With the income cap on New Hampshire’s Education Freedom Account program now in the rearview mirror, Republicans in the State House are pressing toward two new school-choice fronts in the closing weeks of the 2026 session: a sweeping rewrite of state oversight for home-schooled children and a fresh attempt to force public schools to accept students from any district that wants to send them. Neither path is open, and the fight is exposing the same intraparty fault lines that have stalled school-choice expansions across the country, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin.

The backdrop matters. Last June, Governor Kelly Ayotte signed the legislation removing the income limit on Education Freedom Accounts, the state’s voucher-style program that lets families redirect per-pupil state funding into private school tuition, home-school costs, or approved alternative providers. That single change turned New Hampshire into the 18th state in the country with a universal private school choice program. EFA enrollment has roughly doubled since the income cap fell, while the share of program participants who come from lower-income households has shrunk. Republicans regard the EFA expansion as a long-delayed structural win. They are now using their majorities, slim as they are, to extend that posture across the rest of education policy.

What HB 1268 Would Actually Change About Home Education

The first of the two new fronts is House Bill 1268, the home-education rewrite. The version that has cleared committee would reshape the day-to-day relationship between home-schooling parents and the state in three meaningful ways.

First, the bill makes parental notification of intent to home-school optional rather than mandatory. Under current law, a parent who pulls a child from a district school is required to notify either the state Department of Education or the local school district. HB 1268 would convert that filing into a choice the family can make.

Second, the bill repeals the annual evaluation requirement. Home-school families currently have to submit some form of assessment each year, whether a standardized test, a portfolio review, or an evaluation by a certified teacher. HB 1268 strikes that requirement, along with the obligation that parents retain instructional records and copies of materials used.

Third, HB 1268 dismantles the regulatory architecture above home-school programs. It abolishes the Home Education Advisory Council and strips the State Board of Education of its rulemaking authority over home schooling. Taken together, the changes would leave New Hampshire with one of the most laissez-faire home-education regimes in the country.

The proposal sits alongside a parallel measure that already cleared the Senate earlier this session and that aimed at the same target. The Senate’s homeschool bill ending state oversight, filed by Senators Tim Abbas and Tim Altschiller, would similarly roll back reporting and evaluation requirements. HB 1268 is in many respects the House complement to that work, and Republican leaders are signaling that they want both vehicles available going into the final weeks of the session.

Open Enrollment: The Wall Republicans Have Not Yet Cleared

The second front is open enrollment, the idea that any New Hampshire family should be able to enroll their child in any public school district in the state, regardless of where they live. Open enrollment is a quieter form of school choice than vouchers because it keeps families inside the public system. But it disrupts district budgets, complicates transportation, and unsettles small towns that fear losing students and the state per-pupil funding that travels with them.

Senate Republicans have tried multiple versions this session. Senate Bill 101, the most recent iteration, took a charter-school style approach and was meant to skirt some of the funding concerns that doomed earlier drafts. The House failed to pass SB 101 in a 168-184 vote, and a coalition of Democrats joined a faction of dissenting Republicans to table the bill. That procedural move all but ends open enrollment as a live possibility for the rest of the 2026 session.

The defeat surprised nobody who had been counting heads. School boards, superintendents, and local-control Republicans have been the bill’s most stubborn opponents, arguing that mandatory open enrollment substitutes Concord’s preferences for the choices voters make at town meeting. Democrats have leaned on parallel concerns about equity, warning that wealthier districts might cap acceptances while smaller districts hemorrhage students and revenue.

For Republican leadership, the takeaway is that even with universal EFAs on the books, the votes are not yet there to pry public-school district lines apart. That is a meaningful limit on what Concord can deliver to school-choice advocates in any single session.

The Politics of the Sequence

What is striking about the 2026 push is the sequencing. Republicans first secured universal EFAs, which fund private and home options with public money. They are now trying to deregulate home schooling, which would make the private-side option even easier to use. And they are simultaneously trying to deregulate public school enrollment so that families inside the system have more flexibility too. The through-line is the parent, not the institution.

Critics see the same through-line and reach a different conclusion. They argue that the cumulative effect is to weaken public schools while drawing on the same pool of state funding, eventually creating a smaller, more contested traditional public sector that struggles to compete on facilities, teacher pay, and breadth of programming. That argument has been most forcefully made by school administrators, who continue to lobby the legislature aggressively as the session winds down.

The state’s broader civic infrastructure is also part of this story. Initiatives like the Mikva Challenge civics program at St. Anselm, Pittsfield, and Weare and ongoing debates about school identification and college student voter eligibility sit alongside the school-choice fight as part of the same larger question: who decides what New Hampshire education looks like, and at what level of government does that decision get made.

What to Watch Before Adjournment

Three things are worth tracking in the next several weeks. The first is whether HB 1268 reaches Governor Ayotte’s desk in its current sweeping form or in a watered-down version that retains at least some annual evaluation requirement. The second is whether Senate Republicans try one more time on open enrollment, perhaps via a non-binding study commission or a narrower charter-school carve-out. The third, and least visible, is whether the EFA program itself gets touched at all this session, given recent data showing that program growth has been concentrated among middle and upper income households rather than the lower-income families the program was originally pitched to serve.

The session ends in less than two months. Republicans hold the gavels. But the votes inside their own caucus continue to be the binding constraint, and education policy has not been the easy lift many of them hoped it would be after last year’s EFA breakthrough. The broader Ayotte agenda and her ability to keep the coalition together on contested votes is now being tested in real time.

Frequently Asked Questions

For related coverage, see our reporting on New Hampshire Will No Longer Let Districts Charge Voucher Students for Public….

What is an Education Freedom Account in New Hampshire?

An Education Freedom Account, or EFA, lets a New Hampshire family redirect the state per-pupil education funding that would have gone to their district school to a private school, a home school, or an approved alternative provider. The program launched in 2021. As of June 2025, the legislature and Governor Ayotte removed the income cap, making the program universally available.

What would HB 1268 do to home-schooling rules?

HB 1268 would make parental notification of intent to home school optional rather than required. It would repeal the annual evaluation requirement for home-schooled students, eliminate the requirement that parents retain instructional records, abolish the Home Education Advisory Council, and strip the State Board of Education of rulemaking authority over home-school programs.

What is open enrollment, and why did SB 101 fail?

Open enrollment allows families to send their children to any public school district in the state, regardless of where they live. Senate Bill 101 was the most recent attempt this session. The House failed to pass it 168 to 184, with a faction of Republicans joining Democrats to oppose the bill. The House then tabled it, effectively killing it for the rest of the 2026 session.

How does universal EFA affect demand for these other reforms?

Republicans argue that with universal EFAs already on the books, the next step is to make using those accounts easier by deregulating home education and to give families inside the public system more flexibility through open enrollment. Critics argue that the cumulative effect concentrates funding outside traditional public schools and erodes local control.

Where does Governor Ayotte stand?

Governor Kelly Ayotte signed the universal EFA expansion in June 2025. She has generally supported school-choice expansion. Her position on the specific provisions of HB 1268, particularly the elimination of the annual evaluation requirement, will likely determine whether the final bill is signed in its current form or sent back for revisions.