Book removals, tax caps, school meals: The flurry of end-of-session education bills 

In 2025, the New Hampshire House and Senate split their education committees in two. One committee handled education policy related bills and the other education finance bills; leaders said the division was necessary to manage heavy workloads.

This year, that instinct appears justified. Republican lawmakers have churned out a deluge of bills affecting public schools, from curriculum overhauls to teaching prohibitions to tax caps. Many have become high-stakes, high-emotion battlegrounds, as Democrats decry intrusions into school autonomy and Republicans champion parental choice and fiscal restraint. 

On Thursday, lawmakers wrapped the final day for amending legislation in 2026, and many of those melees flared again. Here are some of the bills moving forward in the final weeks of the session. 

Return of ‘divisive concepts’

The Senate moved to revive a 2021 law known to many as the “divisive concepts” law. House Bill 1792 would bring back that law, which forbids K-12 teachers from advocating for four broad concepts in a classroom relating to oppression and bias between people of protected characteristics, and includes professional disciplinary consequences for teachers who violate it. 

A federal court struck down the previous law in 2024, finding that it was unconstitutionally vague for teachers and that the uncertainty could chill teaching. But Republican senators say this year they have made two major changes that address those concerns: They have removed the ability for people to sue teachers who violate the law, and they have introduced the requirement that any violation of the act by an educator must be “purposeful.” 

HB 1792 passed the Senate, 16-8. The Senate’s version is a significant revision of the original bill, which was initially called the CHARLIE Act and which more explicitly prevented teachers from supporting Marxism and LGBTQ+ identities. The Senate’s vast changes — which nearly entirely replace the CHARLIE Act — now go to the House, whose members will vote on whether to accept the changes, reject them, or send them to a conference committee to debate further. 

Book removals in schools

Republicans advanced another attempt at prior legislation: a bill requiring public schools to adopt clear pathways for parents to challenge and potentially remove from schools books and other materials they deem obscene. 

Gov. Kelly Ayotte vetoed a similar measure in July. On Thursday, the House passed a new version of that idea, Senate Bill 434. But the House also made changes to the Senate’s bill. Unlike the Senate’s version, the House-passed bill requires school boards to adopt a process for content material but does not prescribe how that process should work, and gives no mandatory timelines. 

Those changes did not placate a group of advocacy organizations that denounced the bill Thursday, including 603 Equality; the ACLU of New Hampshire; the American Booksellers Association; the American Federation of Teachers New Hampshire; Authors Against Book Bans; Engage NH; EveryLibrary; MomsRising New Hampshire; and the National Education Association of New Hampshire.

“This bill seeks to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, and it does so with redundant, unnecessary measures,” said Philomena Polefrone, associate director of advocacy for the American Booksellers Association, in a statement. “All it will do is confuse an issue that is confused enough.”

Teacher-to-parent disclosures

The House approved Senate Bill 430 Thursday, a bill that would require teachers to respond to all written inquiries sent by a parent or guardian requesting information about their child, in a 193-163 vote. The bill follows years of Republican attempts to create a disclosure requirement for teachers in past “parental rights” bills. 

LGBTQ+ advocates and Democrats have raised alarms about those bills, arguing they would force teachers to “out” students to their parents if those students disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity to the parent, even if the student explicitly asked the teacher not to. Supporters say they are merely meant to empower parents to ask for information to better guide their children.  

The House’s version of SB 430 requires that teachers respond “within 10 business days” of receipt of any parent’s letter, and to do so “completely and honestly.” It carves out an exception to the requirement if doing so “would put the child at imminent risk of abuse or neglect,” and requires the teacher to fill out a report if so. 

But the House approved a major change Thursday: the amended bill no longer lays out penalties for teachers for noncompliance. The Senate’s version had made disobeying the proposed law a violation of the educator code of conduct; the House version is silent. Republicans in the two chambers will likely need to negotiate in the coming weeks to bridge that difference.

Votes on school tax caps

After years of failed attempts to impose mandatory annual tax caps on New Hampshire school districts — in order to prevent property tax increases — Republicans in Concord are pursuing a new approach: ballot measures. 

