State House News

The law this bill seeks to repeal does its work of silencing appropriate and necessary classroom conversations because it never clearly explains exactly what is allowed and what is not. It threatens punishment up to and including the loss of teaching credentials and career if someone subjectively feels you have somehow violated the boundaries of law. We have had a year and a half to see how this works in schools and how it robs our public-school students of the robust education they deserve.

Part-time uncertified employees would not have the tool kit certified teachers develop through their teacher preparation programs, practicums, student teaching, internships, and years on the job. Teaching is an art, craft, and skill as much as it is the knowledge of content that one is trying to convey to the student. When you have uncertified teachers, it is the students who lose. In fact, research shows that having an uncertified teacher is equivalent to losing 2 months of instructional time each year. Don’t shortchange our public school students!

For all these reasons, it does not make sense to allow noncredentialled individuals, who are not professional teachers to work in our public schools and call themselves educators. Our students deserve to have their needs considered and they deserve professional, credentialed teachers.

Urgent Action Needed to Stop Universal School Vouchers

Breaking News ~ Stop Universal Vouchers.   Our public school students need your help now. The NH House calendar for next week now includes three bills that would significantly expand the school voucher program, making it universal, will be voted on by your state representatives.  Contact your state representative NOW and ask them to vote NO on these unaccountable and budget busting bills.

These three voucher bills, HB 1561, 1634, and 1665, will expand the state’s school voucher program so that any family, or almost any family, is eligible, yet still relying on the same overburdened taxpayers to fund it. These bills which come with a huge price tag are being presented at a time when they are ignoring the Court’s Con/Val ruling that shows they have been starving our local neighborhood public schools of necessary funds for decades and ignoring their constitutional obligation to provide all students in the Granite State with the opportunity for a robust public education. The extremists in the NH House will also vote on a plan to raid the Education Trust Fund so the money can’t be used to help public school students.

AFT-NH and its members want to see an investment in our states’ pension system with a portfolio that considers both strategic and responsible investments to ensure the best sustained return over the long term. HB 1267 would artificially limit what investments could be considered by the trustees of the retirement system. This is not a rational strategy for assessing long, or medium term risk, or even potential for growth. Assessing exposure to lawsuits for environmental clean-up or evaluating the promise of new and emerging technology to solve pressing environmental problems are examples of analysis that could be both within this bill’s proscribed realm of ESG, yet still be exercising sound financial management when considering investments. This bill leaves no room for an investment strategy that is both.

This bill is carefully crafted to make anyone who opposes wholesale censorship and book banning and stands up for the rights of students to access a wide variety of materials look like they are somehow on the wrong side of this issue. But a careful reading of the bill shows why that impression is mistaken. The bill opens with a graphic catalogue of the kinds of content this bill’s authors deem obscene. It’s pretty disturbing how this bill dwells so much on defining graphic material. What’s even more disturbing though, is the damage it will do in our schools. It will take away parental voice and local control. The sneaky way it broadens the definition by adding subjective categories harmful to minors and age-inappropriate material until that could apply to almost anything. The way it demonizes, instead of supporting, reading.

SB 375 looks to limit students to playing on student athletic teams that coincide with their ”unambiguous sex” at birth. Human life is not nearly that simple or unambiguous, and we cannot all be neatly divided into one category or another, nor can the students in our schools. AFT-NH stands in opposition to this bill because in order for students to be successful in school they need to feel welcome, safe, and a part of the school community.  When children and young adults play sports, it is often a place where they feel they belong most, a place where they are taught work with a team and a place where they forge peer relationships with others their own age.  Please note there was a similar bill in the House, HB 1205, which AFT-NH opposed as well.

While the courts have ruled that it is legal for the State to not contribute, that does not mean it is right. The State should lower local property tax burdens and support HB 1279. This bill does not bring us back to the 40% the State originally contributed, but just to 7.5% to help ease municipal budgets and to give Granite Staters a break on their property tax bills.

HB 1205 looks to ban students who consistently and persistently identify as transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams. AFT-NH stands in opposition to this bill because in order for students to be successful in school they need to feel welcome, safe, and a part of the school community.  When children and young adults play sports, it is often a place where they feel they most belong, a place where they are taught work with a team and a place where they forge  peer relationships with others their own age.

HB 1311, also known as the Freedom to Read bill, strikes the right balance in recognizing the needs, interests and responsibilities of students, families, and schools. It requires that all school districts adopt clear policies on how they build their library collections and on what steps to take if a parent or guardian feels material is in the collection that doesn’t belong there or is at the wrong age level. This is the right balance, respecting the interests of all involved.

More Book Banning and Retirement Bills

Week in Review    The noise and activity of the presidential primary campaigns have cleared out, but the NH legislature continues to churn in Concord. This past week the legislature heard, and committees voted on, dozens of bills including one bill that would expand the school voucher program so that municipalities would have to foot the bill and one bill that would eliminate all but history, math, English and social studies from mandatory public school curricula. This bill, as introduced, would further exacerbate the gap in our public schools where schools in property rich communities will be able to continue offering a robust variety of subjects important to a well-rounded education like art or music, advanced sciences and upper-level math or in-person financial literacy. Students in property poor towns won’t have those as dedicated subjects, although they could get a passing mention in a core class. Their public education will suffer because of it, yet they are still Granite State citizens with the same constitutional right to an equally robust public education regardless of which district they reside in New Hampshire.