The idea started with a question, posed by the Alton and Barnstead school boards to a candidate for superintendent. The two Lakes Region towns had seen a steady drop in student enrollment in recent years. What would he, as superintendent, do to address that?

Sitting across the table for that 2019 interview, Timothy Broadrick considered the usual menu of responses a district might choose. The district could consolidate with other school districts, and pool resources. It could pursue tuition agreements to get students and money from surrounding districts.

It took years to arrive at the answer. Alton and Barnstead would take advantage of an obscure 2009 law and make its high school, Prospect Mountain, an open enrollment school, allowing parents across the state to send their children there.

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