A New Hampshire proposal would establish a universal open enrollment program across the state, allowing public school students to transfer to schools in other districts with open seats. The policy is widely popular, with 59% of New Hampshire voters saying they support adopting universal open enrollment, according to a Jan. 2026 poll of likely voters by Yes. Every Kid.
Many students also use open enrollment programs to escape bullying, access specialized learning models and college-level courses, such as Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate classes, shorten family commutes, and find smaller class sizes. In short, strong open enrollment policies help students attend schools that are the right fit, regardless of where they live.
Nationwide open enrollment policies, like those in New Hampshire’s proposed Senate Bill 101-FN, have helped at least 1.8 million students find public schools that are right for them, including many students with disabilities.
The latest data showed that at least 80,000 students with disabilities participated in open enrollment programs, accounting for nearly 12% of students using open enrollment, in the 2023-2024 school year across eight states (and the 2018-2019 school year in California, the most recent year with data available), underscoring the program’s reach for policymakers.
Laws in five of these states, Minnesota, Arkansas, California, Ohio, and South Dakota, protect students with disabilities from discriminatory admissions.
Figure 1: Students with disabilities transferring to other school districts
This data shows that many students with disabilities benefit from open enrollment, attending schools that are the right fit for them. For example, more than 16,000 students using Minnesota’s open enrollment program were students with disabilities (SWDs).
Yet it doesn’t mean policymakers, taxpayers, and families shouldn’t monitor the situation, as worrying data from Nebraska and Wisconsin show that transfer applicants who are also SWDs experience higher denial rates than other students.
This is why state education agencies should publish detailed school district-level reports on open enrollment programs, such as the number of participants transferring, rejected applicants, and the reasons why they were denied transfers. These reports give parents and policymakers the information they need to improve districts’ open enrollment practices and hold them accountable for their decisions. SB 101 would establish a similar report for New Hampshire.
Currently, states like Oklahoma and Wisconsin make all of this information readily available to the public, providing detailed information about how open enrollment affects school district enrollment numbers and why public school transfer applicants were denied.
These transparency reports are invaluable tools for parents, policymakers, and taxpayers to inform future policy tweaks to improve access to public schools and ensure program implementation is consistent with lawmakers’ intentions.
Additionally, New Hampshire policymakers are considering an amendment to SB 101 that would adopt a key guardrail missing from Wisconsin and Nebraska’s laws. The amendment would explicitly prohibit school districts from discriminating against students based on their disabilities or abilities, protecting New Hampshire’s students with disabilities from unfair admissions practices. If adopted, the bill’s amendment would be a significant improvement to existing New Hampshire law, which allows districts to select transfer applicants based on their “aptitude.”
Notably, 14 states, including Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Jersey, have already codified such provisions in their open enrollment laws to protect students from discrimination.
Overall, Senate Bill 101 would help New Hampshire’s families by expanding public schooling options for all students, including those with disabilities. If codified, it would make the state’s open enrollment policies the third-best nationwide, tying with Idaho, according to Reason Foundation’s annual examination of every state’s public school transfer laws.
K-12 education is a deeply personal experience for students, and often even more so for students with disabilities and their families, who face unique challenges. Strong open-enrollment laws, like those proposed in SB 101, are an important way to give students with disabilities greater flexibility within the public school system. Tens of thousands of students with disabilities across the country already benefit from these programs. New Hampshire’s students should, too.