April 9, 2022 ~ Bow, NH
We now have less than a month until all the bills need to be voted on by the full House and Senate and less than 2 months until the last day of the legislative session which is scheduled for May 26th. As the work ramps up on the House and Senate, we continue our focus on the 4 major bills remaining.
Parental Bill of Rights This week we heard testimony on the so-called “Parental Bill of Rights”, (HB 1431), which is in the Senate Judiciary Committee. As we continue to say in this space, schools work best when parents and teachers work together as a team to support students, but this bill has many flaws that will do nothing but sow confusion in the classroom and potentially pit parents against each other. Worse yet, the sweeping assertion of absolute parent rights in this bill would remove community protections for vulnerable children – those extra sets of eyes who notice and report when something seems to be going wrong in a child’s life before it reaches a tragic point. We heard these concerns from the Office of the Child Advocate and from Waypoint Child and Family Services on the dangers to children if this bill passed. The testimony was emotional and a real look into what could become a more common reality if this bill passes. We continue to urge the committee to defeat this bill.
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