“I want you to send me a parental bill of rights,” Gov. Kelly Ayotte told her fellow Republicans at the state party meeting last month. On Monday, GOP lawmakers took a step in that direction when the Senate Children and Family Law Committee held a public hearing to review that very proposal.

“It basically says that the school has a responsibility to put a notice together and give it to the parent at the beginning of each school year,” the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Tim Lang (R-Sanbornton), told committee members at the beginning of the hearing. “It’s in a clean, concise manner, both in writing and on the website. That’s it. That’s the whole bill.”

Given the bill is co-sponsored by the entire 16-member GOP supermajority in the state Senate, there’s little doubt about the outcome in the upper chamber. That may explain why there was a small crowd for such a contentious issue.

Granite State Democrats have fought tooth-and-nail to stop the parents bill of rights from becoming law. One section of the legislation in particular has inspired their opposition: Mandating that school districts direct personnel to disclose to parents any information shared with their child — or “information provided to any counselor, school psychologist, school nurse, or other certified healthcare provider where the information provided was reasonably expected to be confidential.”

At issue is a policy practiced by the Manchester Public School District, as well as other districts, to keep information secret from parents. In particular, information about their child’s behavior at school related to sex or gender.

A House GOP push to advance an earlier version of the legislation was “nuked” by Democrats two years ago over allegations that the bill was targeting LGBTQ youth. Democrats argued parents were too dangerous to be allowed to know what their own children were doing.

“Some kids will be beaten to death” by their parents, New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley claimed.

The mother of a child who was denied this basic information sued the Manchester school district. The state Supreme Court sided with the school.

 In Doe v. Manchester School District, the court ruled 3-1 it “cannot conclude that any interference with parental rights which may result from non-disclosure is of constitutional dimension.”

The handful of opponents of the parental rights bill who showed up for Monday’s hearing repeatedly cited the court ruling.

“Parents have a self-help remedy – talking to their own children,” said David Trumble, a Weare Democrat who ran an unsuccessful campaign last fall to unseat state Sen. Ruth Ward (R-Stoddard). “It’s clear that a parent who supports their child who is gay does not need this bill because they can talk to their child already.

“The bill creates a legal framework that gives parents 100 percent of the rights and their child zero percent of the rights.”

Committee member and state Sen. Victoria Sullivan (R-Manchester) said the family at the center of the Manchester decision gave her permission to speak about the case.

“The parents reached out to the school because of their concern for their child,” Sullivan said. “If the parents didn’t continue to dig, their child would have been a casualty of our society.

“The child was never LGBTQ. The child ended up in a public charter school where they are healthy, thriving, and happy. The reason people are using to oppose this law is (claiming) that parents are inherently abusive to their children. I think we need to dispel that.”

Susan Stevens of Sanbornton, another of the bill’s opponents, claimed, “Kids are independent beings.”

“If a kid wants to use a different name, okay,” she insisted, adding: “Some kids think they’re tigers. They’re kids.”

Sullivan cited a policy enacted in 2021 by the Manchester Board of Education directing school personnel to withhold “information that may reveal a student’s transgender status or gender nonconforming presentation to others including parents and other school personnel unless legally required to do so or unless the student has authorized such disclosure.”

“That was part of the impetus for this bill to come forward because it did create a lawsuit and a lot of hostility between the school and parents,” Sullivan said. “The PTA you mentioned feels like they’re no longer accepted or welcomed into their child’s education because of some of the policies that are happening.

“So this is actually an attempt to open the door for communication between parents and teachers.”

Stevens argued the proposal would “create a hostile environment.”

“If you don’t want your kid learning about giraffes, then you can opt out of those things, and the kid won’t learn about giraffe behavior, whatever it is,” Stevens added. “But have the conversations directly. Don’t legislate this stuff. It just makes everybody afraid.”

According to a 2023 University of New Hampshire poll, Granite State voters are split on whether they generally support a “Parents’ Bill of Rights” (41 to 39 percent).

However, poll respondents who are parents with children currently among their household answered that they support the legislation by a whopping 58 to 22 percent.

Meanwhile, Monday’s minuscule public hearing attendance paled in comparison to similar hearings that were held during the last legislative session that drew hundreds of both supporters and opponents.

Kimberly Allan of Hudson is involved with the Hillsborough County Moms for Liberty chapter, said she showed up in support of the legislation. She told the committee that school officials tried to provide counseling to her 13-year-old son without first informing her.

“Thankfully, I have a strong-willed child who told them, ‘Did you ask my mother?’ And when they didn’t have an answer, he said, ‘No thank you.’”

Lang said after the hearing that some opponents of the bill are missing the big picture.

“Whenever we talk about the Parental Bill of Rights, people tend to only focus on the student-teacher relationship,” Lang said. “However, the most important relationship is the parent-teacher relationship and the trust parents give to teachers that cannot, and should not, be eroded, but instead strengthened.

“Understanding that critical piece is why we need this bill.”