What’s Ahead for K–12 Public Education in New Hampshire
We were joined by Nicole Heimarck and Alex Tilsley from Reaching Higher NH, a nonpartisan policy and research organization focused on public education. The discussion explored key issues shaping K–12 education across the state, including what’s new in policy, funding, and the issues that impact our students and families most. We also took an early look ahead at the upcoming 2026 legislative session.
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Slide Presentation: What’s Ahead for K–12 Public Education in New Hampshire
About the Speakers
Nicole Heimarck has extensive experience as a leader in educational policy and a track record of implementing large-scale education transformations through national, state and local collaborations. She also has practical experience in public education ranging from Pre-K through post-secondary learning. Her previous roles include Director of Government Relations with the NH School Boards Association, Bureau Administrator in Education Preparation for the NH Department of Education, and Director of Curriculum and Professional Development for SAU 39: Amherst, Mont Vernon and Souhegan school districts. In 2019, she joined Reaching Higher NH to serve as Director of the NH Alliance for College and Career Readiness. In 2020, she moved into the role of Executive Director for Reaching Higher.
Nicole received her Bachelor of Arts in History and Education from Stonehill College in North Easton, MA, a Master of Arts in Education Leadership from the University of New Hampshire, Durham, and has her Certification as a Critical Friends Group Coach by the School Reform Initiative. She is a resident of Amherst.has extensive experience as a leader in educational policy and a track record of implementing large-scale education transformations through national, state and local collaborations. She also has practical experience in public education ranging from Pre-K through post-secondary learning. Her previous roles include Director of Government Relations with the NH School Boards Association, Bureau Administrator in Education Preparation for the NH Department of Education, and Director of Curriculum and Professional Development for SAU 39: Amherst, Mont Vernon and Souhegan school districts. In 2019, she joined Reaching Higher NH to serve as Director of the NH Alliance for College and Career Readiness. In 2020, she moved into the role of Executive Director for Reaching Higher.
Nicole received her Bachelor of Arts in History and Education from Stonehill College in North Easton, MA, a Master of Arts in Education Leadership from the University of New Hampshire, Durham, and has her Certification as a Critical Friends Group Coach by the School Reform Initiative. She is a resident of Amherst.
How do policymakers determine what the school funding budget should be?
(Alex): Part of the challenge in New Hampshire is that we use a measure that doesn't actually tell us. We rely on cost per pupil, which effectively is how much money the district spent divided by the number of students they had. Of course, the amount of money you spend depends on how much revenue you have. So, it's not necessarily that it actually costs significantly more or less from district to district, it's just that they had different resources.
It also means that as your attendance fluctuates, your cost per pupil also fluctuates. It doesn't mean it costs more to educate those students. In the open enrollment context, if a couple of students leave, your cost per pupil is going to go up because your costs won't change, but it doesn't mean it costs more to educate those students, just that they had fewer. So, the reliance on that metric can be a problem.
The state has really determined the amount it funds students based on inflation. We saw in this budget a nominal increase, not necessarily accounting for costs on the ground at all, just taking what they've always passed and increasing it slightly. As we started off this presentation, New Hampshire is last in the share of state funding it provides to schools. So, you could argue that their methods are not ideal.
(Nicole): As somebody who has worked at the district level in setting budgets for ten years, I can share the mechanics of what that looks like. Often, an assessment is done of fixed and variable costs, so you can imagine the first expenses that land in a budget and are easiest to populate are those fixed costs.
Then, additional costs roll in that kind of border, both fixed and variable, because they are needed to have healthcare for employees, and those are usually wound up in contractual obligations. We know healthcare has been increasing at crazy rates; in fact, the projection this year is 12% on most health plans.
The other piece of the budgeting is really built around community values and the mission and vision of the school and the school district itself, and curriculum cycles and adoption cycles; that's when we really get into the instructional materials for students, the support for teachers, and what is needed to ensure the mission or vision is realized. Resources are usually concentrated based on those guiding documents that school districts often have.
How much authority does the state legislature have over special education services, and could federal changes allow state lawmakers to revise IDEIA protections?
(Alex): I would put all of this in the context that we have seen the state legislature pass legislation on things that they don't necessarily have authority over. We have some instances where federal law and state law do not align, and this creates problems in our schools. Special ed is not one of those places yet, but even if they don't have the authority, I don't know if that is necessarily going to stop some of the legislation we anticipate coming this session.
Right now, there are no changes to federal law that would allow state lawmakers to revise IDEIA. Of course, things at the Federal Department of Education are really messy right now, and the chances are there will be less enforcement, which could open the door for noncompliance that wouldn't result in pulling federal funds.
We've also heard some lawmakers question whether we need federal funds and have made the point that if we didn't accept federal funds, we wouldn't need to follow federal laws. I don't expect that change to happen this session, but it is something they are openly talking about, and I don't think that is a decision a state legislature could make unilaterally. Certainly, if we decided not to accept federal money, that would really change the requirements around IDEIA protections.
How do you define "high-quality" education, and what sources do you draw on?
(Nicole): We know that school districts are doing incredible work, and so often that work is not broadcast. In this effort to define a high-quality education, we're anchoring that work on what our school districts have already done.
For example, we know that numerous school districts across the state have engaged in a project known as Portrait of a Graduate, which is a backwards planning model for our students, envisioning their K-12 experience and what a successful graduate looks like at the end of the 12th grade, the day they walk across the stage. That is an example of an artifact that can really highlight what a high-quality education looks like in a student when they get there.
We also asked superintendents to consider their missions, their visions, their community values, their school values, and their strategic plans because when they engage in that type of work, they are, in fact, mapping out what a high-quality public education is.
We're currently involved in the process of collecting those artifacts, but also having conversations with school superintendents, with school principals, and with school board members. School board members are an essential ingredient in this conversation. We'll be going through the data and the artifacts thematically to pull out the themes to begin to cast that vision based on what is happening in school districts right now, but also combine it with what research tells us about what a high-quality public education is. There is abundant research out there, and really, we want to create a vision for the state of New Hampshire based on community-level neighborhood work and what the research says.
What's behind the disconnect between public opinion and legislative action?
(Nicole): There is a phenomenon happening in New Hampshire where we are seeing an increasing presence of national special interest, and I think this is one of the factors that is causing this circumstance. We see this presence of special interest here in New Hampshire for a number of reasons, but I'm going to highlight two.
One is, our legislature is so large; it is the second largest legislature in the world, which makes the ratio of lawmakers to constituents really low, so it makes our lawmakers really accessible. It is easy to connect with a lawmaker; in fact, I was at a forum last week where people were joking that everybody knows a lawmaker here in New Hampshire.
Factor two is also that the New Hampshire legislature, as of now, holds a public hearing on every bill that is proposed. What that means is that any bill proposed has its opportunity to be heard; it gets airtime. That really creates an attractive environment for national special interests to come and test ideas here, and they are in fact doing it.
