2025 Legislative Session Recap
It was a tremendously busy session for supporters of public education. There was a lot of bad, some good and some things that we will once again have to fight next year when the legislature comes back in January. Your work and advocacy mattered this year, as was proven again this week when Gov. Ayotte vetoed the book banning bill. There is no doubt that without your voices this year would have been even more harmful laws passed for our local neighborhood public schools. Looking back on the 2025 session we saw a lot of different bills that effect education pass the legislature. We want to highlight a few for you.
The Bad
School Funding: No real changes to the education funding formula. It leaves our schools constitutionally underfunded and leaves property taxpayers to with ever rising tax bills. We will caveat this by saying even though the legislature refused once again to properly fund our public schools, the NH Supreme Court came out with its strongest funding decision to date and has told the state they must do more to fund our public schools and kept a specific funding number as the target that is twice what the state funds now.
SB 295 - Unlimited School Vouchers: We have talked about this ad nauseum this year and over the past few years but the rapid, unchecked expansion of the school voucher program reached it height this year by removing the income cap, allowing the wealthiest families in New Hampshire to get a school voucher. The program is already over budget this year even though it just went into effect a few months ago the state budget, which was supposed to account for how much the program would cost, passed only 3 weeks ago. The program is on track to cost over a billion dollars over the next decade while our local neighborhood public schools still scrap for funding.
HB 10 - So Called Parental Bill of Rights: Another bill we have talked about a lot. We will say what we always say here and what is true. Schools work best when parents and teachers and students work together, focused on the best interests of the student. This bill, however, pits teachers against parents, ignores the needs of students, and makes schools less safe for students, hurting the learning environment.
Various Tax Bills A series of bills that allow towns to more easily create tax caps and make it harder for them to override them, if necessary, passed this year. The good news is that when they go in front of the town to become law, we have seen them rejected over and over again but they now still exist and will cause uncertainty going forward.
The Good
Cell Phone Ban: A ban on personal devices in school was added to the budget this year. The “bell to bell” ban should mean that educators won’t have to be in charge of trying to take phones away from students and should create a better learning environment for students across the state.
HB 324 - Book Ban: The legislature passed the bill but this week we learned the Governor vetoed HB 324 which would have created a book ban in New Hampshire. We all know books are crucial to learning and a student seeing themselves in a book can be one of the most beneficial things. No one wants inappropriate material in front of students, but one parent should not be able to determine what inappropriate for everyone, it should be left to parents, educators, elected school boards, and the community to evaluate.
Still to Come
HB 675 - Statewide Mandatory School Funding Caps:
For those who remember this was the bill they tried to put into the budget this year and we were successful in removing it. It was a very important win but the underlying bill, HB675, was retained by the House finance committee. This means that next year this issue will be taken up again. While we ended up defeating it in the budget by a large margin, we must be vigilant to make sure this doesn’t pass in January when the House comes back into session.
HB 748 - Local School Voucher Program:
Another bill we have seen in years past that has come back again. This bill is a local school voucher program that is paid for by the local municipality instead of the state. Every student currently in private school would be eligible for this local voucher and it would very likely bankrupt any town that enrolls in the program. This will also come back in January when the House is in session.
Series of Open Enrollment Bills:
The Senate has kept a series of bills that deal with open enrollment. Open enrollment doesn’t do anything to make sure schools that are struggling can succeed in helping all their students learn and thrive. It just allows parents who can afford to get their kids to another district the ability to do so. It has a number of issues with which district is ultimately responsible for added costs and is a step back in looking to ensure every student in every district can get the best education in New Hampshire. The Senate has these bills and will act on them in January.
There was a lot more this year, but we wanted to highlight some big bills for you and show some of the bigger pieces we will be fighting against starting this fall and into this winter. We thank you for advocacy and hope everyone finds some time to enjoy their summer, whether you are on summer break or not.
For breaking news and other legislative information, please be sure to like us on Facebook at AFT New Hampshire or follow us on Bluesky at aftnh.bsky.social. Please share this with friends so they can sign up for this bulletin at http://nh.aft.org/.