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Opponents of New Hampshire’s popular Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) suffered yet another setback when union chief Deb Howes’ lawsuit was tossed out of court by a Merrimack Superior Court judge.

Judge Amy L. Ignatius’s order dismissing the lawsuit was a rebuke to the arguments put forward by the plaintiff, Deb Howes, president of the New Hampshire chapter of the American Federation of Teachers. 

Parents like Amy Shaw were thrilled by the ruling.

“The EFA program helps my daughters attend a school that meets their unique needs and in which they are thriving,” said Shaw, one of the parents who intervened in the lawsuit. “It is a great relief that the program will continue to support educational options that work for my kids and for so many other families across the state.”

EFAs allow parents to use the state’s share of per-pupil funding for their children to choose educational alternatives, including a different public school, private school, or home school.

Howes called the dismissal disappointing but not surprising. She blames the EFA program for taking money away from public schools despite the state increasing public education spending.

“Vouchers have exacerbated an already disparate burden placed on local property taxpayers to fund the basic right to a quality public education,” Howes said.

In fact, because EFAs only use the state portion of a student’s funding — usually around one-third of the total — school systems that lose students through EFAs increase their per-pupil funding.

The key allegation in Howes’ lawsuit was that the EFA program was unconstitutional.

Jason Bedrick, a Research Fellow in the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation, said the judge’s ruling ended that debate.

“We knew from the outset that this legal complaint lacked any merit. The court agreed,” Bedrick said. “The judge decisively rejected every single one of the plaintiff’s frivolous claims. This is a massive win for Granite State families whose children benefit tremendously from the Education Freedom Accounts.”

Senate Education Committee Chair Ruth Ward (R-Stoddard), who helped craft the EFA program, said Howes and the teachers unions don’t want parents to be able to choose the best education for their children.

“Currently, 4,200 New Hampshire students are using Education Freedom Accounts to build a better education. The teachers’ union sued because it wanted every student to take the same path. I’m glad that Judge Ignatius sided with parents,” Ward said.

Senate President Jeb Bradley (R-Wolfeboro) called the decision a victory for Granite State families.

New Hampshire’s Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut said EFAs are making a positive difference for families and children throughout the state.

“The court’s decision underscores the legality of the EFA program previously approved by legislators, but more importantly allows New Hampshire students and families to find the best educational pathway available for their unique needs,” Edelblut said. “The value of this program continues to be far-reaching, with numerous success stories emphasizing just how impactful EFAs have been statewide.”

Ignatius wrote in her order Howes completely failed to show any of her complaints about the program had any legal merit.

First, Howes tried arguing that EFAs are unconstitutional since the state uses money from the Education Trust Fund to award the EFA grants to parents. Howes claimed since the Education Trust Fund includes lottery revenue, any payout from the fund to the EFA program violates the state constitution.

New Hampshire’s constitution restricts lottery revenue to fund only public schools. But, Howes failed to show any proof any lottery money is going towards EFAs.

“Howes does not meet this burden, even with the allegations in her complaint taken as true and viewing all reasonable inferences in her favor,” Ignatius wrote.

The Education Trust Fund took in more than $1.1 billion in 2022. Of that, lottery revenue was $125 million. The EFA program was budgeted to take $9 million from the Education Trust Fund in 2022. Howes bears the burden to show lottery money is being unconstitutionally used for EFAs, Ignatius wrote, and she didn’t come close to doing that.

Next, Howes claimed EFAs allow the state to avoid its constitutional obligation to provide an adequate education by delegating the job to parents. The Supreme Court’s Claremont decisions from the 1990s found the state must provide an “adequate” public education to all New Hampshire children.

But Ignatius flatly stated Howes was wrong again. The Claremont obligation is limited to public schools, not private education. Further, EFAs don’t keep students out of public school. Families in the EFA program can leave and enroll their child into a public school at any point or use the EFA funding to attend a different public school.

“(T)he Court finds that the State did not delegate its duty to provide an adequate education because it has no duty to students not enrolled in public school and RSA 194- F (the EFA law) does not prevent students from attending public school,” Ignatius wrote.

Finally, Howes argued that the EFA program unconstitutionally allows parents to buy educational materials without government oversight. However, the organization administering New Hampshire’s EFA program, the Children’s Scholarship Fund, is delegated to make sure all spending adheres to the law. Ignatius wrote Howes failed to show proof of any improper EFA spending and failed again to show any legal problem.

“The legislature delegated the authority to approve expenses extraneous to the specific items listed to the scholarship organization but required those expenses be ‘educational,’ and Howes has not identified any expenditures that are not educational,” Ignatius wrote.

Now that she has lost in court, Howes wants lawmakers to spend more on public education instead of EFAs.

“The legislature should be focusing far more time and resources on the needs of the 160,000 Granite State public school students who deserve a robust curriculum and fully staffed schools, not on the 4,000 students whose families choose to take state-funded vouchers,” Howes said in a statement.

