Sandra Adams | Oppose SB101

The Pittsfield School Board wishes to express their concerns re: SB101. For small, property-tax dependent districts like Pittsfield, even a modest shift in student enrollment could create significant and unplanned financial impacts. At the same time, many operational and legal questions remain unsolved, including how special education responsibilities, capacity determinations, transportation, and tuition calculations would be managed. Moving forward without clear answers places local districts at financial and legal risk while limiting our ability to plan responsibly for our students. This bill has an unpredictable financial impact. Because SB101 uses a "money follows the child" model, if a student living in one district chooses to attend school elsewhere, the resident district would be required to pay the receiving district between 80% and 100% of the district's average per pupil cost. The fact is that losing 5 or 10 students across different grades does not lower a school's operating costs for heating, electricity, or teacher salaries, etc. This way of funding would significantly impact operating budgets without much predictability. Additionally, SB101 would fundamentally change the current definition of "student" which would allow any student in NH to apply to any public school in the state, regardless of where they live. The law would shift the definition of "legal residency" from a specific town and school district, to the state level, meaning as long as a child lives in NH, they are effectively "residents" of every district for enrollment purposes. OPEN ENROLLMENT, as now defined, is a DISASTER.