By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — Republican negotiators on the House Bill 751 public school open enrollment conference committee Thursday made a last minute change on what they proposed for a new open enrollment program.
Instead they simply amended the current law, which allows school districts to prevent their students from transferring to out-of-district schools, to require that at least 10 percent of students in every public school district be eligible for open enrollment, whether any student decides to transfer or not.
The school districts currently can set the number of spaces and programs available to outside students, and the number of students in the district who could apply to transfer to another school.
Earlier in the day, Republicans on the committee had agreed to a plan that would cap transfers to 500 students the first year of the program which would be the 2027 -2928 school year and institute a new funding program based on the current charter school state aid program.
Currently the sending school has to pay the receiving school about $17,000 per student and the district’s state aid — both the adequacy grant and the differential aid for special education, low-income and English language learning students — would follow the child to the new school.
The funding system is extremely unpopular as it sends locally raised property taxes for education to another district, often one that is able to provide more educational and extra curricular activities opportunities than the child’s home school.
The funding system has been vehemently opposed by school districts, school boards, superintendents and municipal officials.
The proposal that was scrapped at the last minute would have had the state pay the tuition for the transfer student consisting of state aid and a $5,200 bonus grant which would bring the total to between $10,000 and $11,000 depending on the amount of differential aid that follows the student.
Currently there are about a dozen students in the open enrollment program, most attending Prospect Mountain School in Alton.
The funding, along with who is responsible for special education costs and aid for students with disabilities, and whether students would be guaranteed a place in their new schools until they graduate or decide to leave, have been the major sticking points in negotiations over the last two weeks.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte said late Thursday afternoon: “That bill is not ready for prime time.”
But it is still not clear if there is an agreement or not as the state website says the plan just raising the student eligibility for the program to 10 percent has been signed off by negotiators. But Democratic Sen. Rebecca Perkins Kwoka, D-Portsmouth, is still listed on the sign-off sheet, and she indicated earlier in the day she would not support any proposal.
The other Democrat on the negotiating committee, Rep. Peggy Balboni, D-Rye, was replaced by House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Auburn.
Senate President Sharon Carson, Londonderry, put out a statement saying she was disappointed the two sides could not come to an agreement.
Rep. David Luneau, D-Hopkinton, the House Education Funding Committee ranking Democrat, said the last minute change does nothing to correct the problems with the current open enrollment law.
He said the new plan does nothing to fix “all of the problems with the current law… all of the questions from taxpayers and parents… and it’s a slap in the face of voters across the state who know the broken open enrollment system is a mess.”
What they did will make it worse, he said.
If there is a signed agreement, it will be voted on June 4 by first the Senate and then the House.
Senate Bill 101, a plan very similar to the one proposed until the last minute Thursday by the Republicans was killed in the House on a 184-168 vote last month.
Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.