The State of School Choice in Maine
Currently, Maine offers some degree of school choice, but there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to providing Maine families with the options that they seek. There are three main types of school choice available in the state, namely Town Tuitioning, Superintendents’ Agreements, and the option to enroll a child in one of the state’s limited number of charter schools. Approximately 2% of Maine students are eligible to participate in Town Tuitioning, a program that makes it possible for children residing in districts without a public school to enroll in another district’s public school or a private school of the family’s choosing. Obtaining a Superintendents’ Agreement allows students to attend a public school outside of the district in which they reside, so long as the superintendents of both the sending and receiving districts agree to the transfer.
Charter schools, which serve as an incredibly important facet of the school choice landscape in Maine, are also significantly limited under current state law. Following the passage of LD 307 in 2019, the total number of charter schools that are allowed to operate in the state was capped at 10 indefinitely, a ceiling that has already been reached. The two charter schools that operate on an entirely virtual basis, Maine’s Virtual Academy and Maine Connections Academy, are further restricted under state law such that they can have a combined enrollment of no more than 1,000 students, a limit that has become more noticeable in recent years as the number of students on a waitlist for these schools doubled.