New Hampshire Public Radio listeners were shocked by reporting that Granite Recovery Center CEO Eric Spofford was accused of sexual harassment. They may also be shocked to learn the publicly-subsidized news outlet never reported key facts when NHPR broke the story last year, according to new court filings. 

The story about the sexual harassment allegations aired over two days last March and was also the subject of NHPR web and a podcast.

Spofford is suing New Hampshire Public Radio reporter Lauren Chooljian, alleging she engaged in a biased campaign targeting the politically-connected businessman. He and his lawyers are heading to Rockingham Superior Court on Tuesday to challenge NHPR’s motion to dismiss the case. Part of his argument will be that the original radio broadcast held back facts like Spofford’s vehement denials, that New Hampshire’s attorney general was not investigating Spofford, and that a crucial witness contradicted NHPR’s reporting.

“That truth is that they knew their reporting about (Spofford) was false, or at least recklessly disregarded that falsity, but published it anyway,” Spofford’s attorney Michael Strauss wrote in a motion filed Friday.

According to Strauss, the left-leaning media outlet did not hand over copies of the radio story as it aired in March until Wednesday after weeks of legal wrangling over the discovery process. The station also tried to withhold promotional recordings.

And now, just days ahead of the hearing on NHPR’s motion to dismiss, Spofford has learned the split broadcast resulted in a misleading story presented to the listeners, Strauss wrote.

“NHPR defendants necessarily appreciated that publishing their salacious story in two parts over two days would mean that some listeners would only know part of the story,” Strauss claims.

The first day of the story’s broadcast did not include information about the New Hampshire attorney general having never received a complaint alleging Spofford engaged in sexual harassment. That would have to wait until the second day. Nor did the first day include Spofford’s legal representative issuing a denial of the accusations. That would again have to wait, according to Strauss.

More troubling, listeners were never informed that a Granite State Recovery executive challenged the facts NHPR reported on the first day. Chooljian heard from the executive after the first story aired, Strauss wrote.

“NHPR Defendant Lauren Chooljian spoke to former GRC Director of Human Resources, Lynsie Miterer, who gave information to Chooljian that cast serious doubt on the veracity of her reporting about (Spofford,)” Strauss wrote. The station never included any information from Miterer in the second broadcast, according to Strauss.

NHPR’s attorney, Sigmund Schutz, dismissed Spofford’s claims in a response to Friday’s filing. Schutz wrote there should have been no surprise that the story was broadcast.

“Given the distinctly non-secretive nature of a radio broadcast, and NHPR’s openness about being in the radio broadcasting business, it should have been patently obvious that its story had been broadcast on the radio,” Schutz wrote.

The questions about the two broadcasts come weeks after Spofford claimed in court that evidence Chooljian used in her reporting simply does not exist. Chooljian reported on sexually harassing texts and a Snap Chat photo of a penis one of the victims received from Spofford. However, Spofford claims those texts and photos were never created by him, to begin with.

“Chooljian did not see the picture on which Elizabeth’s claim is based (because it never existed,)” Strauss wrote in a previous filing.

Strauss has also signaled to the court that one of the key sources used by Chooljian was Spofford’s aggrieved ex, Amy Anagnost, who was motivated by a desire to defame Spofford to get the upper hand in a custody battle over their son.

NHPR denies Anagnost was one of the sources used for the reporting.

Spofford is a Republican who has supported Gov. Chris Sununu in the past, and NHPR makes no secret of its left-of-center politics or its animosity toward GOP politicians. During the 2022 election cycle, it arranged a U.S. Senate debate with incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan before Republicans had even held their primary, and they brought in a far-left journalist who formerly worked at “Bitch Media” to help moderate the debate.

A New Hampshire’s teachers’ union is going to court to stop the state’s popular Education Freedom Account (EFA) program that some families use to escape failing public schools. The move comes as data show traditional public school enrollment falling while the number of students choosing charter schools and other alternatives is rising.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) announced Thursday it filed a lawsuit against Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut in the Merrimack Superior Court in Concord challenging New Hampshire’s EFA program. The complaint argues the program violates the New Hampshire Constitution and state law by using state lottery dollars and money from the Education Trust Fund to fund the EFAs.

“The state specifically earmarked this money for public education. Instead, the state is stealing from public school students in plain sight to pay for its private voucher program,” said Deb Howes, president of the AFT-NH, who brought the suit “as a citizen taxpayer,” according to an AFT press release.

Families earning less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level can use the EFA program to take their share of state per pupil funding – about $5,000 a year — and use it for alternatives to public school, like private school, homeschooling or tutoring. The public school they leave behind keeps its portion of local per-pupil funding, which can range from $10,000 to $20,000 or more.

EFA expenses must be approved by the Children’s Scholarship Fund (CSF), a private scholarship organization that oversees the program. In September CSF reported that families of more than 3,000 New Hampshire children completed EFA applications, up from more than 2,000 children who used EFAs in 2021-22.

