Updated 11/26/17 with bills filed to date.

We know that the voucher bill, SB 193, will come back (More here), but there are another 13 school choice bills to watch if you are concerned about maintaining the vitality of New Hampshire’s neighborhood schools:

• LSR 2530 (now, HB 1492) would move New Hampshire toward using the manifest educational hardship statute as a backdoor to universal individual choice funded by local taxpayers.  This could shape up as the blockbuster of the 2018 session (More here.).
• HB 505 would establish a new entity to encourage the formation of and to authorize charter schools.
• HB 647 would establish a special voucher program for children with disabilities.
• LSR 2115 (now, HB 1439) would provide that any private school that contracts with a school district to provide for the education of a child who resides in the school district shall comply with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and New Hampshire standards for the education of children with disabilities.
• LSR 2156 (now, HB 1396) would regulate how a school district’s “default budget” is created.  It would be logical to anticipate that debate on this bill will include the role of the community’s budget committee vs. the school board in setting that budget, with an eye to making it easier to reduce the budget and reduce the ability of the elected school board to decide how to meet the needs of its students.
• LSR 2161 (now, HB 1229)  seeks to eliminate the current statutory provision by providing that an existing public school may become a charter conversion school by a vote of the school board..
• LSR 2384 would make changes to the 2012 voucher bill.
• LSR 2440 (now, HB 1686) would, among other things, allow a taxpayer to use voucher tax credits toward the interest and dividends tax. .
• LSR 2479 (now, HB 1403) would prohibit a member of a local school board from being a member of the state board of education.
• LSR 2482 (now, HB 1272) would change the powers and responsibilities of local school boards, moving them further into school administration.
• LSR 2539 (now, HB 1499) would seek to eliminate local control and academics from kindergarten by requiring that kindergarten be play based and include movement, expression, exploration, socialization, and music.
• LSR 2623 (now, HB 1722) will bring back the proposal to provide charter schools and their landlords a property tax exemption.
• LSR 2704 (now HB 1480) will change the requirements for charter school boards of directors.

And there’s a formidable team lined up in support of all this.