SB101: Open enrollment - May 15, 2026 Windham Independent

SB101: Open enrollment

As your state representatives, it is our duty to correct the record when misinformation about legislative matters is spread in Windham. We all have the right to disagree with each other’s opinions, but facts matter. 

A couple of weeks ago, a letter to the editor claimed that SB101 was a bad idea which would put pressure on towns with strong schools like Windham. Such absurd claims could not be farther from the truth - while SB101 failed to pass, we are proud to have supported it as it would have benefited Windham. 

Here are the easily verifiable facts:

Open enrollment has been an option in New Hampshire for decades - the bill is improving the existing process. Every dollar stays in public schools, and no local property tax money leaves the school district. All that moves is the state portion of the funding, which has always followed the student.

SB101 would have helped students whose lower income parents do not have the financial ability to move from one town to another in search of better schools - based on states with similar policies, participation should not exceed around 1-2% of the students. After all, transportation to the other school district is the burden of the parents, and capacity in the better school districts tends to be limited.

To prevent cherry picking incoming students (a frequent claim by the opponents of school choice) SB101 bans discrimination in admissions, requiring fair, transparent, non-discriminatory lotteries to be used if a receiving district has more applications than open seats. 

Since Windham has better schools than its neighbors, that would have put us in a great position. For every Windham student that may decide to take advantage of this program and attend a different school district, there will be multiple students from our neighboring towns who would prefer to attend Windham schools. 

Windham would retain full control over how many students may join the program - there is no mandate from the state that we even accept one new student, fully preserving our local control.

Under SB101, adding a new student is profitable if no new teachers need to be hired, no additional classrooms need to be built, no school buses need to be added, etc. As long as our school board manages this program properly, we can just use our existing staff, resources and facilities to pick up additional state funding, reducing the need for property taxes.  

Windham would win, just like the outgoing and incoming students would win by attending schools that they choose. So why would any Windham resident spread misinformation about a good bill? We’re entering the election season… and if one cannot attack our voting record based on factual information, all that’s left is misrepresenting the bill so they can claim supporting it was a bad idea.

SB101 is a good bill that would benefit Windham. We are proud of having voted for it, and we’ll continue to support it if it comes before the House floor again.

Windham State Representatives

Daniel Popovici-Muller

Bob Lynn

Charlie McMahon

Julius Soti