Confused by public school open enrollment? Here’s what’s happening at the state and local level.

As state lawmakers race to pass a new law mandating open enrollment

among public schools, local school district leaders are engaged in a counter-effort to adopt policies that block students from leaving the district under the state’s current open enrollment law.

A lot is happening all at once, but here is the upshot: If a universal open enrollment law takes effect, it would make the adoption of local policies — which are on the docket at many upcoming school district meetings — moot.

Why does this matter? Universal open enrollment would fundamentally transform public education in New Hampshire. Currently, students by and large attend the school district in which they reside. Under open enrollment, they could attend any public school in the state that has room for them.

Proponents of open enrollment argue it will significantly expand educational opportunities for students, particularly those who live in under-performing school districts. Opponents worry it will decimate those schools and exacerbate inequality. When students enroll elsewhere, their home school district must pay tuition to the district they attend.

A Supreme Court ruling last fall set off a mad dash by local school districts to adopt policies that restrict students from leaving. At the time of the ruling, just two districts in the state — Prospect Mountain and Franklin — had open enrollment policies. Since then, at least two more — Kearsarge and Pembroke — have followed suit.

As of Jan. 30, at least eight other school districts in the Concord area have added open enrollment articles to their draft warrants for their annual meetings.

Hopkinton’s board appears poised to do so as well, but has yet to finalize the language of the warrant. Merrimack Valley and Concord had not yet decided how to proceed, according to the chair and president of their boards, respectively.

The only districts in the region that have opted against bringing forward open enrollment warrant articles are Deerfield and Shaker Regional.

Given the state-level legislative push to change the law, these policies might be very temporary. Still, they are expected to be major topics at upcoming deliberative sessions and annual meetings.

In each case in which open enrollment has been adopted or added to the draft warrant, the district has proposed limiting the number of students who can exit their schools to zero students. The state law requires the district to set a percentage of students who can enter and exit.

Pembroke, which held a special annual meeting this week to adopt its open enrollment policy, is the only district to indicate it plans to actively recruit new students.

Assuming residents in every district approve their warrant articles as written, it will lead to a scenario in which the majority of the region has open enrollment in name only, because most students would be unable to leave under their home district’s restrictive policies.

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