Alison Patton
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Gov. Mike Kehoe has promised $7.5 million to pay for students to attend classes outside their school districts, if the state legislature can pass an open enrollment bill.
“Again, open enrollment is not about weakening public education, it’s about strengthening it,” Kehoe said in his State of the State Address in January. “Because when families have choices, schools are pushed to innovate, improve, and respond to the needs of the students they serve.”
Two bills in each chamber would make open enrollment between districts possible, but the bills differ on how many transfer students can be accepted.
State Rep. Brad Pollitt (R-Sedalia) is sponsoring House Bill 2604, which would allow schools to cap transfer students at 5% of the previous school year’s student enrollment. If passed, Pollitt’s bill would take effect July 1, 2027.
Pollitt’s bill hasn’t been assigned to a House committee.
State Sen. Curtis Trent’s (R-Greene County) bill, Senate Bill 971, would start all schools on a 3% cap of the previous year’s enrollment. If a school hits its transfer student total after the first year, it can bump the cap to 4%. Schools would be able to bump the cap again by 1% if it hits the transfer student total. However, 5% is the highest cap the bill would allow.
Trent’s bill would take effect July 1, 2028, if it can pass both chambers. It was passed out of the Senate education committee on Tuesday.
This is the sixth year the General Assembly has tried to pass an open-enrollment bill.
Kehoe also stated in his State of the State Address that public schools will not receive any additional state funding for the next school year, and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is tasked with updating the base formula for public school funding.
The Missouri National Education Association opposes the Senate bill.
“The Association believes that public school choice plans with state funding may harm students and our public schools unless essential criteria are in place for implementing, monitoring, and evaluating their effectiveness,” MNEA’s legislative update reads.
“Our goal is to ensure that every student has access to a great public school,” Mark Jones, MNEA public affairs director, said. “Unfortunately, the open enrollment bill doesn’t meet the criteria.”
Jones said the policy could make open enrollment an option for only some families they have to find their own transportation to the new district.
“What we think will happen is that you’ll have two groups of students, one that have access to the potential to go to the new district and others that don’t,” Jones said. “We’d rather put efforts into ensuring that every public school is a great place that welcomes students and meets their needs.”
The Missouri State Teachers Association also opposes the policy because of potential financial impacts and strains on school districts.
MSTA Policy Director Matt Michelson said open enrollment could cause some school districts to condense, as students leave their districts for another, and it could overwhelm well-performing districts.
Both bills would allow state funding to follow the students who leave, essentially adding students to the count of the new school district.
“For some districts, having an extra student could mean substantial state dollars in addition to what they’re getting, and for other districts, it’d be a very minimal amount,” Michelson said.
Michelson said the state estimated the program would cost about $80 million back when the policy was introduced for the very first time.
“We are now in what is probably going to end up being substantially similar bill to the one from a few years back,” he said. “How did the program go from being $80 million to $7 million without any real kind of substantial changes?”
The Missouri Charter Public School Association supports open enrollment, as long as it includes charter schools, which both bills do.
“At the end of the day, Missouri families are really seeking the best public school fit for them,” executive director Noah Devine said.
He said there are some challenges that the legislature will have to work through, like how funding will work once the state updates the public school funding formula and what happens when a student transfers to a school district that has a different levy or wealth disparity.
“I don’t know the right answer or where it’s going to land,” Devine said. “I’ve seen different iterations over the years, but it’s a worthy problem to work through, but I think we can do it.”
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