“It underscores a growing demand from Granite State parents for educational alternatives,” CSF reports.

The national AFT’s controversial union president Randi Weingarten weighed in Thursday on behalf of the lawsuit. “New Hampshire can’t fund its voucher program by illegally putting its hand in the taxpayer cookie jar that’s intended for public school students,” Weingarten said. “It’s as simple as this: No matter what program the state wants to fund, it has to do it legally.”

The complaint is based on the premise that EFAs are illegal because the state constitution says “all moneys received from a state-run lottery [shall] be appropriated and used exclusively for the school districts of the state… and shall not be transferred or diverted to any other purpose.”

But supporters respond that EFA spending has been authorized by the legislature and that revenue from sources other than the lottery go to funding k-12 education. Since money is fungible, there’s plenty of revenue to pay for the EFA program without using lottery dollars.

“This lawsuit appears to be without merit,” said  Jason Bedrick, Research Fellow at the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. “The Education Trust Fund has long been used for purposes beyond school districts, such as to place students with special needs in private schools. The state’s constitutional duty to cherish the interest of education is best fulfilled when all children have access to a wide variety of learning environments. Education Freedom Accounts further that interest.”

Howes claims the EFA program is denying public schools millions in money from the Education Trust Fund.

“Public school students are losing out on millions of dollars that are needed to fix leaky old buildings, purchase and maintain modern computer equipment, buy books and materials published at least in the last decade to support student learning, and provide more social and emotional assistance and other needs that will help students excel,” Howes said.

Representatives for New Hampshire’s Department of Education declined to speak about the lawsuit and instead issued a brief statement.

“The New Hampshire Department of Education is aware of the complaint filed today by Deborah Howes at Merrimack County Superior Court. At this time, the department is not commenting on the pending litigation,” a DOE representative said on behalf of the department.

Kate Baker Demers, the executive director for the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH, which administers the EFA program for the state, said the program gives parents the freedom to make their own educational choices, and is totally in line with the state constitution.

“Empowering parents to make educational decisions for their children does not violate any state law or our New Hampshire constitution,” Baker Demers said.

And, supporters note, parents are free to use the funding to transfer their child to a different public school as well.

“This is a desperate attempt by the union to block families from being able to access a wide variety of education options,” said Bedrick. “Thousands of New Hampshire families are using Education Freedom Accounts to give their children the education that best meets their individual needs. It’s sad to see the union putting their politics ahead of kids’ learning needs.”

Grafton Superior Court Judge Lawrence MacLeod is recusing himself from the state education funding lawsuit, saying the property he owns in one of the towns intervening in the case could create the perception of a conflict of interest.

MacLeod recused himself from the case in an order he released Wednesday before he had a chance to rule on the injunction. The plaintiffs are seeking to stop the state from setting a property tax rate for the coming year.

MacLeod and his wife own more than $1 million of property in the city of Lebanon, one of the communities trying to now intervene in the case as part of the Coalition of Communities. It is fighting the plaintiff’s injunction that seeks to keep the Statewide Education Property Tax, or SWEPT, rate at $0.

“The undersigned justice and his wife have a legal and/or beneficial interest in one residence, two rental properties, and two undeveloped lots in Lebanon with a combined property tax assessment in excess of $1,000,000,” MacLeod wrote.

The Coalition, formed in 2006, is made up of mostly towns and cities with high property values working against the return of a “donor” and “receiver” town system for education funding.

The plaintiffs in the case, represented by Andru Volinsky, John Tobin, and Natalie Laflamme, claim the state continues to ignore the 1990s Claremont decisions issued by the New Hampshire Supreme Court by using varying rates for the statewide property tax. They claim it punishes poor communities with lower property values.

The plaintiffs argued last week before MacLeod that New Hampshire cannot set any SWEPT rate for the coming year as the system is currently in violation of the Claremont rulings and flies in the face of the state constitution. Currently, property-rich towns that raise more in taxes through the SWEPT tax are allowed to keep the surplus.

After that hearing, the Coalition filed to intervene in the case and stop MacLeod from approving the injunction. Coalition attorney John-Mark Turner wrote that these would-be “donor” communities would face chaos and uncertainty and be forced to raise local property taxes if the plaintiffs prevail. They oppose changing the current system.

MacLeod’s recusal states that since he and his wife could potentially benefit from the Coalition’s efforts, he needed to step aside.

“(I)t appears that the undersigned justice and his spouse may enjoy a tax advantage under New Hampshire’s existing education taxation structure given the assessed values and fortuitous locations of their real properties not available to the plaintiffs and other real property owners similarly situated, such that the undersigned justice and his spouse would or could be placed at more than a de minimis economic disadvantage should the plaintiffs prevail in the case,” MacLeod wrote.

