Your State probably has a commission for everything, with at least a handful of professional associations, some of whom are funded with dues from local governments to lobby on their behalf, against you.
Two examples from the Granite State are the New Hampshire Municipal Association (NHMA) and the New Hampshire School Board Association (NHSBA). They exist to make taxpayers’ lives miserable at the hands of state and local government.
Our NHSBA famously crafted policy JBAB to address the individuals these schools were grooming to be gender-non-conforming, which they have since had to disavow. Schools were and still are getting sued. There’s no statutory support, JBAB encourages teachers and staff to lie to parents, and it has components that violate the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Someone thought it was a great idea, and they still do, but they can’t stand behind it and have effectively cut the districts loose to fend for themselves legally.
Several school districts dumped it. Skip Murphy had to confront his school board monthly for over a year and bring multiple lawsuits or the threat of them before Gilford backed away from theirs. But the policy is still in place, perhaps in your district, despite the NHSBA not publicly promoting it. This has not, however, dissuaded them from attempting to turn local schools into gender clinics filled with teachers and staff moonlighting as mental health experts.
In the NHSBAs October 2023 list of CRs – their legislative bucket list for the next State House Session, they continue to defend allowing porn in schools and ensuring challenges are handled locally so none will likely succeed. They do not want to see any state-level regulation of explicit material or policing of the material to ensure it is age-appropriate. Mind you, they don’t say that, but schools and libraries all over the State have age-inappropriate material accessible to minors who are too young to understand it and who might be harmed by it.
Here’s the relevant text.
5. NHSBA opposes any legislations that divests local school boards of original jurisdiction relative to complaints about local curriculum, instruction, and instructional resources such as books, library materials, and other instructional resources. Further, NHSBA opposes any legislation that subjects school district staff to civil lawsuits and sanctions relative to curriculum and instruction. (2023)
6. NHSBA affirms the qualifications of school district staff to research and select appropriate digital and printed material for schools. Literary and curricular collections should offer students information that provides a balance of cultural values. Further, literary collections should represent diverse points of view, provide a global perspective, stimulate essential thinking skills, and meet the interests, abilities, learning style.
Don’t tell the local districts what they can and cannot make available, and let them handle complaints when parents find their kids have access to explicit subject matter. As a fan of local control, I can see the appeal, but the NHSBA doesn’t care about students or parents or local or individual rights. Its job is to aid and abet school district power and its agenda is anything but balanced or values-based unless you mean progressive values.
And the districts aren’t listening to parents or students.
When confronted with problems like age-inappropriate material, the local government refuses to listen or even follow its anti-obscenity laws. The state government refuses to enforce the law as well. The people’s only recourse is their legislature. And the NHSBA isn’t opposed to that. Several of their resolutions ask the State to institute top-down controls for things like handing out Medicaid money and teacher credentialing. They don’t want local districts deciding how that works but don’t touch age-inappropriate material for minors.
Allow districts to stonewall Parents, embarrass them in public, and refuse to listen to concerns about material promoting adult-student sex, illegal drug and alcohol use, pedophilia, gay sex, bondage, and suicidal ideation, complete with graphic descriptions or drawings.
Without saying they want porn in schools, they’ve said it. Dear Legislature, do not protect children from groomers and perverts in local school districts. Let them police themselves. A policy they will stand behind until they don’t.
