Maine

Maine’s open enrollment policy environment is complex. According to the Reason Foundation, Maine received an F grade for its state-level open enrollment policies — a 0/100, the worst possible score, shared with only three other states. Maine received this grade because it has no state-level policy requiring inter- or intradistrict open enrollment for all students, banning the charging of tuition to transfer students, or requiring data reporting on open enrollment.

While Maine does not have a statewide open enrollment law, it does have several existing programs that approximate parts of what true public school open enrollment would look like.

The first of these is the Town Tuitioning program. If a municipality does not operate a public school for a specific grade level, the town pays the tuition for a child to attend an approved public or private school in another district — or even another state. Town Tuitioning has a long history in Maine (established in 1873) and rural New England generally, but eligibility and utilization remain low. According to EdChoice, just 2% of Maine students are eligible, and 1,827 students used the program in the 2024–25 school year.

Maine also has Superintendents’ Agreements, which function much like interdistrict open enrollment in other states. A student can request a move to a public school outside the resident district. The superintendents of the sending and receiving districts review the request; if both decide a transfer is in the student’s best interest, the student moves. According to the Maine Department of Education, nearly 4,000 superintendent agreements were approved during the 2024–25 school year, while about 100 transfer appeals were denied.

No tuition may be charged under a Superintendents’ Agreement transfer. Several issues, however, keep this from being true open enrollment by another name:

• Agreements must be renewed annually, adding uncertainty for parents, students, and schools.
• Superintendents have wide latitude to accept or reject requests, including school capacity, the student’s housing situation, and a loosely defined “best interest of the student.”

Beyond state policy, some of Maine’s hundreds of school districts (School Administrative Units, or SAUs) have open-enrollment-type policies. Portland Public Schools, for instance, allows students to apply for intradistrict transfers. A few other districts — largely rural — offer full open enrollment, but they are few and far between.

Town Tuitioning, Superintendents’ Agreements, and individual SAU policies create some opportunities, but the patchwork leaves a great deal to be desired and creates unnecessary complexity and uncertainty for Mainers.