Tulsa Public Schools and Broken Arrow Public Schools school boards both authorized for their districts to take legal action against the state last night over this.
You’re conflating a few different things. You’re original post is claiming that open transfer policies (SB 782) and altering the funding formula to the last two years instead of the current formula of using the last three years (HB 2078). The school boards are pursuing legal action over how the SDOE board settled old litigation with the Charter Schools Association over how some constitutional and statutory provisions are interpreted.
Addressing your initial post: there are actually some rural schools that should increase in per pupil funding as a result of HB 2078 while some will also lose funds as a result of students moving. Many of the ones that are proclaiming they will lose funds, rural or urban, it is a result of people moving naturally and a bigger factor is schools that decided to stay closed so parents took their kids to online charters or districts that were open. We will probably see a natural migration back to the local brick in mortar for many of these children next year as a result of the schools being open.
The current system makes it difficult for the schools that are seeing the increase in students because they are not getting as much of a proper proportion of funds for said students because the funding formula is over three years. Many states don’t have any sort of multi year time frame for this calculation.
I really don’t get why someone could be against open transfer if someone is for what is best for students. If a student is struggling or a parent believes another school or district is better for their child they should be able to move said student as long as it complies with the procedure.
On the lawsuit and settlement: I’m not going to delve too deep into the nuance—if you want me to, I can follow up—so everyone doesn’t fall asleep but the charter schools position had a strong legal basis and they recently amended to pursue past funds. The crux of the argument for the charter school association is that they believe charter school (public education) students should get their share of ad valorem and other taxes follow them to their school district. The settlement was for this interpretation in the future without pursuing past lost revenue.
This creates so many questions now and the current outcome would hit OCPS, TPS, and other large public schools hard financially so it’s worth litigation to get clarification. Specifically on the change on how certain taxes are apportioned that are usually associated with the building fund.