The Missouri House of Representatives this week passed legislation involving open enrollment for public schools.
State Representative Mazzie Boyd of Hamilton explains what “open enrollment involves.
She voted yes on the legislation that was sent to the Missouri Senate.
Boyd says she had calls from parents who wanted to take their children to rural schools and smaller schools.
The three percent would be based on the prior year. She explains open enrollment would be on a first-come, first-served basis when transferring to a school and wanting to leave a school. She acknowledges that Iowa has open enrollment, but she says Iowa’s is on a “pretty large scale,” and she believes Missouri’s open enrollment would be “very setback,” “low scale,” and have a lot of guidelines.
More guidelines were added when the legislation was debated on the floor of the Missouri House of Representatives on March 7th, but Boyd does not see school districts closing or consolidating in Missouri with open enrollment.
The bill’s sponsor is State Representative Brad Pollitt.