Senate Returns Next Week with Educator Student Surveillance Bill
Next week the full Senate will vote on SB 341, relative to mandatory disclosure by school district employees to parents. This bill is essentially an excerpt from a previous version of the so-called “parental rights” legislation. A recent committee amendment to the bill does nothing to improve it at all.
Even as amended, this bill would require educators to answer written inquiries within a 10-day period, “completely and honestly”, a standard that is so subjective that even the NH Department of Education identified it as such. The bill serves only to turn school employees into student surveillance drones, rather than educators – all under the threat of licensure removal. It also puts educators in the middle of families without the opportunity to ensure they are doing no harm. The bill also does not consider protocols established at the local level for how to handle complex inquiries, causing concern that this bill could create tremendous liability for individual educators.
Like so many bills we have seen over the last several years, this legislation combines vague language with harsh punishments, and in doing so uses the educator-parent relationship as a political football. Parents and educators have been working together well for a long time and this sort of legislation only serves to damage that relationship.
Key House Bills Still in House Committees
In House policy committees, we are still waiting for action on bills relative to qualifications for teachers, subpoena powers, and several conservative culture war type bills that have not yet been acted on. We expect committee votes this coming week. Those key bills include:
HB 1298 – relative to part-time teacher (House Education) [OPPOSE]
HB 1691 – relative to an adequate education (House Education) [OPPOSE]
HB 1353 – relative to authorizing the Commissioner of the Department of Education to issue subpoenas (House Judiciary) [OPPOSE]
Key Senate Bills Still in Senate Committees
The Senate Education, Finance, and Judiciary Committees still have bills left to act on as well. Here are a few of the key bills awaiting Senate committee votes:
SB 442 – relative to student eligibility for education freedom accounts (Senate Finance) [OPPOSE]
SB 522 – relative to establishing an early childhood education scholarship and making an appropriation therefor (Senate Education – the bill expands the voucher program to pre-kindergarten) [OPPOSE]
SB 523 – relative to the regulation of public-school library materials (Senate Education) [OPPOSE]
Questions?
If you have questions on any of these bills or ones not mentioned here, please feel free to contact Brian Hawkins, NEA-NH Director of Government Relations at bhawkins@nhnea.org. You can also follow all the bills we are watching next week and check on a bill’s status by visiting our NEA-NH bill tracker.