AFT-NH President Deb Howes testified today before the House Education Committee on HB 1588, a bill relative to children attending public school with a mask mandate without an emergency order.
To: NH House Education Committee
Dear Chairman Ladd and Members of the Committee,
My name is Debrah Howes. I am the president of the American Federation of Teachers -NH. AFT-NH represents 3,500 teachers, paraeducators and school support staff, public service employees, and higher education staff across New Hampshire.
On behalf of my members and the children and communities we serve, I urge you to vote against HB 1588. This bill ignores New Hampshire’s long and cherished tradition of local control and local democracy that gives educators and parents a voice in their schools and communities. This bill inserts the state into health and safety decisions that should be left to families and communities to work out with their elected school boards. Yes, Granite Staters on both sides of the mask issue feel strongly. But the state won’t improve matters by stepping in with this expensive, and frankly, coercive bill. Educators and parents have always worked together to solve issues at the local level in New Hampshire. Placing the state’s thumb heavily on one side of the scale to prohibit these stakeholders from reaching an appropriate local decision in the best interest of the students and staff who work in the schools, as well as the safe and orderly functioning of those schools is not the New Hampshire way.
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