SB72

This bill is putting the rights of a parent over the privacy rights and individual respect of a student. This seems to legislate a way past working on communicating with their child directly. Making kids feel unsafe at school will not help foster better communication - it will build fear, mistrust and isolation.

It is important for children to have agency at school and to feel free to be themselves and get support from teachers and counselors without concern that everything they share could be communicated to their parents.

This unnecessary parental rights bill pits parents and educators against each other, ignoring the mechanisms currently in place to ensure open lines of communication between school staff, students, and families.

This unnecessary parental rights bill pits parents and educators against each other, ignoring the mechanisms currently in place to ensure open lines of communication between school staff, students, and families.

This bill is completely unnecessry. There are established mechanisms in place that provide communications links betweeneducation staff, faculty and studets and their families.

I oppose this because it is unnecessary. There are already systems in place. I work in a school and feel strongly that we have open lines of communication. Students may end up being "outed" which could result in harm. Please do not pass this bill.

Leave our children alone

Specifically this bill is an infringement on a child's rights and privacy, and it creates an unnecessary and unproductive burden for schools and educators. Plus this bill creates yet another opportunity (even encouragement) for parents to sue schools and cost taxpayers to defend themselves. There are better ways of resolving these issues. Generally, the legislature keeps heaping more requirements on public schools -- requirements that burden the system with requirements and cost time and resources. It's a strategy that has gone too far - in unfunded mandates, state overreach, and loss of local control. In addition it adds financial burdens which local taxpayers can only address through increasing property taxes.

Dear Committee Members, My reasons for opposing SB 72 have not changed since similar bills were proposed in the last Legislative session. Therefore, I include them here as testimony. Please ITL SB72. Thank you. Dear Senators of the Education Committee, I write to you today in opposition to SB 341 and ask all of you to oppose it as well and vote NO on this piece of legislation. Besides having the potential to harm relationships between parents and teachers and other school personnel, it will destroy a developmentally normative and trusted resource of adult support for very many adolescents, As a retired child and family therapist, I have heard from numerous adolescents over the years how crucially important to them were their relationships with a trusted adult at school. To repeat, this is normative in our society, and there is ample evidence of the many developmental benefits to youth who have the trusted support of adults beyond the family. As you are all aware, New Hampshire's Department of Education recognized this in implementing the One Trusted Adult program in 2022. This bill, if passed into law, will absolutely destroy trust, and thus deprive adolescents of a major source of support in their lives. I'm 77, and in my life, not just in my work, it has been the exception, rare, to meet anyone who turned to parents first and always with their adolescent dilemmas and struggles. Please, let us be honest with ourselves in this matter for the sake of all the young people the proponents of this bill say they are so concerned for. I personally in my adolescent years benefited greatly from relationships of trust and support with several adults in addition to my parents. Please vote NO on SB 341. Sincerely, Lois Cote Manchester, NH (603) 627-5445 Dear Committee members, I emailed you last week in opposition to SB 272 and listened to all testimony presented on Tuesday April 18. What concerns me most are the perspectives that describe children in terms of belonging to parents. Children are developing individual human beings, not chattel, not property without rights or any agency of self-determination. It is true that parents are responsible for all aspects of the care and well-being of their children, and of course, this includes loving them through the challenges and difficulties that may present, as children develop into individuated human beings. The hope is always that parents will have the emotional maturity and wisdom to manage their own feelings appropriately if imperfectly, whatever they may be. The reality is that this is not always the case. These are the times when parental reactivity, depending on circumstances, can be traumatizing for children who may already be highly vulnerable emotionally and psychologically. Passing SB 272 into law will only assure that the children described above have little or no recourse, no safe haven to be the person they are at that moment. Please. Vote SB 272 ITL. I close with two quotes: “Children must never work for our love; they must rest in it." Gordon Neufeld, Developmental Psychologist “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, forget what you did, but people will never forget what you made them feel.” Maya Angelou Sincerely, Lois Cote Retired Child and Family Therapist Manchester

This bill creates forced outing. What happened to Republicans wanting government to stay out of our personal lives?

This bill will pit parents and educators against one another. There are already lines of communication open to parents in each school system. This bill will make the school systems a battle field.

There are already working and appropriate processes in place for parents to regulate and control which materials and books they with their children to be exposed to. This bill creates a procedure which allows one parent to make decisions for an entire school community, thereby restricting materials for all children in that school, and not just their own. This is an unnecessary bill which creates damaging overreach. Please vote ITL on SB72.

Stop attacking transgender kids! There are more important issues at stake -- let our kids be free to do what they want.

Requiring school staff to "out" gay children to their parents is destructive and will lead to discrimination for a very vulnerable population. It is inherently wrong and I beg you not to pass this odious legislation.

