universal open enrollment proposal.
Mark MacLean, executive director of the NHSAA, said it “usurps local decision-making” and has not “fully considered the ramifications and dynamics of changing enrollment statistics.”
Despite its objection to the proposed open enrollment system, the organization wants to broaden student choice in New Hampshire public education.
“Through the NHSAA’s resolutions, we strongly support local governance and locally determined enrollment decisions,” MacLean said. “We believe that strong public schools create strong communities. A cornerstone of the ‘New Hampshire advantage’ is the authority of local citizens to determine how their tax dollars are invested and to hold their towns and districts accountable to those decisions. To ensure these new opportunities succeed without compromising the stability of our districts and communities, any enrollment policy must respect local governance and be thoughtfully developed through a transparent process that empowers communities to lead the way.”
Barrett Christina, executive director of the NHSBA, noted this time of year is budget season for many school districts. Budgeting without certainty is going to “create chaos” for local school boards and taxpayers, Christina stated.
“Voters and local taxpayers would not be able to determine how their money is being spent,” Christina said.
Megan Tuttle, president of the New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association, the state’s biggest teachers union, said open enrollment would be harmful to education in the state.
“Mandatory open enrollment will fundamentally destabilize our public school system by severing the link between a community and its public schools,” Tuttle said in a statement. “While a student’s zip code should never determine the quality of their education, this proposal completely ignores the real problem — New Hampshire’s overreliance on local property taxes to fund public schools. Until that structural inequity is addressed, open enrollment is not a solution — it’s a diversion. … Schools already struggling to meet student needs would lose funding, staffing, and programming as dollars are redirected to subsidize out-of-district enrollment.”
What’s next for open enrollment bill
Lang expects the House could vote on the bill in a matter of days.
The House’s approval could then move it to Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s desk for signature. A spokesperson for Ayotte did not respond to a request for comment on whether the governor supports the bill.
Editor’s note: State Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Stratham, is the wife of Howard Altschiller, Seacoast Media Group’s executive editor.
