House committee recommends universal open enrollment in party-line vote

A controversial universal open enrollment bill moved one step closer to becoming law Monday after the Republican majority on a House education committee approved its passage.

The bill, SB 101, would allow students to enroll at any public school in the state with space for them at no expense to the student’s family.

Under current law, school districts can limit the number of resident students who may enroll elsewhere. Many moved this year to block any students from leaving through open enrollment.

The bill has garnered criticism because of fears it will exacerbate inequality between districts and lead to implementation issues. The Democratic members of the House Education and Policy Committee all opposed it.

Members of the public have also generally expressed opposition. Online testimony skewed heavily against the bill, 2,174 to 75, as of Monday afternoon.

The proposed law would direct the state to transfer adequacy dollars from the district a student resides in to the one they enroll in. The enrolling district would also receive a separate grant of nearly $5,000 per student. The funding model is the same as currently exists for charter school enrollment.

An earlier version of the bill, which passed the Senate, would have required districts to pay each other directly for tuition.

Democrats have encouraged lawmakers to form a study committee to examine the implications of universal open enrollment, but Republicans have been eager to pass the law and have dismissed many of the opposing party’s concerns as overblown.

In recent weeks, critics of the bill have zeroed in on how the bill would affect students with disabilities. In other states with universal open enrollment, students with disabilities have been denied access to open enrollment at higher rates than their peers.

Though the bill would prohibit discrimination based on their disability, a school district would be allowed to reject a student who wishes to enroll if they had significant disciplinary issues or had experienced a high number of absences, both educational challenges that students with disabilities are more likely than their peers to face.

The bill was tweaked on Monday in an attempt to clarify that behavioral or attendance issues tied to a student’s disability would be exempt from the permissible denial rationales.

Opponents of the bill have also expressed concern about how special education would be funded. Unlike in most states, the district in which a student resides would remain responsible for funding or providing special education services when a student enrolls elsewhere.

“We have been deemed a unicorn in how we fund our special education services,” said Rebecca Fredette, the state director of special education at the Department of Education.

In most other states, the district a student enrolls in becomes responsible for providing and paying for their special education services.

Democrats on the House committee expressed concern that the costs of providing the services could go up if students disperse to several faraway districts.

Republican Rep. Kristin Noble, the chair of the committee, described that possibility as “extreme.”

“If that were to ever happen, where you have a mass exodus, what you’re describing as being a problem is not the problem,” she said. “There’s a problem somewhere [regarding] why parents are wanting to pull their kids.”

The bill could be voted on in the House as soon as April 23, the next scheduled session day in the House. If passed, it would then return to the Senate.

If enacted, the proposed law would take effect at the beginning of the 2027-28 school year.