CONCORD, NH – December 13, 2021 – New Hampshire educators want to provide every child an accurate and quality education that imparts honesty about who we are and integrity in how we treat others. Certain politicians want to censor the truth of our history and ban us from learning from the mistakes of our past.
“We agree with our colleagues at AFT that the divisive concepts law is flawed, and we support their efforts to advocate for students in court,” said Megan Tuttle, NEA-New Hampshire President.
From the time the bill was introduced until Governor Sununu signed it into law, NEA-NH vigorously opposed this measure.
“Our children deserve the freedom to develop the knowledge and skills they need to reckon with our past, shape a better future, and pursue their dreams. Laws like this one take away that freedom,” said Tuttle.
NEA-NH will use all available resources, including challenging the law on its face, to fight for our members.
“We have said from the beginning that the law’s vagueness was purposeful and by design to have a chilling effect on educators throughout the state. Multiple requests for guidance and instruction to assist educators in staying within the new law have been ignored by the Department of Education and the Attorney General’s office and have gone unanswered for months. At the same time, mechanisms for reporting educator non-compliance and procedures to take away teaching credentials have been enacted by the Department of Education,” said Tuttle.
School is a place where children of different places and races learn from the past, make sense of the present and prepare for the future. “Our students and our state lose if opportunities to constructively address race in our classrooms are muzzled and criminalized by a law that is vague on content and unyielding in punishment,” Tuttle said.