Ayotte signs law requiring teacher disclosures to parents on gender identity, overriding court

In 2024, the New Hampshire Supreme Court faced a question at the heart of a growing political divide: Do parents have a state constitutional right to information about their child?

The question was posed by “Jane Doe,” an anonymous Manchester woman suing the city’s school district over its decision to withhold information about the gender identity of her child. The district had adopted a policy in 2021 that students could keep their gender identity private at school and that school personnel should not disclose the information to a student’s parent without that student’s permission.

Jane Doe had discovered her child was using a different name and pronouns at school, and had asked the district to address her child by their given name and pronouns. The school’s refusal — and its insistence that it could not reveal her child’s preferred pronouns — had violated fundamental parenting rights, Doe argued.

But the Supreme Court disagreed, finding that there are limits to parental rights in the public school context. “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,” wrote Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald in the 3-1 majority opinion.

Last week, Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed a law to override that decision, completing a four-year conservative effort and angering LGBTQ+ advocates and others. 

Senate Bill 430 requires teachers to disclose any information requested by parents about their child, with some exceptions. 

“In the end, this is a straight process bill,” said Sen. Tim Lang, the Sanbornton Republican who sponsored SB 430, at a hearing in April. “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.” 

The bill, signed by Ayotte Thursday, creates a new duty for educators “to respond to written inquiries by parents and legal guardians regarding information relating to their child enrolled in that educator’s school.”

The bill requires educators to respond to a parent’s written questions within 10 business days and to answer the parent “completely and honestly.”

The new law carries potential professional penalties. It directs the State Board of Education to update the educator code of ethics and code of conduct to include this duty by July 2027. Once that happens, any failure of a teacher to respond to a parent under the law could be considered a violation of those codes and could lead to disciplinary action against the educator.

And the law has two exceptions: Teachers are not required to disclose the information if doing so would be prohibited by state or federal law, and teachers do not need to disclose if they have made a “good faith determination” that doing so would put the student “at imminent risk” of abuse or neglect by a parent. 

If an educator has that suspicion, they must report it to their superintendent and deny the request to the parent in writing. 

Ayotte’s signature of the law comes after multiple Republican attempts to pass a similar disclosure law dating back to 2022. Often, that duty to disclose was attached to a number of other provisions in a broader “parental bill of rights.” 

For a while, the campaign hit a string of roadblocks. Year after year, the parental bill of rights failed narrowly as a handful of House Republicans bucked their party and blocked passage, often after raising specific objections to the duty to disclose provision. In 2022, the Attorney General’s Office wrote a letter opposing that year’s bill, arguing the disclosure requirement could put the state in violation of the 2018 anti-discrimination law, which added gender identity to the list of protections in public places and schools.

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But proponents managed to eventually move the needle. In 2025, lawmakers passed a parental bill of rights, House Bill 10, that did not include the disclosure requirement. This year, Republican leaders in the House and Senate had the votes to pass a standalone bill for teacher disclosure, SB 430.

Supporters of this year’s legislation say it is necessary to provide parents with transparency and empower them to make their own parenting decisions. 

And they have said the process would likely be used by parents only when necessary and only when they have concerns for their child’s well-being. 

But opponents say the bill interferes with the privacy rights of students by requiring a teacher to share information with a parent even when the student expressly does not want it shared. To LGBTQ+ advocates, this dynamic could harm students who want to express their gender identity at school but are not ready to tell their parents about it. 

“Schools should be a place of learning, an environment for both studying curriculum and a place of critical self-examination,” said Aimee Terravechia, the executive director of 603 Equality, an LBGTQ+ advocacy organization, speaking in April. “Placing educators into a role of monitoring and reporting removes the trust necessary for a thriving academic environment.”

And Democrats have warned the new process could be abused, allowing a parent to potentially send questions to a teacher every day and requiring that teacher to respond. They have also raised concerns that advocacy groups could create digital tools to empower parents to direct a deluge of questions to one particular educator or school. 

Republicans have dismissed those concerns, arguing that those questions should be considered civic engagement. 

Teachers’ unions also opposed the law, arguing that it could put them in the position of surveilling their students and disrupt student trust. And they have said the exception in situations of potential abuse or neglect is difficult to invoke, since a teacher will have to gather information to conclude there is an imminent risk of harm. 

Megan Tuttle, president of the National Education Association of New Hampshire, said in a statement Thursday that teachers already “strive to connect with each student” and “collaborate and communicate” with parents and guardians. 

“However, SB 430 is vaguely written and risks putting educators in a position of outing a student,” Tuttle added.

“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,” the statement added.

Lang, for his part, argued the law contains strong safeguards to protect students who might face abuse. And he said the disclosure could help struggling students receive help from their parents, at home.

“If you don’t tell the parent, the parent can’t watch for the signs of self-harm,” he argued. 

“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?”