AFT-NH Testimony on HB 520
From Debrah Howes, President AFT-NH
Thank you, Chairman Lynn and Members of the House Judiciary Committee, for taking my testimony today.
My name is Debrah Howes. I am president of the American Federation of Teachers – New Hampshire. I am here to speak on behalf of our 3500 members across the state. Our members are preK through 12 public educators and school staff, university faculty as well as town employees. We work with close to 30,000 students every day in public schools across the Granite State. I am here today to testify in opposition to HB 520 relative to authorizing hearing officers of the department of education to issue subpoenas.
This totally unnecessary bill creates the false and frankly insulting impression that we have rampant problems with educator misconduct in so many of our public schools that it can only be solved by granting unprecedented investigatory power to the head of the Department of Education, through his hearing officers! Let me be clear, nobody wants the kind of person who would hurt students to stay in a position where they can ever do it again, whether that is as an educator, a volunteer, a sports coach, a clergy person or any other adult a child might encounter.
From the previous versions of this bill, we have testimony from the Department of Education itself that they are able to do their job of protecting students with the current investigatory tools they have. We heard from a Department of Education investigator that there are only a small handful of misconduct cases each year that are serious enough that revoking an educator’s certification is considered. He said they do not have difficulty getting the reports, documents and witnesses they need in these cases.
An attorney for the Department of Education testified that when investigating potential violations of the Educator Code of Ethics or Code of Conduct, the department was usually able to get the information it needed, but it might need to wait until a local school district had finished an employment investigation first. She could point to no specific case where students were left in an unsafe situation due to the department having to wait while local districts followed the policies adopted by duly elected school boards.
We certainly all want students to be safe! But if this were about being safe, the bill would not be limited just to certified educators in public schools. It would cover every adult who works in a public school and has any contact with students. To really keep students safe, it would need to cover every adult who works in a public school, private school or for an education service provider – or any entity that receives state education funding through the state voucher program.
We find HB 520 problematic because it gives an unelected bureaucrat an unprecedented power that is best kept by the state Attorney General’s office. It increases the Department of Education’s investigatory powers with only minimal guardrails. The Department of Education hearing officer does have the opportunity to deny a subpoena request for material or a witness if the officer determines the request wasn’t made in good faith or that the information is not likely to be material and relevant to the investigation. The problem with these proposed guardrails is that the person requesting the subpoena is also the head of the department the hearing officer works for. The potential for undue pressure, or the appearance of it, is quite high.
HB 520 gives the Commissioner (who is not a lawyer or legal policy expert) almost unfettered leeway to harass educators, and to cause untold trouble and work for school districts, when teachers and districts want to be concentrating on what kids need to succeed in school. We already have a state Attorney General’s office with subpoena authority and the right expertise and independence to exercise it. If the Department of Education has concerns about an educator, it should be communicating those concerns with the Attorney General’s office.
Our public school students need and deserve the resources and support in their neighborhood public schools to help them succeed and thrive. Teachers and school staff need and deserve your support so we can do our best job for New Hampshire students, without distractions. That’s what educators want, that’s what parents are asking for, and that’s what we owe our students.
I urge you to vote Inexpedient to Legislate on HB 520.
Sincerely,
Debrah Howes