The NH Legislature managed to meet one day this past week, but Thursday’s snowstorm and the bitter cold led to the cancellation of Thursday’s scheduled House session.  Instead, the House will convene this Tuesday, January 9, to continue working through the remaining retained bills from 2017.  Although an additional session day on Thursday, January 11 is possible, most expect the House to finish retained bills on the 9^th and then commence committee hearings on 2018 bills.

SB 193  The big news this past week was House passage of Senate Bill 193 as amended , the bill establishing so-called “education freedom savings accounts.”  In simple terms, the bill takes funds normally distributed by the State to local school districts and places the money into accounts that can be used by parents who home-school or choose to send their children to private (including religious) schools.  The NH Constitution explicitly prohibits expending public funds in support of religious schools, so the “education freedom savings accounts” are an attempt to bypass that prohibition.  As one House member noted in debate, these accounts will act as a pass-through system, or in more direct language, as a “money-laundering” system to render public revenues into non-public money and thereby circumvent the state’s Constitution.  

Bow, NH     January 3, 2018

AFT-NH President Douglas Ley released the following statement about the January 3 vote in the NH House on SB193, the so-called “voucher” bill

“AFT-NH and all supporters of public education in New Hampshire are grievously disappointed with yesterday’s initial House vote on SB193.  By a margin of 184-162, the House gave initial approval to this grievously flawed bill, sending it on to the Finance Committee for further examination before bringing it back to the floor for a final vote.

Bow, NH - December 13, 2017

Launch of the 2018 Legislative Session   In the natural world, many creatures around us are hunkering down for the winter season and going into hibernation.  The Legislature, however, is not governed by ‘Mother Nature’ and since October, the pace of activity in the State House has picked up, with hearings and the election of a new Speaker.  Now, as we enter into the Holiday season, the Legislature stands of the cusp of the 2018 session, with our first session scheduled to convene on January 3, 2018.  It promises to be a busy session, with hundreds of bills proposed in the House and the Senate, each one assured of a public hearing and a vote in either or both the House and Senate.  So it is time to muster your energies and your patience—the 2018 Legislative session is nearly upon us!  

The Nashua Teachers’ Union Board of Directors met on August 30 for their first meeting of the year.  On the agenda was Texas AFT and how they could help their colleagues in Texas.  To that end, the Board of Directors unanimously approved donating $2,415.00 to the Texas AFT Disaster Relief Fund.  The $2,415.00 is an odd number for a donation, but it has special meaning.