N.H. House Speaker Sherman Packard is backing an effort to create “a parental bill of rights,” the third time over the past two years that this kind of legislation has been proposed.

The Londonderry Republican said it will be similar to House Bill 10, which he sponsored in 2023. State representatives narrowly rejected that measure, which said information on a child’s health, wellbeing and education should not be withheld from parents.

“I think this is a very important bill,” he said. “I think if you ask most of the parents in the state of New Hampshire, they’ll say it’s their responsibility to raise their children, not the school’s responsibility. And it’s not the responsibility of the schools to hide from parents when they see something that’s unusual.”

Packard said in an interview Thursday that schools are withholding important information from parents.

“I remember when the schools couldn’t even give the kids an aspirin without checking with the parents, and now they want to hide all kinds of stuff from the parents and that’s just not right,” he said.

Packard declined to specify what information is not being shared. Public schools still are not supposed to provide medication without parental permission.

In 2022, lawmakers opted against another parental-rights measure. House Bill 1431 said in part that parents have the right to be notified when a school investigates or takes any action regarding a range of issues.

This would include student conduct, truancy, dress code violations, sexual harassment, bullying, hazing, behavior management and intervention, substance use, suicide prevention, gender expression or identity, disability accommodation or special meal prescriptions.

The gender expression or identity provision could conflict with a state law against discrimination, the N.H. Attorney General’s Office said. Gov. Chris Sununu threatened to veto the bill.

The list of issues requiring parental notification wasn’t included in HB 10 in 2023.

Instead, the measure listed a series of parental rights, including directing education and care, upbringing and moral or religious training and deciding whether to enroll a child in a private school.

Opponents of the bill noted that parents already have such rights. They said that vague wording in the measure coupled with potential penalties that include revocation of teaching licenses would create an untenable situation for educators.

State Rep. Jonah Wheeler, D-Peterborough, who voted against HB 10, said in an interview Friday that parents have legitimate concerns about what children encounter in schools and whether they are getting a good education.

He said the state’s system of funding public education, which is heavily reliant on property taxpayers, leads some districts to get much more financial support than others. Meanwhile, standardized testing scores show much room for academic improvement. He also said some school board members are not good about taking public input.

This all leads to friction between some parents and schools, he said.

But Wheeler also noted that parents already have good paths for getting involved in their child’s education.

“The appropriate path could be talking to your kid, having a good relationship with your child, getting involved in the open-house aspects of school,” Wheeler said. “There’s plenty of places for parents to engage with their school district and what their students are learning in school.”

Wheeler said bills like HB 10 tend to lead to partisan political battles without solving underlying funding and academic achievement problems in public education.

“I think the larger Republican Party nationally is using issues like these and it bleeds down to the state level here to rile people up and suck the time and energy of the legislatures across the states away from the really important issues like pensions, education funding and making sure the systems work.”

Packard has submitted a Legislative Service Request for his parental bill of rights proposal. Such LSRs are a precursor to the actual legislation and include a title but no exact wording.

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