Concord — State legislators appear to be setting aside a bill that would allow school districts such as Croydon, which lacks a public school for students after grade four, to send children to approved private schools using tax money.

The proposed legislation is partly in response to the Croydon School District’s ongoing court battle with the New Hampshire Department of Education, which is seeking to stop the town from paying tuition for four students to attend the private Newport Montessori School.

On Tuesday, members of the state Senate Education Committee unanimously voted to refer the bill to interim study — a legislative purgatory that means the measure’s chances to pass this session are slim, lawmakers close to the project say.

“It means they killed it,” state Rep. Jim Grenier, R-Lempster, said. “That’s what that means. It’s not going to go anywhere.”

When he heard the news by phone Friday, Grenier, who sponsors and helped write the bill, said he was “disappointed.” Although a referral to interim study means legislators could take up the bill during the next session, it’s unlikely given this is an election year, he said.

“An interim study on the second year of the term is just a nice way to not act,” Grenier said.

After the state House of Representatives passed the bill in March, 208-143, the Senate Education Committee took it up.

David Watters, a Dover Democrat who sits on the committee, said there had been disagreement over what standards private schools receiving public school students would have to meet. Dueling amendments had offered different solutions.

“What created some nervousness is what a receiving school is required to meet in terms of curriculum and other matters,” he said. “The language of the amendments was all over the place.”

One amendment, from committee member Kevin Avard, R-Nashua, stipulates that receiving schools would only need to be approved for attendance, Watters said. Another, from Grenier, would have required that those schools take assessments and meet state adequacy standards, Watters said, “and there was a lot of disagreement over that.”

Further complicating things, according to Watters, were concerns that the legislation was too narrowly focused on Croydon.

“The problem is when we write a bill, it can’t just be the Croydon-Montessori bill,” Watters said. “It has to apply to any municipality.”

The National Education Association, the labor union representing public school teachers, has not taken an official position on the bill, according to Brendon Browne, the New Hampshire chapter’s director of government relations.

“We did share the concerns of the members of the committee that language of the bill would allow a town to send students to a school that did not meet assessment or adequacy standards,” he said in an email Friday.

Grenier’s amendment, he added, might have addressed some of those worries.

Asked what might happen to the bill, Watters said there was “some truth” to Grenier’s assertion that it effectively had been “killed.”

“Basically everything dies at the end of this session,” Watters said. “But that doesn’t mean a bill can’t be made ready to be introduced next time.”

And indeed, Grenier said he likely would bring back the legislation next year, if he is still in office.

During this session, the bill’s prospects for passage are slim — but not nil. The Education Committee’s recommendation must be approved next Thursday on the Senate floor.

For her part, Jody Underwood, chairwoman of the Croydon School Board, retained some hope.

“I do understand that it’s a bad sign,” she said of the Education Committee’s referral.

All the same, Underwood said, supporters were angling to revive the bill during next week’s floor vote.

“We’re still hopeful,” she said. “I don’t know what will happen.”

Rob Wolfe can be reached at 603-727-3242 or at rwolfe@vnews.com.