As a parental rights advocate in New Hampshire for about 20 years now, I have had to fight against agencies that want to limit our fundamental rights. Today the New Hampshire Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony on HB1431, a Bill of Rights for parents.
You would think that there would be unanimous support to affirm the basic rights of parents, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
Only under harmful actions directed at a child, should that sacred bond between parent and child not be supported. The purpose of affirming the rights of the parents is to make sure that good parents are afforded some basic rights under New Hampshire law.
Here is the current proposed legislation (HB1431) as presented to the Senate Education Committee. This legislation would go a long way to help parents access information from their local school district.
For the most part, parents have a good relationship with their child’s teacher and administrators. It’s not common for them to run into roadblocks, but those roadblocks have occurred in some situations.
I have advocated for parents to observe their child’s classroom before because a father was denied access to his child’s classroom. I have filed several Right to Know Requests, and many administrators have been forthcoming with information. However, some have not provided some of the information I’ve requested. These are public institutions and our children are in their care. The public, especially the parents, should have access to some of the most basic information, like what is being taught in the classroom.
The worst part of all of this is, we have a lobbying organization in New Hampshire that is funded by the parents in these school districts, and they then use their voice to oppose parental rights. The New Hampshire School Boards Association has been on record numerous times for not supporting parental rights in education. Once again, they sent their paid lobbyist to oppose this parental rights legislation, as you can see below from the sign-in sheet.
It seems almost criminal to have parents pay for a lobbyist to oppose their fundamental rights, but that’s what is happening.
Then you have the teachers union representatives opposing parental rights here. NOTE: not necessarily each teacher. Can you imagine, using the excuse of chaos to oppose parental rights? We heard the same scare tactics used when the law was passed so parents could opt their children out of objectionable material. Since then, this law has allowed parents to keep their kids in the public schools, but opt their children out of objectionable material that they felt wasn’t appropriate for their children.
It’s important fo everyone to contact the Senate Judiciary Committee and ask them to support HB1431. Please also, copy your local state senator. You can find them here.
ACTION ITEMS:
1) Call and leave a message for the NHSBA and tell them to stop their attack on parental rights: 1-603-228-2061
2) Contact your local school board and tell them to stop paying dues to the NHSBA so that they can fight against your fundamental rights.
3) Email the Senate Judiciary Committee and copy your local state senator and ask them to support HB1431
If you want to know how your NH State is Rep voted on this important legislation, check here.
Many parents want their children to attend public schools. When there are roadblocks put in the way of parents, they will become frustrated and angry. This is why parents have removed their children from public schools. Parents need to know that their children are in a good place and transparency will provide that. This is both pro-parent and pro-public ed.