“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.”