House Bill 1300, which passed the Senate Thursday, would require cities and towns to put a question on the ballot during the general election every two years asking whether their school district should adopt a tax cap. That cap would require a three-fifths majority of voters in the school district to be adopted. If it were adopted, it would prevent school boards from crafting any budget that exceeded the cap on taxes. Once adopted, the cap may only increase for inflation and to reflect new taxable property wealth in the town — a measure that includes new properties added to the tax base, but not increases in values of existing properties. 

Voters in school districts and municipalities already have the option to adopt tax caps or budget caps — caps that restrict the size of the budget — by bringing forward and passing a warrant article before town meeting or annual school meeting. Few such measures have passed. 

But Republicans argue those meetings, often held in March, over the weekend, in town halls or gymnasiums, attract a fraction of the turnout of November general elections, especially in presidential election years. They say more school districts might adopt tax caps if the option were presented by default to voters in high-turnout elections. And they argue many residents struggling with property taxes would embrace an option to curb future increases.

Democrats and school representatives say the bill is a top-down mandate that violates local control. They argue that by forcing the measure on the ballot, rather than allowing residents of towns to decide whether or not to introduce it, lawmakers are setting up a system geared toward a desired outcome. 

Because the Senate made an amendment to the bill, the House will decide Thursday whether to adopt the amended bill, kill it, or negotiate at a committee of conference.

School meal expansion

At a late hour Thursday, the Senate came to an unlikely bipartisan compromise. The chamber agreed to move forward a bill that would allow school districts to expand their free-and-reduced-price meals program to higher income levels.

Currently, school districts are reimbursed for free or reduced-price meals for students whose households make up to 185% of the federal poverty level — currently, $61,050 for a family of four. The Senate’s last-minute amendment to House Bill 1499 would allow school districts to opt into offering reduced-price meals for families making up to 200% of the federal poverty level, or $66,000 for a family of four. 

Because the federal government only reimburses schools for meals for families making up to 185% of the federal poverty level, HB 1499 would require state funds to reimburse districts for the additional 15%. Under the bill, the state would pay participating districts half the federal reimbursement rate for students of families between 185% and 200% of the poverty level. That money would come out of the state’s Education Trust Fund; the other half of the increase would need to be raised by local property taxpayers. 

The proposal is a political long shot; Republicans in the House have opposed past versions of this idea. The Senate added it to a bill that makes it easier for landlords to evict tenants with criminal records and immigration charges. 

Special education formula change

The Senate also approved an effort by the House to change the state’s emergency funding system for school districts with high special education costs. 

Currently, the state will provide grants to school districts if their per-pupil special education costs are more than 3.5 times the average special education cost per pupil, as a way to reimburse for unpredictable expenses. 

House Bill 1563 would lower that threshold: Rather than needing expenses to exceed 3.5 times the average, districts would only need an excess of 2.5 times the average to get that aid.

Supporters of HB 1563, including House Education Funding Chairman Rick Ladd, a Haverhill Republican who has spearheaded the bill, say that lowering the range would allow more aid to flow to more schools, at a time when special education costs are rising across the state and increasingly impacting district budgets. 

However, the proposed change includes a catch: The state would provide less support for those districts with very high expenses. Currently, any district whose per-pupil special education costs are 10 times higher than the average can get 100% of the costs that exceed that 10 times threshold reimbursed by the state. HB 1563 would lower that reimbursement to 90%, requiring a district with exceedingly unusual costs to kick in 10% of the services. 

The bill also includes requirements that the Department of Education more closely verify claims and that districts provide clear reports on their expenses. 

Sen. Keith Murphy, a Manchester Republican, praised the bill and said the change to a 90% reimbursement at the highest levels would inspire better financial management of special education services from districts. “HB 1563 would increase state special education aid to cover 90% of these expenses, providing relief to local taxpayers while maintaining some incentive for local officials to keep costs down,” he said. 

The Senate did not amend the bill; it heads next to Gov. Kelly Ayotte.