On Thursday, May 18, the “Parental Bill of Rights” was closely defeated by five votes, 195-190. Only two Republican representatives voted to defeat the bill. A separate vote was then taken to indefinitely postpone this bill, which means SB 272 is dead, this year and next year. The subject will not even be discussed.
As a reminder, this particular legislation would have required school staff to give information, upon parental request, about their child’s gender identity, preferred pronoun use, even which clubs they showed interest in. However, only if the staff could show “clear and convincing evidence” that abuse or neglect to the child would take place, then privacy for the child would be honored. Just one more thing educators should not have to keep tabs on.
On to the school vouchers: Voucher Expansion Bill HB 464 was also defeated. The legislation would have opened the voucher program to more students but without an income eligibility limit. This expansion program would have eventually drained the education trust fund in addition to breaking the budget. The Senate Education Committee unanimously recommended defeat for this bill.
What did get passed was HB 367. This bill now raises the income eligibility of the federal poverty level from 300% (where it is now) to 350%. For a family of four, the threshold will now increase nearly $20,000. Currently, 85-90% of students in the voucher program are already in private schools or are home schooled, which means they are not costing the state any tax expense, but receive aid at the expense of property owners.
Should this voucher program continue to grow, it will be competing with public schools for those very tax dollars intended for public schools. As it stands now, the state is still failing to meet its constitutional duty to “adequately” fund the public schools.
By contacting our elected officials, New Hampshire was able to defeat the two above mentioned bills. Let’s do this again with HB 367 which will be coming before the Senate Finance Committee. We need to contact members of the Senate Finance Committee and ask them to vote NO on HB 367.
We have seen the results of taking a moment to let our voice be heard to our elected representatives. Let’s keep the momentum going!