The SWEPT accounts for 30 percent of education funding in New Hampshire. Under the law, as many as 30 wealthier communities in New Hampshire are keeping a portion of the money raised through the SWEPT, while some poorer towns are paying more, according to the lawsuit.

SWEPT started in 1999 as a response to the Claremont decisions, which found that the state has a constitutional obligation to fund an adequate education. The money raised, more than $360 million estimated in the coming year, is used to fund state adequacy grants.

The debate is over the definition of “adequate.”

According to the plaintiffs, wealthy communities raise more funds per pupil through SWEPT than the state’s low standard for what it asserts is the cost of an “adequate” education. Further, since 2011, the state has allowed those wealthy towns to keep the surplus, which flies in the face of the Claremont decisions, according to the motion.

“The SWEPT tax as currently administered is not uniform in rate as the State allows towns with surplus SWEPT funds to either set a negative local education tax rate to offset the State’s official equalized SWEPT tax rate or retain the excess,” the plaintiff’s motions states. “Both of these mechanisms have been previously deemed unconstitutional by New Hampshire courts.”

MacLeod’s order states a new judge will be assigned to the case soon. It is not yet clear how much of a delay his recusal will add to the lawsuit’s timeline, or if the new judge will have to rehear the parties on the injunction against the SWEPT rate.

Former Granite Recovery Centers CEO Eric Spofford is suing New Hampshire Public Radio reporter Lauren Chooljian, alleging she has engaged in a biased campaign targeting the politically-connected businessman.

According to his lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Rockingham Superior Court, “Chooljian viewed Eric as her opportunity to ascend the journalism ranks. To Chooljian, a #MeToo-styled report about a white male, Republican donor, and bold and successful businessman, who made money in the substance use disorder treatment business, had all the markings of a career-defining piece.”

Spofford is being represented by high-powered attorney Howard Cooper with the Boston firm Todd & Weld. Jayme Simoes, a communications consultant with NHPR, declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying the public radio station had not yet been served.

“NHPR has not been served with a lawsuit and cannot comment on a suit they haven’t seen,” Simoes said.

Chooljian made waves when she reported in March that Spofford sexually harassed multiple women. The accusations included at least one sexual assault Spofford committed on a former Granite State Recovery Centers employee.

Spofford is a big, and potentially attractive, target for the left-leaning media outlet. Politically connected to Gov. Chris Sununu, Spofford’s drug abuse recovery centers became the largest recovery facilities in New Hampshire. According to Chooljian’s reporting, Spofford even counseled Sununu on the response to New Hampshire’s opined epidemic.

“Sununu championed Spofford, saying he is ‘one of the first guys I’ll pick up the phone to’ for advice about responding to the opioid crisis,” Chooljian wrote.

Spofford sold Granite Recovery Centers to BayMark Health Services, a Texas-based treatment company, last year. The sale price was not disclosed.

Spofford’s lawsuit claims that one of the sources Chooljian relied on, former GSC employee Piers Kaniuka, retracted his statements that linked Spofford to the abuse. That retraction has gone unreported by NHPR, according to the lawsuit.

“Specifically, I am concerned with your use of my statement comparing Mr. Spofford to Harvey Weinstein and my statement that Mr. Spofford should be prosecuted. At the time I made those statements to Ms. Chooljian, I naively assumed that I would have been provided an opportunity to vet any statements I made, and to provide permission for them to be used, prior to their publication as part of the article,” Kaniuka wrote to NHPR’s board in May. “I regret making those statements. I did not have any direct personal knowledge concerning any sexual abuse, misconduct, or other inappropriate behavior by Mr. Spofford with employees, clients, or former clients.”

According to the lawsuit, “Kaniuka was one of only four on-the-record sources identified in Chooljian’s reporting. Of those four, Kaniuka was the only one who had known Eric for nearly two decades. Two of the others had been acquainted with Eric as employees of GRC for less than three months each, and one had never even met Eric.”

Since Kaniuka wrote that letter to NHPR, the retraction has been suppressed by the radio station, according to the lawsuit.

“NHPR instead has decided for its readers and listeners that Kaniuka’s statement is irrelevant to Chooljian’s reporting about Eric. Yet NHPR knows the opposite is true,” the lawsuit states.

The motivation behind the story is money and ambition, according to the lawsuit. NHPR has used its Spofford coverage to seek donations and corporate sponsorships while Chooljian used it to get a job with a national media outlet.

“On information and belief, taking down Eric became a means to Chooljian’s end goal: to join a national news organization,” the lawsuit states. “On information and belief, NHPR was depending on Chooljian’s piece to aid its fundraising efforts this year. If Chooljian could deliver reporting that took down someone NHPR viewed as a prominent figure in the state, that would garner national attention and greater visibility to donors nationwide.”

Spofford’s lawsuit even accuses Chooljian and NHPR of trying to link him to a case of vandalism at her home.

