Legislative Update Report

First Week of 2024 Session Starts with Action on Retained Bills and Hearings on Extreme Voucher Expansion Bills and “Parental Bill of Rights”

This is the first week of the 2024 Legislative Session. The state Senate is in session on January 3 and the House of Representatives is in session on January 3 and 4.   Let’s start with a state legislature primer/refresh. In New Hampshire, all bills eventually get a floor vote in their respective chamber. First up this week, the House and Senate will act on all bills that were held in committees from last year (retained bills). Each bill has a recommendation from the committee it was heard in. Committee recommendations include Ought to Pass (OTP), Ought to Pass with […]

A photo of the New Hampshire State House dome.

2024 – Legislative Preview and Upcoming Priorities 

The upcoming 2024 Legislative Session will once again put education in the spotlight. Of the nearly 1,000 bills that were filed for the upcoming session, there are well over 100 that deal directly with public education, and even more that impact public school educators and students in some form or fashion.  

NEA-NH Statement on This Week’s Supreme Court Rulings

Citing the United States Supreme Court cases decided this week allowing for businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ citizens, eliminating affirmative action in higher education admissions, and disallowing President Biden’s student loan debt relief, NEA-NH President Megan Tuttle said today, “This Court is out of step with a majority of Americans.” “As New Hampshire faces a shortage of teachers and support staff, the state is struggling to establish policies that attract people into the profession and his ruling shrinks the pool of potential educators.” NEA-NH believes that educators and education employees should look like the communities where they work. The Court […]

NEA-NH: While Still Lacking, Budget Contains Items We Can Support

Today, the House voted to concur with the budget passed yesterday by the Senate. “NEA-NH believes that budgets should reflect our shared priorities by funding critical programs that serve our students, especially those most in need,” said Megan Tuttle, NEA-NH President. “While there are many needs the Legislature must still address, the budget approved today by the General Court contains items that we support, such as increased funding for many districts chronically impacted by our state’s inadequate school funding formula, a long overdue boost to educators’ retirement, and a start to addressing the shortage of educators in New Hampshire,” said […]

Legislative Update: House Passes Budget Version

State Budget Gets an Upgrade with Bi-Partisan Agreement – Still More Work to Do This week House Democratic and Republican leaders reached an agreement to make changes to the House Finance committee version of the trailer bill to the budget that helped the legislation pass on a voice vote in the House this week. Just days before this, such a result was unthinkable with major objections to the bill raised by NEA-NH around the education portion of the budget as well as several other labor and advocacy groups. House Democratic leadership brought those concerns to the negotiating table, and produced […]