The New Hampshire Senate passed a parental bill of rights that would prohibit school districts from knowingly withholding or denying the existence of information about a parent’s child.

The bill would also codify the right of any parent to access all of their child’s school records and inspect all instructional materials being used to educate their child. Parents could also exempt their student from required statewide learning assessments, from sex education and, in some cases, from vaccinations.

As parental rights advocates argue teachers should stay out of conversations around sex, gender, religion and moral values, opponents of the bill maintain that mandating schools report everything back to parents could jeopardize student safety and alienate vulnerable children.

LGBTQ+ rights advocates have long opposed parental bills of rights, arguing that they could compel school employees to disclose a student’s gender identity or sexuality to their parents. Senate Bill 72 doesn’t contain any specific references to gender identity but does give parents the right to access students’ medical records.

Senators disagreed over what threshold would justify a school violating this law.

The bill establishes that schools must have “compelling state interest,” meaning that the school must have “an actual and objectively reasonable belief, supported by clear and convincing evidence” that infringing on a parent’s rights is necessary to prevent child abuse. It also requires that school personnel get sign-off from their principal to withhold information from parents.

Democrats tried to weaken that wording, suggesting that they hold schools to a “preponderance of evidence,” which is the standard used by courts and the Division of Children, Youth and Families.

That standard only requires proof that something is more likely true than not. Republicans shot it down.

“If you’re going to infringe on someone’s parental rights, it needs to be a strong, strong reason for doing it, supported by strong evidence,” said Daryl Abbas, a Salem Republican. “That’s how you preserve parental rights.”

The 16-8 vote passed on party lines and sent Senate Bill 72 to the House of Representatives. The House narrowly killed a similar bill in 2023 but is poised to pass it this year. House Republicans have also written their own version of a parental bill of rights that would extend into some areas beyond education. The bill is sponsored by Speaker Sherman Packard.

Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America.