Committee of conference adopts one-word fix to school-recording statute on Senate Bill 429

A committee of conference meeting on Senate Bill 429 on the morning of the session agreed to a one-word change to an underlying statute that exempts recordings made at public events from parental-notice requirements.

Grant Bosi, deputy chief of staff to the New Hampshire Senate, told the committee the underlying statute was phrased to allow recordings of students "without parental notice" during a public event rather than at a public event, which he said could be read to permit recording students elsewhere in a school while a public event was underway. "This was actually in the underlying statute which we put into place earlier this spring exempting public events from the parents bill of rights recording statute so that people could film the basketball game or the Christmas concert," Bosi said. "It's a one-word change. We're changing the word during to the word of and would ask for the House's support with that small change."

Representative Baloney asked whether the Senate's proposed wording adjustment affected the House amendment; members replied that the House amendment addressed instructional programming and that the Senate's change was limited to the underlying statute and did not alter the House language.

After a brief caucus, the committee reported that the Senate would accept the House position on the bill while incorporating the one-word fix described above (listed in the transcript as the Ward amendment, 2026-1997S). Members then voted to adopt the agreed language; a vocal tally recorded in the room indicated six in favor and zero opposed. The committee moved the bill onto the consent calendars for both the House and the Senate, a procedural step that allows noncontroversial measures to advance without separate contested debate.

No individual motion mover or seconder was recorded in the transcript and no roll-call with member names appears in the provided text. The committee recorded the policy change as a limited technical correction to clarify that the exemption applies to recordings made at public events themselves rather than to unrelated locations within a school while an event is occurring.

The committee completed its business and adjourned after confirming placement on the consent calendars.