“A reporter’s current and former homes in Melrose, Mass., and Hampstead, N.H., were vandalized early in the morning of Saturday, May 21, police said. In Melrose, a person spray-painted the words “Just the beginning!” in red on the home, threw a brick through a window and was seen running away,” the NHPR report states.

The report quotes Melrose Police Chief Michael Lyle who connected the vandalism to Spofford.

“I would certainly think [Spofford] may be interviewed by the authorities. He may have some information that might support a case. It would be too early to say he would be a person of interest,” Lyle said. “After the article came out, all this trouble started for the reporter or the news organization. At some point [investigators] may have a conversation with him.”

Spofford’s lawsuit takes issue with his even being mentioned in the story about the vandalism, saying it was part of an effort to divert the public’s attention away from the Kaniuka retraction.

“The NHPR defendants knowingly weaponized a conspiratorial connection between Eric and the alleged vandalism as a means for the NHPR defendants to deflect from their suppression of the Kaniuka retraction. There was not a scintilla of evidence connecting Eric to the alleged vandalism—the alleged vandal was caught on camera and was very obviously not Eric,” the lawsuit states.

Hundreds of Barrington residents showed up Saturday for a special deliberative session designed to fire Town Administrator Conner MacIver and Town Treasurer Peter Royce and instead opted to support the two officials. 

The man behind the deliberative session, owner of 2A Tactical Rob Russell, wanted to get rid of MacIver and Royce, saying Royce improperly used his town potion to target his business with MacIver’s knowledge.

Barrington uses a two-step process for town meetings. The first is a deliberative session in which the articles are debated and can be changed. It is followed by a ballot vote. Russell spent months gathering signatures for a special town meeting with a single warrant article, firing MacIver and Royce.

At Saturday’s deliberative session, Select Board member Joyce Cappiello successfully pulled a 180 on Russell, amending the article to support the two town employees instead of removing them. The re-worded article now reads, “To see if the town will vote to encourage the select board to continue the employment of Conner MacIver and Peter Royce in their current positions with the town of Barrington and to recognize the many contributions the two have made to the town throughout their tenures.”

It was a major reversal just months after the town attorney reprimanded Royce for improperly using his town email to target the local small business and its owner.

Russell said Sunday he was gratified that so many voters showed up to hear out his arguments, even if he didn’t get his desired result.

“Yes, having my warrant article re-written was disheartening. But it’s part of the process,” Russell said. “And seeing 250 people show up for a deliberative session that I am told normally has less than 50 people was inspiring.”

Russell still plans to run for a seat on the select board in the spring.

Russell is a retired military veteran who runs 2A Tactical out of his Tolend Road home. He started the effort to oust MacIver and Royce after discovering Royce was orchestrating a campaign to shut down his business.

Russell originally opened it as a home business.  But as it took off, so did the traffic in his residential neighborhood, and so did the complaints. 

Russell soon found himself embroiled in a lawsuit as the town alleged zoning ordinance violations. However, after Russell prevailed during two zoning board of adjustment hearings, the town dropped the lawsuit last spring.

Royce is the part-time town treasurer and lives near 2A Tactical. Royce used his position and knowledge of town operations to actively lobby against Russell’s business, according to documents Russell uncovered. At one point, Royce used his town email to communicate with MacIver about the case. After prodding, MacIver told Royce that people could be encouraged to file complaints against Russell if they have concerns.

Royce allegedly organized people throughout the neighborhood to file complaints against Russell’s business, landing Russell before the ZBA, the select board, and the courts.

According to a letter from the town’s law firm to MacIver, Royce’s use of his official town email crossed the line.

“Mr. Royce is the town’s appointed treasurer. Of course, he does not lose his rights as a citizen by assuming such a position. He may contact code enforcement with concerns just as any other citizen may, and code enforcement treats his complaints no differently than those of other citizens. I agree that Mr. Royce should not be using his town email for any communications in his personal capacity, and he has been so counseled,” wrote attorney Laura Spector-Morgan to town officials.

Select Board Chair Dan Mannschreck told NHJournal that Royce got a talking to about his improper use of town email. Royce is paid about $7,000 a year for his job. MacIver was paid more than $78,000 last year.

In legal filings made Wednesday, the Manchester School District (MSD) declared it has no “duty” to inform parents when their children are engaged in transgender behavior or experiencing transgender ideation or dysmorphia. 

The school district made this claim in a court filing responding to a lawsuit brought by a student’s mother over the school system’s transgender policy. MSD insists the mother has no right to know if her child is living a trans identity at school, and it wants her lawsuit dismissed.

“(T)his motion can be easily resolved by answering one discrete question: Do school districts have a legally enforceable duty to inform parents when a student uses a name or gender pronoun different than that assigned at birth? Because the answer to this question is no, the Complaint should be dismissed,” Manchester’s motion states.

The mother, who is going by Jane Doe in the lawsuit, claims her child started expressing a different gender identity at school from the child’s identity at birth, and that fact was kept secret from the child’s family.

