Since 2021, six of Missouri’s neighbors have improved public school transfer opportunities for their students through open enrollment laws. These policies let students transfer to public schools other than their assigned one, so long as space is available. It’s high time that Missouri students have comparable schooling options. Now, mirror proposals approved by the Missouri Senate Education Committee would weaken the barriers that Missouri students face.
Senate Bills (SBs) 971 and 906 would establish a discretionary cross-district open enrollment policy, letting students transfer to public schools in other districts that choose to participate in the program. These policies are popular with parents. A 2025 national YouGov poll showed that 74% of parents support open enrollment, and 88% of parents responded that students should be able to attend the public school that best meets their needs.
Research from other states shows that students use open enrollment to escape bullying, shorten commutes, and access specialized learning models or college-level courses, such as Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes. Data from Arizona, Florida, and Texas showed that participants tended to transfer to districts rated as “A” or “B” by the state.
If signed into law, SBs 971 and 906 would allow students to transfer to public schools in other districts. Each district decides whether to participate and sets any admission standards. Additionally, districts can cap the number of students transferring out at up to 3% the enrollment of the previous school year. After the 2028-29 school year, this cap can increase by 1% if the district is at maximum capacity for two years. However, no more than 5% of a district’s enrollment can transfer out of it. All rejected applicants would be informed in writing the reasons for their denial.
Overall, these bills are a step in the right direction, as Missouri law doesn’t afford students with any cross-district open enrollment options.
However, these bills’ design would make them the most restrictive open enrollment policies nationwide. No other state’s open enrollment law imposes wholesale caps on the number of students transferring out and gives districts the discretion to opt out.
For example, Vermont and Minnesota let districts impose caps on the number of departing students, but require all districts to participate in open enrollment. Similarly, in Michigan, school districts have the discretion to opt out of open enrollment and impose caps, but lose 5% of state funding in doing so. No such guardrails are included in SBs 971 and 906.
These proposals could be significantly strengthened by making participation universal for all districts, so long as space is available, and eliminating all participation caps. Policies like this help students attend schools that are the right fit, regardless of where they live.
Districts’ concerns of enrollment fluctuations due to open enrollment policies are overwrought, and evidence from neighboring states should put public school officials at ease. Seven of Missouri’s eight neighbors have more flexible open enrollment options. Five of them –Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas– ensure that open enrollment participation is universal, allowing students to transfer to any district with extra seats available in their grade level. Moreover, none of them allow caps on the number of departing students. Notably, Arkansas eliminated provisions in state law that let districts cap the number of students transferring out of them in 2023.
Of Missouri’s neighbors with strong open enrollment laws, about five percent of students transferred to schools in other districts on average. Figure 1 shows statewide student participation rates in states with universal open enrollment programs. Generally, districts that lose students also gain some students.
Figure 1: The latest open enrollment data from states near Missouri
| State | Total enrollment | Cross-district transfers | Percentage of enrollment |
| Arkansas 24-25 | 444,235 | 25,346 | 6% |
| Iowa 24-25 | 474,860 | 41,487 | 9% |
| Kansas 24-25 | 862,230 | 2,037 | 0.2% |
| Nebraska 23-24 | 328,648 | 24,692 | 8% |
| Oklahoma 24-25 | 642,637 | 8,517 | 1% |
Source: State departments of education.
Moreover, data from eight states show that open enrollment programs don’t cause an explosion of transfer students; rather, these programs scale up incrementally with time, giving districts ample opportunity to address fluctuating enrollments.
For example, data from Iowa showed that open enrollment participation increased by less than 4% annually between the 2009-10 and 2024-25 school years. More recent data from Kansas showed that less than one percent of students used Kansas’ open enrollment program during its first year of operation last school year. Similarly, the number of participants in Arkansas increased by 3% or 702 students since it was launched during the 2023-24 school year.
Districts, including rural ones, can also benefit from open enrollment because it’s an opportunity to boost their enrollments and state funding. In fact, a 2025 Reason Foundation report showed that rural districts in states neighboring Missouri, as categorized by the National Center for Education Statistics, often receive the bulk of open enrollment transfers. Figure 2 shows open enrollment participation rates by locale in these states.
Figure 2: Cross-district transfers by locale in select states
These data illustrate that rural school districts can successfully navigate education ecosystems where students are more mobile. In fact, data from Wisconsin showed that rural districts gained more students than they lost, adding more than 2,300 students on net, during the 2023-24 school year.
While the policy design of open enrollment programs needs strengthening, SBs 971 and 906 get several things right. They would stop districts from discriminating against applicants based on their ability or disability. The open enrollment process would become more family-friendly because districts would have to post their available capacity and all transfer policies and procedures on their websites, ensuring that families know when, where, and how to apply. Rejected applicants would be informed in writing why they were denied.
Yet these bills could make open enrollment even more transparent. For example, districts should post their available capacity by grade level so families know if spots are available in their child’s grade.
Additionally, the proposal’s state-level reporting could be improved. The report should publish district-level data showing the number of transfers, rejected applicants, and reasons for denial. Currently, five states publish reports like this, including Missouri’s neighbors, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kansas.
If signed into law, Missouri’s score would improve from 5/100 points to 46/100 points on Reason Foundation’s open enrollment best practices, surpassing Kentucky and Illinois. Currently, Missouri’s open enrollment law is one of the weakest in the country because it’s among the handful of states with no or nearly no open enrollment policies codified in state law.
Overall, SBs 906 and 971 are a step in the right direction, expanding students’ public school options. But Missouri can and should do better by codifying a strong open enrollment system that prioritizes students’ interests over districts by letting them transfer to public schools that are the right fit.