Republicans advance diminished open enrollment bill after broader effort fails

House and Senate Republican negotiators failed to bring a sweeping open enrollment bill over the finish line Thursday, after insurmountable opposition from Gov. Kelly Ayotte and a faction of House Republicans. 

But they did agree on a smaller proposal that could affect public school districts. 

In a last-minute move ahead of a 4 p.m. deadline Thursday, negotiators agreed on a measure to prevent school boards from blocking their students from attending existing open enrollment schools. The proposed legislation would require school boards to allow at least 10% of their students to attend an open enrollment school. 

Under current law, public school districts are allowed to choose to make any of their schools open enrollment schools, meaning that they can accept students from other New Hampshire school districts, whose resident districts must pay tuition. So far, just one public school has chosen to do so since the law was passed in 2009: Prospect Mountain High School in Alton Bay. 

But the current open enrollment law also allows schools to vote on how many students they will allow to leave their school district to attend those open enrollment schools. And the law currently allows them to set that number to zero. After the state Supreme Court ruled in 2025 that Pittsfield School District is required to pay tuition for Pittsfield students who choose to attend Prospect Mountain High School, a number of school districts adopted policies restricting their students from doing the same by setting the number allowed to leave to zero.

Thursday’s compromise legislation, attached to House Bill 751, would prevent such a blanket denial. Instead, the bill would change the law to require districts to allow anywhere between 10% and 100% of their students to leave the district and attend an open enrollment school.

The move comes after a year in which Senate Republicans tried repeatedly to pass a more expansive, “universal” open enrollment law that would require all school districts to both receive and send open enrollment students. But a small faction of House Republicans has rejected that legislation, citing concerns with overriding local school board decisions. And Ayotte has consistently expressed skepticism.

On Thursday, as committee of conference negotiators were wrangling over whether to pass a universal open enrollment bill, Ayotte issued a clear statement: “That bill is not ready for primetime.” Hours later, negotiators dropped that proposal and pivoted to the pared back proposal.

The version of HB 751 that prevents blanket bans on departing students will need full Senate and House approval on June 4 before it can advance to Ayotte’s desk. 

In a statement, Rep. Dave Luneau, a Hopkinton Democrat, criticized the last-minute agreement.

 “Open enrollment is massively unpopular in New Hampshire,” he said. “Over 100 communities across our state voted to place restrictions on open enrollment this spring. This bill would override all those votes that taxpayers took to protect their communities.”