Bill to revise special-education definitions draws heavy public comment and calls for rewrite

Rep. Yousef Kuttab (prime sponsor) introduced House Bill 699 to the House Education Policy and Administration Committee as an attempt to align New Hampshire statute and department rules with federal special-education law and to clarify which special-education environments require department approval.

Kuttab told the committee the bill was based on Department of Education recommendations following a special-education audit and said the measure aims chiefly to remove a partial, and potentially misleading, state definition of “related services” and to add a clarified definition of “specially designed instruction.” “The definition of related services being eliminated is not taking away related services from children,” Kuttab said, adding that the state would default to the federal definition in Department of Education rules.

Rebecca Fredette of the New Hampshire Department of Education emphasized the department’s intent to standardize language with federal citations. “We took out section 5 as it is verbatim the federal language in 34 CFR 300.34 related to related services… Students will still have the same rights and protections of the federal law in regards to related services,” Fredette said. She described the department’s effort to separate approval types — program approval vs. approval of specific educational environments such as resource rooms and self-contained classrooms — as a clarification to improve monitoring.

Despite those assurances, the hearing attracted extensive public testimony and opposition from parents, disability advocates, school administrators and special-education professionals who said the draft bill is confusing and could unintentionally reduce inclusion or limit available services.

Several parents described fear and alarm after reading the bill language online. Amy Wheeler Cheese, a Nashua parent, told the committee she “vehemently oppose[s] House Bill 699 on the basis of egregious discrimination and moral corruption,” and said her children rely on related services such as occupational, speech and vision therapy to access the general-education classroom.

Parents and advocates said the bill’s phrasing risks placing special-education environments and related services outside the presumption of a general-education setting and could re-entrench segregated placements. Lisa Beaudoin, a disability-policy professional, testified that the amendment circulated at the hearing did not resolve her concerns that the bill “literally removes general education from the definition of educational environment” in ways that could contradict the federal least-restrictive-environment presumption.

Other witnesses urged a slower, collaborative rewrite. Jane Bergeron Beaulieu of the New Hampshire Association of Special Education Administrators said stakeholders had not all been at the table when changes were drafted and called for further review and redrafting. Heather Barker of the New Hampshire School Administrators Association said she supported aligning state language with federal rules in principle but that, as written (even with the amendment), the measure was unclear and had created fear among parents on social media.

Several testifiers described departmental monitoring gaps the bill attempts to address. Kristen Moncharmany of the Office of the Advocate for Special Education said her office repeatedly sees students placed in overly restrictive, inadequately defined self-contained settings and supported clearer statutory authority for the department to review and approve such environments and associated providers. “We do need to give the department more authority and us more ability to say to the department … please go look at where this child is being educated because this is coming up,” Moncharmany said.

Other professional witnesses urged limited, precise changes rather than broad statutory edits. Jane Bergeron Beaulieu urged the committee to stick closer to federal text, noting that New Hampshire’s additions to definitions could narrow rather than expand protections in some circumstances. Louis Esposito of Able New Hampshire and other special-education veterans urged collaboration rather than hasty passage.

Over the course of the hearing committee members asked technical questions about specific phrases, including how the bill would treat contractors, paraprofessionals, and licensing of related-service providers; how a newly defined “special education environment” would interact with current facility approvals; and whether existing audits and rulemaking are better venues to achieve the sponsors’ goals. Fredette said IDEA is the foundational law and that the state statute should not narrow federal protections; she also described specific amendments aimed at clarifying “special education environment” to list resource rooms, self-contained classrooms, and early childhood special-education programs as approved settings.

Committee members closed public testimony after several hours and heard no vote that day. Multiple witnesses urged the committee to refer the bill to an interim study or to draft a narrower, collaboratively produced amendment to resolve technical and drafting issues before any floor action.