Introduction and Background
Open enrollment is a form of school choice that gives families and students the option to attend a public school other than the one that serves the neighborhood in which they live. Open enrollment can permit students to attend a different public school within their assigned district, called intra-district open enrollment, or to attend a school outside of their district, known as inter-district open enrollment.
While the last few years brought legislative attention to private school choice options such as education savings accounts and vouchers, public school choice options have seen growth outside of the education choice spotlight. According to The Reason Foundation, at least 16 states have 2024 pending legislation addressing K-12 open enrollment and at least six states enacted open enrollment proposals in 2023.
Proponents of open enrollment believe it provides families access to schools that may be a better fit for their students. Availability of advanced courses, school culture and rating, proximity to home or work, and specific programming are all potential reasons for a family to seek enrollment in a different school or district. Proponents assert that open enrollment can alleviate socioeconomic or racial divisions between neighborhoods and increase healthy competition between schools. Critics of open enrollment believe it may exacerbate inequity by placing the onus for change on lower income families and students of color. Some also raise concerns about the financial effects of families leaving their zoned neighborhood schools.
The decision to offer open enrollment often lies at the district level, but states continue to consider legislation that impacts the availability, funding and governance of these local programs.
State Action
Some states are expanding or refining their existing open enrollment policies while others are requiring statewide open enrollment for the first time. In 2023 Montana enacted HB 203 with bipartisan support. The legislation standardizes open enrollment and removes any potential tuition or transportation charges for students attending a school in another district. Idaho enacted 2023 SB 1125 which allows students to transfer to any public school, within or outside of their district, at any point during the year and removes the requirement that they reapply after the first year of transfer. West Virginia 2023 HB 2596 requires counties to develop and implement both intra- and inter-district open enrollment policies without charging tuition or requiring approval from the resident district.
In 2024 North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Virginia are considering legislation that would require districts to create or adopt policies for open enrollment, and Missouri is considering legislation that would permit districts to establish open enrollment policies.
Beyond decisions to offer or create open enrollment programs, lawmakers also consider program design factors in their states. Policymakers commonly address transportation challenges and school capacity issues, while also considering parental engagement and broader governance, when addressing open enrollment programs.
Transportation
Once a state allows students to attend a public school outside of their neighborhood or district, they take different routes to answer how that student will get to school each day. Most commonly, it is the parent or guardian’s responsibility to transport an open enrollment student to their school of choice. A 2020 study from EdChoice indicates that only six states mandate student transportation between districts, but 30 states have at least some provision for public funding of cross district transportation.
Iowa’s current law authorizes a receiving school district to send school vehicles to an open enrollment student’s resident district if the resident district’s board of directors agrees to the arrangement, though there is pending 2024 legislation to alter both the need for agreement and the distance that can be traveled. Districts are not required to provide transportation to nonresident students, but if they choose to, they are required to charge parents a fee based on the average cost of all district students transported via school buses. In the 2022-2023 school year, that cost was approximately $843.
Colorado has a similar requirement that an open enrollment student’s resident district must consent to an adjacent district sending transportation. The state also permits a school board to reimburse a parent or guardian for transportation expenses, but a receiving district cannot reimburse an open enrollment student’s family without consent of the resident district.
Arizona, which has some of the most expansive school choice policies in the country, permits a receiving district to provide transportation up to 30 miles to an open enrollment student who meets free or reduced-price lunch requirements or who has an individualized education plan that specifies transportation.
School Capacity
Many states specifically list acceptable reasons for denying an open enrollment application, with the most common stipulation being whether a district, school or grade level has the space to accept students from outside the school boundaries.
North Dakota 2023 HB 1376 specifies that a lack of capacity is the only reason a school district board may not consider an open enrollment application. The legislation also prohibits a resident school district from denying open enrollment to an approved virtual school. In preparation for their open enrollment program to launch in fall 2024, Kansas 2022 HB 2567 required districts to adopt policies to determine open enrollment capacity. Capacity must be determined annually before May 1 and is calculated as each grade’s classroom student-teacher ratio in grades K-8 and the school or program’s student-teacher ratio for grades 9-12. Florida currently updates and posts school district’s grade-level capacity every 12 weeks, though pending legislation in 2024 would decrease the frequency to twice annually. Both Kansas and Florida reflect the trend of requiring districts to publish school capacities and open enrollment processes online for increased family engagement and transparency.
Some states regulate school capacity issues by limiting the number of open enrollment transfers to a certain percentage of the district’s total enrollment. Minnesota permits a school board to limit the enrollment of nonresident students by resolution, though the limit cannot be less than either 1% of the total district enrollment at each grade level or the number of district residents at that grade level enrolled in a nonresident district. In the 2020-2021 school year 9.9% of Minnesota students, more than 86,000, were open-enrolled. The 2023 Arkansas Learns Act, which also established other education choice policies, removed a 3% participation cap on cross-district enrollment.
State policies continue to influence open enrollment options, contributing to a myriad of approaches for students, families and districts to pursue and provide a high-quality public education.
NCSL wishes to thank the Stand Together Trust for its support of this brief.