Victories for Public Sector Unions and Public Education

BIG VICTORY! The House Labor Committee this week voted to defeat HB 735—the bill that would require public sector unions to vote to recertify. As we have said before, we are not worried about us—we were worried about time and energy this would have taken and how it would have affected our ability to represent you. This was an attack on unions and collective bargaining plain and simple. Your voices matter and you were heard. The next step will be a full vote by the House during the first week in March.

Open Enrollment Could Be Closed to Many

It sounds like such a simple who-could-oppose-this bill: Let New Hampshire students attend any public school in the state. But it’s not so simple, and open enrollment would mean “closed to you” for many Granite State families due to geography and work schedules.

If the idea is to provide the opportunity for a high-quality public education for all, this legislation is the wrong approach.

I am here today to testify in opposition to HB 10 establishing the parental bill of rights.

While this bill gathers together existing statutory parental rights in one place, it also appears to expand on them with some sweeping assertions and vague language. This bill sets up potential conflicts between parents and teachers or other school staff when a parent asserts their unlimited right to direct the education of his child while in a public school and the teacher is teaching the school board approved  curriculum to meet the state approved standards. We know that students do best in school when parents and teachers work together as a team, focusing on the best interest of the child.

Now is a time when we should be focusing on real solutions to make sure our Granite State students can learn and thrive in our public schools. We should be focused on making sure they all feel they are welcome and connected to their school community. In particular, this Legislature should be focusing on ensuring that each neighborhood public school has enough resources to provide every student with individual teacher attention, learning and behavior support from trained paraprofessionals, school counselors and nurses, and a wide variety of quality learning resources and all the other components of a robust public education. Instead, we get a bill that will divide communities, pitting different families against each other, and will make it easier to remove books from school libraries and micromanage the materials available in the classroom. All of this makes it harder to meet students’ learning needs and help them succeed.

SB 208 strikes the right balance in recognizing the needs, interests and responsibilities of students, families, and schools when it comes to school libraries. It strikes a similar balance when it comes to families, individual patrons and community members for public libraries. It requires that all school boards and library trustees adopt clear policies for how to build the library collections and on what steps to take if feels material in the collection is objectionable or accessible to the wrong age level. This is the right balance, respecting the rights and interests of all individuals involved. It is built on the fundamental First Amendment principle that libraries serve as centers of inquiry where patrons, including students, can access a wide variety of information and materials.

HUGE VICTORY FOR NH WORKERS!

So-called Right to Work Defeated (again)

Action Needed - Red Alert

What a week! We had two big victories. The union-busting so called Right to Work bill was killed by a bipartisan vote in the full house this week. The bill was indefinitely postponed meaning that no bill that even broaches the subject of so-called right to work can be even considered for the next two years. We are thrilled with the outcome. If you want to see how your legislator voted on this bill, click Roll Call on HB 238.

This and the other big victory this week, HB 283, would not have been possible without you making your voices heard by reaching out through sign-ins, emails to committees and contacting your legislators. Thank you to every one of you who has spoken up.