According to Jane Doe’s lawsuit, she found out last fall that her child was using a different pronoun and gender identity at school. The mother spoke with school staff, including the guidance counselor. The mother made it clear she wanted her child to be called by the name and pronouns her child was born with while in school, according to the lawsuit.

Even though the staff she spoke to initially agreed, the mother soon got an email from the school principal stating that due to the district’s policy, it would not be possible. The principal stated the district’s policy requires school staff to keep such matters secret from parents if the child wants them kept secret, according to the lawsuit. Even if the staffers agree to use the child’s biological gender identity when speaking with the mother, they would be obligated to lie and not tell the mother if the child wished to be identified as something else, according to the lawsuit.

According to the district’s motion, the mother has no rights when it comes to the child’s identity at school.

“Whatever the scope of a parent’s rights vis-a-vis their transgender or gender-nonconforming children, they do not include the right to force a school district to act as a conduit for the parent’s exercise of those rights in this fashion,” the motion states.

The district’s motion to dismiss claims that this policy does not interfere with the parent-child relationship, since the mother is still free to have the child identify as their birth gender at home.

Shannon McGinley, executive director at the conservative organization Cornerstone, said school districts should not have the power to override parents and their values when it comes to raising their children.

“Schools are not courts of law and should not have the authority to unilaterally deprive people of recognized legal rights. This is a government entity that is increasingly being given vast and unquestioned power over our lives and the lives of our children,” McGinley said.

Two weeks after Jane Doe’s lawsuit was filed, the Manchester Board of Education tweaked the transgender policy — though not by much. The original policy read: “School personnel should not disclose 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.”

The board took out the phrase “including parents and other school personnel,” and added a line stating, “Nothing herein shall be construed to change the obligation of the school to take action when student safety is concerned.”

The changes did not assure Jane Doe that her rights as a parent would be recognized, and the lawsuit continues in the Hillsborough Superior Court – North in Manchester. McGinley said it was one of the reasons Cornerstone backed the failed Parents’ Bill of Rights in the legislature.

“The strong opposition faced by the Parents’ Bill of Rights this session proved that public schools in New Hampshire have an established practice of withholding information from parents about their minor children’s gender and sexuality,” McGinley said. “The justification for this is that, since some parents are abusive, all parents must be presumed guilty. But that’s not how we operate in any other area of parents’ rights.”

The bill was defeated after Gov. Chris Sununu, Attorney General John Formella, and others expressed concerns about the legality of the proposal.

MSD’s actions put it at the center of the national debate over parental rights. Progressive activists reject the widely-accepted view, going back to British common law, that parents should have the final say in decisions over their children.

“Schools have a long-standing tradition and legal obligation to inform parents of their children’s medical and behavioral issues and to honor their decisions about what’s best for their kids,” wrote Luke Berg for the American Enterprise Institute. “Yet, prompted by a well-organized lobby, many school districts have decided that minor students can change gender identity at school without any parental involvement.”

Berg, a former assistant attorney general at the Wisconsin Department of Justice, says this gets the legal standards all wrong.

“As any parent of school-age kids can attest, schools require parental consent for just about everything, even seemingly insignificant matters: sports, field trips, extracurricular activities, alternate education programs, and taking any kind of medication at school,” Luke wrote. “Yet in the past few years, schools nationwide have carved out an exception to this expectation for one major and controversial issue: social gender identity transitions. Unbeknownst to many parents, schools are adopting policies that allow students to change gender identity at school, adopt a new name and pronouns, and even begin using opposite-sex facilities, without parental notice or consent and sometimes in secret from parents.

“This shift is happening under most parents’ radar— until it affects their children, when it’s often too late to fight.”

Lawyers representing hundreds of Sununu Youth Detention Center abuse claimants on Tuesday asked a judge to lift the court-imposed stay on litigation and let the victims pursue civil trials against the state.

In a new filing in the Merrimack Superior Court in Concord, attorneys David Vicinanzo and Rus Rilee accuse Attorney General John Formella of stalling the case so the state can pay as little as possible.

“Plaintiffs acknowledge that the State’s delay strategy and its related goal – paying as little compensation to as few victims as possible – is legally allowable to a certain point. But that point has come and gone. After decades of suffering in silence, it is time for Plaintiffs to be heard and receive justice,” they wrote in their motion.

The motion filed Tuesday is another sign that the victims are unhappy with the $100 million settlement offer approved by the legislature, and many do not plan to take the deal offered by the state. Instead, they want to go to trial.

Vicinanzo said Tuesday the list of more than 600 victims who filed suit continues to grow as more survivors come forward. The filing indicates there could be thousands of victims.

This year the state legislature approved a bill to pay out $100 million in settlements to the survivors. Still, Vicinanzo and others criticized the bill, saying it caps the settlement amounts, and effectively excludes many survivors from being able to obtain any settlement money.

