Understanding SB 101 - Open Enrollment

January 28th, 2026

What This Means:

On Thursday, the Senate will vote on SB 101, which creates a statewide public school open enrollment system. Reaching Higher has covered the basics of open enrollment before, but here, we break down what this specific bill means. 

What The Bill Does:

Simply: SB 101 would allow families to enroll their child in any public school in the state, regardless of where they live. Schools would have to accept any student wanting to enroll, provided space is available. The cost of enrollment would be covered largely by the taxpayers in a student’s resident district, but occasionally the family would have to chip in. Essentially – the student’s education will still be funded by the taxpayers in their town, but the student’s family can choose to  remove those taxpayer dollars from the community that raised them by exporting them to be used in another town.

For a full breakdown of the bill, click here.

What Open Enrollment Could Look Like:

Just to illustrate how this might play out, consider a family in Rochester who wants to send their child to school in Dover. In Rochester, the average cost per pupil is $19,176. In Dover, the cost per pupil is $19,315. When the Rochester family enrolls in Dover, Rochester has to send $19,176 to Dover, and the family would have to pay $139, unless Dover chooses to accept lower tuition. 

When that one family moves, it doesn’t do much to change Rochester’s budget. Rochester still has to provide the same number of buses, hire the same number of teachers, heat the same number of classrooms – but now the district has to fund those core costs, and send $19,000 to another town. If the child moving has an Individualized Education Program (IEP), the amount Rochester sends could be even higher. Over time, and as more students move, this is going to increase costs for Rochester without concurrent savings. In some districts, this will mean higher local taxes. In others, it will mean cuts to teacher pay or to extracurricular programs. And in some, it may make it financially impossible to continue to support a school.

Dover, meanwhile, will see increased revenue and enrollment with little meaningful increase in costs. But as more students from other towns come in, the school experience will change. Students won’t be able to walk home with their friend who lives two towns over. Traditional football rivalries might not feel so exciting when half the players on the “hometown” team live in the rival town. 

And then there’s the issue of taxes. Rochester families, right now, at least, actually face a lower tax rate than Dover families, so in essence, they would be paying less for access to the same schools. And if Dover decided it needed to invest in a new school building, it would be Dover residents who pay those costs. In the long run, families might choose to buy in a lower property tax community, knowing they can enroll in the schools in higher tax communities. Though we believe everyone should have access to a high quality public school regardless of their property tax rate, the way to achieve that is to equalize the level of effort required of towns, not to provide a loophole for families who can drive their students to a neighboring school.

Implications:

SB 101 fundamentally upends the public school system in the state by separating where a family lives and where they attend school. At the same time, it does nothing to change the reliance on local taxes to fund public schools. Where a family lives is still linked to where they pay taxes, but those taxes can now flow freely to other school districts whose school boards are only accountable to their own voters and whose budgets are only voted on by their own town. 

For schools and districts, the policy and the speed at which it’s likely to be implemented – the bill targets a July 1, 2026 implementation date – are likely to create chaos, confusion and administrative burden. District enrollments will be uncertain next year, even though budgets have already been set. Schools will have to determine and regularly update capacity, track open enrollment applications for reporting to the state, and manage requests for payment from receiving districts. These are new tasks for a school, and the bill provides no funding for them. 

The bill text raises a number of unanswered questions, but chief among them is whether students are still entitled to a seat at their neighborhood school. The bill instructs districts to establish capacity limits for each school and grade level, but does not say what capacity should be based on or how districts should accommodate families who move into a school’s attendance zone if a given school or grade is “at capacity.” 

Though open enrollment purports to create educational choice, it is only choice for those who have another school nearby, who can secure their own transportation, and who can finance the difference between districts’ costs, if there is one. Affluent families will likely benefit the most, and sending districts will struggle to manage consistent costs with less income. Chances are, most students will stay at their neighborhood school, but those schools, one way or another, will feel a little different.

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