Introduction
Reason Foundation is a leader in open enrollment policy research, publishing a yearly analysis and rating of each state’s open enrollment laws: Public Schools Without Boundaries 2024.
K–12 open enrollment policies let students transfer to traditional public schools other than those that they are residentially assigned to, so long as the receiving school has vacancies available. Cross-district open enrollment programs allow students to transfer to schools outside their assigned school districts, while within-district programs let students transfer to different schools inside their districts. To date, Missouri is considering three open enrollment legislative proposals: Senate Bill (SB) 215—which also encompasses SB 70—House Bill (HB) 711, and SB 572, each of which varies in comprehensiveness.
Overview
In accordance with Reason’s Public Schools Without Boundaries numerical ranking methodology—which awards points to state policies in proportion to their fulfillment of seven key open enrollment metrics—Missouri’s current policy and legislative proposals are scored as follows.
Full Backgrounder: K-12 Open Enrollment Proposals in Missouri, 2025