“The New Hampshire legislature’s response to this tragedy has also been slow and underwhelming. It was not until late 2021 that the State legislature began discussions on a bill seeking to redress the harm suffered by the survivors. The bill that was ultimately signed into law last month falls well short of the “victim-centered, trauma informed” legislation that the Attorney General and legislators had promised and forces survivors to give up their rights for the mere chance to explore their options in this process,” they wrote in Tuesday’s motion.

David Meehan first came forward in 2017, telling State Police about the abuse he suffered at the center. Since then, hundreds of men and women have come forward to say they suffered sexual and other forms of abuse as children at the hands of some 150 staffers from 1960 to 2018, according to the lawsuit. That abuse includes gang rapes, being forced to fight each other for food, and being locked in solitary confinement for weeks or months.

“(T)hrough the actions of the Defendants in these matters, Plaintiffs were robbed of their childhoods and left with lifelong physical and emotional scars. The stories these individuals tell reveal unimaginable wrongs, including brutal rapes, forced abortions, broken bones, and weeks on end of isolation where individuals were at times shackled and forced to urinate and defecate, without a toilet, in the same room in which they slept,” they wrote.

The state has so far charged several former employees for their roles in the alleged abuse while simultaneously pursuing a settlement agreement. Vicinanzo and Rilee state that then-Attorney General Gordon MacDonald initially responded to the victims appropriately, pursuing a criminal investigation against the alleged abusers while negotiating a civil settlement. It was during the initial state response that Meehan and others agreed to stay their cases.

After MacDonald became Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court in March of 2021, Formella replaced him as attorney general. The lawyers blamed Formella for what they alleged was a change in the state’s handling of the claims.

“Unfortunately, Plaintiffs detected a change in tenor and direction from the Attorney General’s Office following a change in leadership with Attorney General MacDonald’s appointment and subsequent confirmation to the New Hampshire Supreme Court in early 2021. Since that time, discussions with the Attorney General stalled, and the State began to adopt tactics seemingly calculated to delay, if not outright deny, justice for the survivors,” they wrote.

Michael Garrity, the director of communications for the Department of Justice, takes exception to that characterization of Formella’s response.

“Any suggestion that the Attorney General’s Office is ‘dragging its feet’ or ‘trying to pay out as little as possible’ is categorically false. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have been attempting to work with plaintiffs’ counsel in good faith and are disappointed by this inflammatory and unnecessary filing,” Garrity said,

The abuse should not have come as a surprise, according to the filing. It was well-known in the 1980s. Then-Attorney General Tom Rath warned leaders that the abuse at the detention centers would end up costing the state.

“There is no question that the potential exists for the YDC (Youth Development 3 Center) to be the next Laconia [State School] in terms of litigation,” Rath said in 1980, the Associated Press reported.

The Laconia State School housed mentally challenged people until the revelations of the ongoing neglect and abuse revealed in the 1970s. A 1979 class-action lawsuit found that the school that was supposed to be training and educating mentally challenged people was instead “a human warehouse where residents were often left alone to sit naked in their feces and urine. Staff prodded residents with hatpins, burned them with cigarettes, and kicked them. They also shut off the water at night, forcing anyone who was thirsty to drink from the toilets,” according to The Boston Globe.

Rath told the Associated Press that the state was deficient in dealing with the abuse within the juvenile justice system.

“[I]f there is an area where we have been deficient in this state, it has been in this regard,” he said at the time.

Despite offering $100 million to the hundreds of Sununu Youth Detention Center abuse victims, it looks like New Hampshire will still end up in court. 

Lawyers and victims expressed frustration and anger at the deal, approved by the state Senate late last week.

“I should never have put faith in the state to create a fair settlement process. They already proved they don’t care,” Dwayne Underwood, one of the victims said.

There have been hundreds of allegations of misconduct and abuse against staff at what was then called the Youth Development Center between 1963 and 2018. That abuse included gang rapes, being forced to fight each other for food, and being locked in solitary confinement for weeks or months. The center has been under investigation since 2019 and is scheduled to shut down in 2023.

David Vicinanzo, an attorney with Nixon Peabody, said his firm has filed 450 lawsuits against the state over the Sununu Center abuse and said 100 more lawsuits will be filed soon. Vicinanzo plans to push forward with the lawsuits instead of taking the settlement.

“We are full speed ahead preparing the cases for trial or mediation, which may be appropriate depending on whether the state decides to be fair or continues to shortchange and disrespect the victims,” Vicinanzo said.

Anthony Carr, who represents Underwood, said the victims continue to be ignored.

“This bill will not bring justice to the minors who were abused under the state’s care. It’s unfortunate that the victims of the Sununu Youth Services Center and the Youth Detention Center and their advocates were not consulted when creating this fund. The result is a process that is not victim-centered and, speaking for the many victims we represent, will not be widely used, if at all,” Carr said.

