The most conservative state in America’s most progressive region notched another quiet victory for reality this month when New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte (R) signed into law a bill (SB 430) requiring teachers to answer parents’ inquiries about their own children.
As progressive jurisdictions labor from coast to coast to hide children’s school-initiated gender transition from parents, New Hampshire’s relatively moderate Republican trifecta mustered up a courageous rebuke to not only other states, but their own state Supreme Court.
The “Honesty and Transparency in Education Act” states that “Educators credentialed by the New Hampshire [D]epartment of [E]ducation shall have a duty to respond to written inquiries by parents and legal guardians regarding information relating to their child enrolled in that educator’s school.”
Parent questions must “be answered completely and honestly” within 10 business days, “except where prohibited by state or federal law,” or in cases where such answers “would put the child at imminent risk of abuse or neglect.” Teachers who violate this requirement violate “the code of conduct for New Hampshire educators” and are “subject to investigation, in accordance with administrative rules.” The bill takes effect on January 1, 2027.
SB 430 is the New Hampshire legislature’s response to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, which in 2024 ruled that the Manchester, N.H. School District had not violated a mother’s (“Jane Doe”) fundamental parental rights by concealing her child’s gender transition at school. The court refused to grant the mother’s request that the school be forced to use her child’s given name and biologically accurate pronouns.
In writing for the 3-1 majority, Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald wrote, “While parents may have a fundamental right to decide whether to send their child to a public school, they do not have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child.” While this language is likely written with an eye to requiring the school to use biological pronouns, it also prohibited Ms. Doe from even knowing what was happening with her child at school.
Somewhat absurdly, state Democrats had rejected MacDonald’s appointment to the bench in 2019, citing his supposed conservative “extremism.”
Before the Doe v. Manchester School District ruling, the New Hampshire legislature had tried and failed to enact protections for parental rights in school since 2022, as moderate Republicans sided with Democrats to block the law. Yet in a common pattern, the wrongly decided opinion catalyzed a backlash. Bolstered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision against a school’s lying-to-parents policy in California (Mirabelli v. Bonta), the legislature finally managed to push this one-page bill across the finish line.
On May 14, the New Hampshire House approved the bill 193-163, and the state Senate followed suit 14-8 on May 21.
Naturally, the bill’s passage generated partisan angst in all the usual quarters. “Schools should be a place of learning, an environment for both studying curriculum and a place of critical self-examination,” complained Aimee Terravechia, executive director of LGBT activist organization 603 Equality, in April. “Placing educators into a role of monitoring and reporting removes the trust necessary for a thriving academic environment.”
Terravechia omitted the fact that the home is also a place of “learning” and “critical self-examination,” and that the home holds this role before the school both temporally and logically. Good educators know that a “thriving academic environment” relies on the support of parents, such that “placing educators into a role” of throttling information between a parent and their child is what really removes the necessary trust.
Left-captured teachers’ unions also uttered the expected note of protest. “SB 430 is vaguely written,” protested Megan Tuttle, president of the National Education Association of New Hampshire, “and risks putting educators in a position of outing a student. NEA-New Hampshire is deeply disappointed SB 430 has been signed into law; we remain committed to ensuring every student has a school where they feel safe, seen, and free to be themselves.”
By describing SB 430 as vague, one can only surmise that Tuttle is criticizing the law for its brevity and concision. The straightforward law could only be interpreted as “vague” by someone seeking to deliberately misunderstand — or rather undermine — it. What likely irked her most was that the brief law was too short to offer the possibility of loopholes. The law does provide exceptions, such as protecting students from abuse, but it operates from the assumption that students are safest, most seen, and most free to be themselves when they aren’t hiding important things from their parents.
But proponents of the bill were unfazed by the expected opposition. “If you don’t tell the parent, the parent can’t watch for the signs of self-harm,” responded state Senator Tim Lang (R), the bill’s sponsor. “Why is it not reasonable to have a parent go and ask a question like that: I recognize something’s going on with my child. Are you aware of anything that’s happening?”
“In the end, this is a straight process bill,” said Lang. “When a parent asks a question of the school, they should get an answer in a reasonable amount of time, and the answer should be honest and truthful.”
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