This awful bill would drive a wedge between parents and teachers. There are already avenues of communication between parents and teachers, and trying to legislate that is counterproductive and increases animosity for no good reason. SB 72 would legally force teachers to out the very few gay and trans kids who haven't come out to their families. Most LGBTQ+ kids do tell their parents, on their own timeline; the few who don't are usually afraid for their physical safety. Forcefully outing them might lead to abuse or homelessness. Did you know that 20-40% of LGBTQ youth experience homelessness - despite the fact that only 5-10% of youth identify as LGBTQ? Let's create an example. John has realized by the time he gets to high school that he's gay. He has not yet told his family, because he knows they are hostile toward the LGBTQ community. But he has supportive peers and teachers he feels comfortable telling. This bill would force any of John's teachers to report that to his parents - the parents who are prejudiced against the gay community. Now John is at even more risk for physical abuse, suicide and homelessness. This law clearly does not have the child's best interests in mind, and in fact puts queer kids in danger. Please, please vote NO. As the mother of a queer kid who DID feel comfortable coming out at home, I have so many painful stories of her friends being disowned by their families when they finally came out. Believe me, the kids know when it is safe to do so - and when it is not. Sometimes one trusted teacher is the only thing standing between that child and suicide. Don't take away their teacher lifelines; let the kids decide when it is safe to tell their families. Don't force teachers to choose between outing their students and keeping their jobs. NO to SB 72. Thank you.

Harmful bill that further scares teachers in what they say and cover, for fear of retribution. We got a good education without parents infiltrating the classroom. Let's keep it that way.

Republicans in name only want this bill. They belong to the party and morality of Trump. We do not need that here in NH.

This legislation assumes all children and teens have safe, loving parents—which could not be further from the truth, especially in New Hampshire! We should be protecting and supporting children, not disconnecting them from safe adults. Many students' teachers are among the few safe and trustworthy adults in their lives. This was true for me and for many of my clients (I'm a therapist). This bill forces a rupture in those relationships by requiring teachers to divulge information that could put children in physical and emotional danger or danger of losing shelter and resources. Not to mention, it creates an undue administrative burden for teachers, who are already overburdened in our current system.

Whatever happened to parents and teachers trusting each other? This bill sets up a further division between the parents and teachers and uses fear and retaliation in an unnecessary way. I keep asking myself why does Mr. Cordelli want to make everything litigious in the name of his defined "parental rights"? Stop this behavior. Vote ITL on this bill.

This bill is harmful to children's mental and physical health.

This unnecessary bill does nothing except try and pit parents and educators against each other, ignoring all the current systems in place that ensure an open line of communication between teachers, students, and parents in favor of a made-up idea that parents know what's best for their child's education all the time, every time, without considering other factors. Parents should be involved with their children and their education of course, which is why we have systems in place currently, and especially so that children know that there are adults in their lives they can go to for problems they may not feel comfortable or safe talking to their parents about. A so-called "parents bill of rights" that includes requiring schools to forcibly out children simply as they grow up and discover who they are, whether that be learning about their gender, their sexuality, or any other aspect of themselves, to parents that may not respect their children's decisions, potentially causing emotional, mental, and even physical harm to children, isn't empowering parents or strengthening communication between families and schools, rather it another attempt to intimidate teachers and destroy the safety net that some children may need. The sponsors of this bill seem more interested in allowing parents to continue to interfere in our schools, rather than wanting to allow children to actually live their own lives and learn.

Our hardworking educators already have a hard enough time trying to educate our children without having to be confronted with parents with a personal agenda. There are already sufficient lines of communication between parents and teachers.

Dear Honorable Members of the House Education Committee, My name is Katie DeAngelis, and I am a resident of Nottingham, a proud New Hampshire community member, and an advocate for high-quality, equitable public education for all students. I am writing today in strong opposition to SB 72. SB 72 proposes to require school districts to post all learning materials online, including instructional materials and teacher-created content. While transparency in education is important, this bill creates an undue burden on educators and opens the door to micromanagement that ultimately harms both teachers and students. Our educators already operate under significant time and resource constraints. The expectation that they must upload every item used in instruction—not only textbooks and syllabi, but also worksheets, articles, videos, and slides—adds an unnecessary administrative load that detracts from their core mission: teaching and supporting students. Moreover, this bill ignores the reality that much of what makes teaching effective is the dynamic, adaptive nature of classroom instruction. Good teachers adjust their materials in response to student needs. Requiring preemptive publication of all materials discourages this flexibility and creativity. It favors a static, overly standardized approach to teaching, which is contrary to what we know supports differentiated, student-centered learning. Many parents already have access to curriculum outlines, classroom newsletters, Google Classrooms, and direct communication with teachers. If the concern is meaningful parental involvement, we should invest in ways to strengthen communication and relationships, not impose sweeping, top-down mandates that increase red tape. Lastly, I am concerned about the chilling effect this bill could have on academic freedom and the professional discretion of teachers. Educators may avoid discussing important—but potentially controversial—topics out of fear of scrutiny or reprisal. This limits the richness of classroom dialogue and deprives students of the opportunity to engage critically with the world around them. I urge the committee to consider the real-world consequences of this legislation. SB 72 does not support transparency—it creates unnecessary bureaucracy, disrespects the expertise of educators, and undermines the student experience. Please vote inexpedient to legislate on SB 72. Sincerely, Katie DeAngelis Nottingham, NH

Public school is public. If parents don't like what it taught, they can homeschool their kids or send them to private school. Local school boards should retain control of what is taught.