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Bedford Educational Personnel Association Uses Personal Connection to Push Toward Goal to Double Membership

“We’re not alone in our struggles and our successes.” That’s the message Suzanne Johnson is bringing to colleagues in her new position as President of Bedford Educational Personnel Association (BEPA). She knows there is strength in numbers, which is why she and her new board leadership team set an ambitious goal of doubling membership by the next negotiation. One year in, they have already increased membership by 67%. “The fact that we’ve made such leaps and bounds this first year is just setting the ball rolling for future years,” Johnson said. Johnson, who has worked in the District for six […]

June 2024: Government Relations Report

Legislative Session Ends with Mixed Results for Educators  This year’s session has seen mixed results at the State House. Coming off the heels of a successful year in working to pass increases in state aid that helped lead to negotiated pay increases for members, we looked to the second year to fend off attacks on the profession, further privatization efforts, and more attempts passing politically motivated culture war legislation that targets LGBTQ+ students. We also sought to make more headway in advancing proactive legislation that we hoped to help energize the pipeline of educators into the profession.  Unfortunately, the state […]

June 2024: Letter from NEA-NH President Megan Tuttle

As another school year is ending, I want to take the opportunity to say thank you. Thank you for being you. Thank you for all your hard work. I know you all work hard every day to deliver a high-quality education to all your students. But I also know that enduring misguided and wrongheaded attacks on public education and educators while you try to do your job is burdensome and taxing. It is deflating. We all experience that when we see and hear people and groups who have no idea or understanding of the value of public education attack our […]

June 8, 2024: NEA-NH Legislative Update

Committees of Conference Conclude   The deadline to sign off on committee of conference reports was this past Thursday, June 6th and many bills saw a compromise product agreed to, but a few did not. In positive news, an effort to allow unlicensed part-time teachers in public schools was rejected and the Rural and Underserved Educator Recruitment Program was revived. Unfortunately, the House and Senate conferees are moving forward with a dramatic expansion of the state’s private school voucher program. More details below!  Voucher Expansion Moves Forward to a Vote June 13th  The most significant education bill moving forward to a […]

May 31, 2024: NEA-NH Legislative Update

House and Senate Head to Committees of Conference Next Week on Major Education Bills  This past week, the House and Senate decided which bills they would agree with the other chamber’s changes (concur), which ones they would go to a committee of conference to work out differences (non-concur and request a committee of conference), and which ones they would simply reject outright without attempting to come to a compromise (non-concur). The aftermath of those decisions is that next week there will be committees of conference meetings on several highly consequential bills for public education and public-school educators.  What are Committees […]

BLOG: NEA-New Hampshire Member Participation Key to Landmark Ruling Striking Down Unconstitutional ‘Banned Concepts’ Law

This week, a federal court ruled that New Hampshire’s “banned concepts” law is unconstitutional which restores the teaching of truth and the right to learn for all Granite Staters. This is the first decision in the country striking down a classroom censorship law that applies to K-12 public schools.  Following the bill’s passage in 2021, NEA-New Hampshire and AFT-New Hampshire heard from teachers that they were confused about what they could and could not teach, and that they were scared of the repercussions for guessing wrong.  After passage of the ‘banned concepts law’ in 2021, NEA-New Hampshire heard from teachers […]