Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed a new law that makes New Hampshire the latest state to adopt a parental bill of rights in public education that ensures access to information.
CONCORD, New Hampshire (LifeSiteNews) – New Hampshire Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed a new law to become the latest state to adopt a parental bill of rights in public education that among other things ensures parents’ access to information related to their children’s welfare.
Signed into law on June 10 and taking effect July 1, HB 10 expressly affirms parents’ rights, “without obstruction or interference from any school,” to “direct the upbringing and the moral or religious training”; choose public, private, religious, or home school; “promptly receive accurate, truthful, and complete disclosure regarding any and all matters related to their minor child”; “inspect any instructional material”; opt out of sex education or “any other objectionable material” or “nonacademic survey or questionnaire”; review all their children’s academic and medical records; “exempt their minor child from immunizations if, in the opinion of a physician, the immunization is detrimental to the child’s health or because of religious beliefs”; and more.
The law require every school to establish a parental involvement policy including procedures for parents to review study materials and their sources and information about school clubs and activities; parents to lodge objections with materials, including based on “beliefs regarding morality, sex, and religion or the belief that such materials are harmful”; and to withdraw children from “any portion of the school district’s health education program that relates to sex education or instruction in acquired immune deficiency syndrome education or any instruction regarding sexuality if the parent provides a written objection to his or her minor child’s participation.”
“Any parent claiming violation of any provision of this chapter may bring an action for declaratory or injunctive relief, or both, and monetary damages against the school,” it says. “If a parent prevails in any such court action, the court shall award to the parent his or her reasonable attorneys’ fees and court costs, including any such attorneys’ fees and court costs incurred in an appeal to the supreme court.”
“No one loves a child more than a parent, and making sure that parents have rights and can understand and know what’s happening in their classrooms, when their children are in school, is so, so important,” Ayotte declared, while American Federation of Teachers-New Hampshire president Deb Howes complained that the law could make students feel uncomfortable.
The indoctrination of children with radical sexual ideologies and other left-wing agenda items has long been a major concern in American public schools, from libraries to athletic and restroom policy to drag events to classroom materials to even socially “transitioning” troubled children without parental knowledge or consent. Many schools have also displayed hostility to the rights and employment of individual teachers who refuse to go along with such agendas, regardless of their treatment of or rapport with gender-confused students. In recent years, such trends have provoked a backlash with the election of Republicans such as Glenn Youngkin in Virginia and Ron DeSantis in Florida.
According to the Parental Rights Foundation, 18 states currently have laws on the books specifically protecting parental rights, and 32 states have de facto protections via “strict scrutiny” judicial or statutory standards for any law with implications for “fundamental rights.”
