JEFFERSON CITY — A plan that would allow families to send their children to public schools in districts where they don’t reside won narrow approval in the Missouri House on Tuesday.
The so-called open enrollment plan has become a perennial policy debate in Jefferson City. This year marks the fourth time Rep. Brad Pollitt, R-Sedalia, has sponsored legislation.
The Legislature’s lower chamber voted to advance the measure with an 83-69 vote. Two dozen Republicans broke with the majority of their party to oppose it.
Last year, the House signed off on an almost identical open enrollment measure with an 85-69 vote.
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Under the legislation, school districts would have the option to accept students from outside their boundaries and would need to elect to do so by Dec. 1 the prior year. Districts that opt in to open enrollment would not be required to add staff or resources.
School districts could choose to cap the number of students who leave the district at 3%.
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education would be required to develop and manage an online portal that tracks the number of open enrollment students.
Pollitt’s measure also creates a fund to reimburse some nonresident students or districts that accept nonresident students for school transportation costs. He wants the Legislature to put $80 million into the fund.
“Open enrollment keeps the 900,000 public school students in the public school system being taught by public school teachers, paying into the public school retirement system,†said Pollitt during Tuesday’s debate.
Responding to predictions that open enrollment would force school districts to compete with one another, “I’m totally in favor of competing,†Pollitt said during a public hearing on the bill this month.
Democrats leveled a variety of criticisms during floor debate Tuesday.
A major theme was that open enrollment is just a Band-Aid for the larger problem of a public school system that has been underfunded for decades.
Rep. Barb Phifer, D-Kirkwood, likened it to “changing the deck chairs of the Titanic.â€
Rep. Peter Merideth, D-ºüÀêÊÓƵ, said problems with the state’s education system need to be considered in the context of the state’s history of underfunding education and school transportation.
Meredith asked why the Legislature wasn’t prioritizing teacher pay or adequate education funding instead. Open enrollment, he said, acknowledges that there’s inequity between school districts but has the effect of exacerbating it.
Doug Richey, an Excelsior Springs Republican, said the bill is “a move in the right direction.â€
“It starts at the right place,†he said. “Give parents the opportunity to make the decision that they believe is best for their student.â€
Pollitt told the Post-Dispatch on Monday there’s a perception that only “white or non-minority parents†will want their students to transfer out of a school district.
“I don’t believe that’s factual,†he said. “That is definitely not the intention.â€
The bill allows for an exemption for ºüÀêÊÓƵ Public Schools because of a court-ordered desegregation plan for the district enacted in 1983.
The desegregation plan allows for the voluntary transfer of Black students from ºüÀêÊÓƵ to ºüÀêÊÓƵ County and for SLPS magnet schools to enroll white students from the county. This year, 2,437 Black students from the city attend county schools and 62 white students from the county attend magnet schools in the city.
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Blythe Bernhard of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.