AFT-NH Testimony on SB 97
From Debrah Howes, President AFT-NH
Thank you, Chairman Ward and Members of the Senate Education Committee, for reading my testimony.
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 the Granite State. We work with close to 30,000 students in public schools across the state, all of them entitled to a robust public education, which is their constitutional right as Granite State citizens.
I am here today to express our opposition to SB 97.
In an ideal world, parents could ask for assignment of their student to the public school within or outside of their district that best suited their family’s needs and that would be easy request to grant. Also in an ideal world, all public school districts would have sufficient funding from the state so that every school in every district could provide an equally robust public education to all students: one with small class sizes, individualized learning, a rigorous curriculum, academic support and, if needed, behavioral support, all provided by certified, professional and fully trained educators.
We don’t currently have an ideal situation in the Granite State. The State Legislature fails to meet its constitutional duty to Granite State students to fund public schools at a sufficient level. School districts must rely on local property taxpayers for more than 70 percent of their funding so they can meet the learning needs of students. This leads to unequal opportunities between districts. It even leads to unequal opportunities within districts as administrators use grant funding to provide needed supports for student learning and well-being, which sometimes can only be provided in some schools.
This bill requires a superintendent to grant a parental request for transfer unless there isn’t enough physical space in the school the parent wants. It’s a one-size-fits all bill that ignores the facts and resources of local districts and imposes a state mandate to grant transfers whether the district can support the student in the new placement or not. It replaces the careful and collaborative decision making by those closest to the situation with a state mandate that usurps local control. Ideally parents and school administrators should work as a team to determine the best interest of the student and the right setting from among those available in the district.
Here are some areas of concern with this bill:
It is state interference in local control since the state is telling local districts what they must do regarding parental requests for reassignment.
There is no clear definition of “best interest” of the student in the bill. There is no requirement that the student’s current school be shown to be not meeting his or her needs in some significant way. There is no requirement that the parent notify the local administrator of concerns and that they work to find a solution to meet the student’s needs within the current school placement.
There are other reasons besides physical space that a reassignment may not be the best fit for a student’s learning needs and well-being.
For instance, a requested transfer may be moving a student away from academic or behavioral support that is available in one school but not in the requested school of reassignment.
The requested classroom of reassignment may already be a challenging one where the teacher and available support staff are stretched thin meeting numerous specific student learning needs. Adding another student to that classroom due to a requested transfer may be a worse fit for that student’s academic or behavioral needs because they may get less individual attention.
Our school districts rely on local property taxpayers to provide 70 percent of their funding. The state passing a law requiring superintendents to grant parental requests for transfers to another district is going to increase the property tax burden in some districts, or face cutbacks in existing school programming as they take on transfer students. This is especially true since the timelines of the bill do not align with the budget process. Increasing the burden on local property taxpayers, especially at a time when the State’s education funding model has been found unconstitutional, again, is another reason to reject this.
Because of these concerns, we oppose SB 97. We urge you to find it Inexpedient to Legislate.