Both Carr and Vicinanzo would rather see the legislature make changes to the bill, especially the way the settlement defines abuse. Under the law as passed, survivors like Underwood would be frozen out as their experience would not be considered abuse.

“I was forced to undress regularly in Wilkins Cottage and expose myself to the guards for no good reason. I was forced to swim naked by the guards both on and off property. One time, a guard took me by van to a campsite by a river and he made me swim naked with him,” Underwood said. “This has caused me great trauma over the years, and I just don’t see why the state would not recognize what I went through as sexual abuse.”

The law also includes a maximum $1.5 million settlement cap for victims, depending on the abuse suffered, and contingent on the state’s definition of abuse. It is another point the lawyers want to be changed.

Vicinanzo has been critical of Senate President Chuck Morse (R-Salem). Vicinanzo said Morse has refused to meet with victims.

“Many of the victims pleaded with Senate President Morse for a short meeting weeks ago so they could share their pain personally with him before he managed this process to the vote he wanted … He responded that he was ‘not interested’ in meeting with them,” Vicinanzo said. “Unfortunately, he is not the only political leader who still has no empathy for victims or understanding of their suffering. The child victims of the state have been ignored and dehumanized for years, so the senator’s cold shoulder is nothing new.”

Morse, who is running in the crowded GOP primary to unseat incumbent U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, did not respond to requests for comment.

Vicinanzo said the state needs to reckon with the victims.

“After being ignored, disbelieved, and disrespected by the state for decades, we are a critical mass right now that the state has to take seriously and treat with decency and fairness,” he said.

So far, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office brought more than 108 charges against 11 former staff members for acts committed against 20 victims.

On Monday, House Minority Leader Renny Cushing (D-Hampton) asked a federal court to rush a ruling on House Democrats’ lawsuit to block a return to regular session in the State House chamber.

On Tuesday, Democrats crowded into Congress, maskless, to cheer on President Biden’s State of the Union speech.

Granite State Republicans took note.

“I saw a headline this morning that the [U.S.] Capitol’s attending physician notified Congress that masks are no longer required ahead of Biden’s State of the Union address,” New Hampshire Speaker of the House Sherm Packard (R-Londonderry) told New Hampshire Journal Tuesday afternoon. “So we’re talking about putting hundreds of people — members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, cabinet officials, and all the guests — packing them all into a room together, and Democrats say that’s all right. But we can’t go back to the [N.H. House] chamber?

“The Democrats keep saying ‘listen to the science.’ Well, we’re the ones listening to the science and the latest CDC guidelines. They aren’t,” Packard added.

The House Democrats’ lawsuit seeks remote options for legislators unwilling to return to in-person work. Since the start of the pandemic, House members have met in sports complexes, the University of New Hampshire and the convention center at the Manchester DoubleTree by Hilton.

Lawyers representing Cushing filed a motion on Monday in the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston seeking an expedited ruling in Cushing’s lawsuit against Packard. Cushing wants legislators to be able to log on for the House session remotely. Packard has rejected this request and, thus far, has prevailed.

The appeal was heard in the federal appeals court in September, and no ruling has yet been made. Since September, however, Gov. Chis Sununu has effectively called for an end to pandemic restrictions, and the Centers for Disease Controls have adjusted the masking requirements.

The New Hampshire House is now set for its first session in Representatives Hall on March 10, the first time that House members have gathered in Concord since the start of the pandemic.

Cushing wants the federal appeals court to issue a ruling before the state of the session on March 10, claiming members have been risking their health for months because of Packard’s refusal to allow remote access to lawmakers.

“Some of the Plaintiffs have chosen to risk death by attending committee meetings and House sessions. Others have heeded the advice of the CDC and their doctors and chosen to not spend hours inside with unmasked, unvaccinated people. None of the Plaintiffs should have ever had to make a choice between the risk of death and their duty to their constituents. None of them should have to expose themselves to the extraordinarily dangerous conditions in Representatives Hall,” the motions filed Monday states.

Cushing did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. Packard has said the return to Representatives Hall in Concord will not be a problem.

“We have managed smartly throughout the pandemic with many risk-mitigation measures in place to ensure the people’s business continues to get done,” Packard said. “We’re now in a different phase of the pandemic, and without some return to normalcy, we risk long-lasting damage to this historic institution and its traditions.”

According to Cushing, holding the session in the State House will mean many members of the legislature will not be able to take part due to health concerns, and their constituents will be denied their representation. This despite a year of widely-available vaccinations and boosters, in a state with one of the lowest rates of hospitalization and death in the nation.

“You’d think, with the Biden White House and the Congress going maskless and the CDC’s new guidance, that Democrats would be ready to move on,” Packard said. “Because it’s time. It’s time to get back to the normal way of doing things. It’s been two years. We can’t be cowering in a corner and afraid of going out and doing anything. We’ve got to get back to normal life.”