According to WMUR, Governor Sununu is planning to veto HB1431 based on some of the language that is currently in the bill. The parental rights bill would affirm our fundamental rights as parents in New Hampshire.
It’s bad enough that the Democrats have abandoned parents, but many expected better of Republicans. If this bill cannot make it through a Republican House, Senate and then be signed by a Republican Governor, what does that tell the parents in New Hampshire?
What does the Governor say is problematic in the proposed law?
“The right [of parents] to be notified promptly when any school board, school district, school administrative unit, school administrator, or other school employee initiates, investigates, or finds the need for any action by school authorities relating to the student pursuant to school policies governing student conduct, truancy, dress code violations, sexual harassment, bullying, hazing, behavior management and intervention, substance use, suicide prevention, gender expression or identity, disability accommodation, and special meal prescription.”
Here is the final version agreed to by the Senate and House.
According to WMUR, Sununu will not support the Bill because if a child joins a club or confides in a teacher, schools would then have to inform parents. This would essentially out gay, lesbian and transgender students.Sununu seems to be suggesting that the district teachers and administrators now engage in lying to parents without any kind of due process. Forget that there is no evidence of abuse or neglect by parents, he is suggesting that this information be hidden from good parents.
Governor Sununu doesn’t seem know that there is federal law that allows parents to inspect their child’s school records. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education.
FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children’s education records. These rights transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a school beyond the high school level. Students to whom the rights have transferred are “eligible students.”
-
Parents or eligible students have the right to inspect and review the student’s education records maintained by the school. Schools are not required to provide copies of records unless, for reasons such as great distance, it is impossible for parents or eligible students to review the records. Schools may charge a fee for copies.
Parents have the right to inspect their child’s records. But to veto this proposed Bill suggests that school officials lie and hide information from parents. In the Bill, the school would inform parents under certain conditions, but parents should be able to access this information upon their request. According to federal law, this information MUST be disclosed to parents upon request.
Does Governor Sununu know this? Why would anyone oppose notification when any parent has the right to access this information already? What kind of a message does that send to parents when they hear that their elected officials want school officials to hide information from them?
What else do they think should be hidden from parents?
When a child is under the care of a therapist, that mental health professional is under obligation to inform parents unless there is evidence that indicates the information should not be disclosed. Parents have due process in that situation. Parents are considered innocent until proven guilty. In local public schools it appears as if you are guilty, and you don’t get to try to prove your innocence.
Legally speaking, people under the age of 18 do not typically have a right to confidentiality in therapy. However, some therapists ask parents to agree to the therapist’s confidentiality rules before they will treat the client. Additionally, though minors do not have a legal right to privacy from their parents, their right to privacy from third parties (employers, advertisers, etc.) is similar to that of adults.
This is done as a way to protect the child. You can see that in this case, the Governor does not follow some basic ethical guidelines. Not only is he ignoring the parents’ fundamental rights, but ethically, parents should be involved, and not pushed out of their child’s life, unless there is actual evidence that a parent is a threat to that child.
Parents are not the enemy of the LGBTQ child. We don’t hold all teachers responsible as sexual predators when we find out sexual predators have worked in our public schools. Why they painting parents as a danger to their children in this way? Why are they guilty without any evidence? Why does everyone assume that a parent who is informed is a threat to a child?
Heritage recently addressed this assault on parents, and explain how this is unconstitutional. School Districts Are Hiding Information About Gender-Transitioning Children From Their Parents. This is Unconstitutional.
American law has long recognized the importance of parental rights. A parent’s right to oversee the care, education, and control of their child is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, and confirmed by the Supreme Court in 1923, in Meyer v. Nebraska, and as recently as 2000, in Troxel v. Granville. To raise and educate a child as parents see fit is—and always has been—on a par with the other fundamental, constitutionally guaranteed rights.
They go on to cite how this denial of information to a parent is a violating the FERPA law. In the court case that they cite, school officials make the same claims as Governor Sununu by saying, “According to court filings, the Montgomery County Board of Education claims it is acting in the best interests of the minors involved by protecting them from the “unsupportive” parents of those children.”
Unsupportive parents? That is a subjective measurement of parents, and is certainly not based on criminal behavior. The school officials made the case that an unsupportive parent is a danger to their child. What about those parents who are not supportive of their child eating only sweets at mealtime? Or the parent who doesn’t approve of their child’s boyfriend/girlfriend? Are they a danger too? Sometimes a child assumes the parents would not be supportive only to find out they are.
Heritage also reported about a guide on the Los Angeles Unified School Districts’ website which instructs teachers to provide whatever services they can for transitioning students with unsupportive parents. Not only are they hiding information from parents, but providing services on transitioning. Shouldn’t we be encouraging parents to be involved in all of this? Not working to keep them in the dark?
The problem isn’t a parental rights bill, the problem is with a Governor who doesn’t seem to know federal law, and sides with those who seek to come in-between a child and their parents.
SUGGESTION: Call Governor Sununu, and inform him of federal law, ethical guidelines and ask him to sign HB1431 when it is placed on his desk: 603-271-2121.
