New Hampshire
New documentary focuses on Christa McAuliffe’s impact as a teacher in New Hampshire
CONCORD, N.H. — Before Christa McAuliffe was an astronaut, she was a vibrant teacher in New England keen on showing her students how everyday people left extraordinary marks on U.S. history.
Nearly four decades later, a new documentary focuses on how she still inspires others and less on her fate aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
“Christa: From Ordinary to Extraordinary” from New Hampshire PBS explores her close relationship with the state and its capital, Concord, where she was picked from more than 11,000 applicants to be the nation’s first teacher in space.
“You say ‘Christa’ in New Hampshire, everyone knows exactly who you’re talking about,” Gov. Chris Sununu says in the film. Its release on Thursday comes three months after a bronze statue of McAuliffe was unveiled at the Statehouse, on what would have been her 76th birthday.
The documentary features interviews with community members, footage of scenes such as a Main Street parade for McAuliffe, and some of her comments — including her parting speech to Concord High School seniors in 1985. It reflects the pride and joy felt by residents then and now for an enthusiastic teacher who loved learning and telling stories.
McAuliffe was 37 when she was killed, one of the seven crew members aboard the Challenger when the space shuttle broke apart on live TV on Jan. 28, 1986. The documentary briefly touches on the tragedy.
“We all want to be remembered for who we were, what we cared about, what we loved, what we did, and not how we died,” Jeanne Gerulskis, the recently retired executive director of the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, says in the film.
McAuliffe taught social studies at Concord High School beginning in 1983. She created a course devoted to the history of American women that’s still taught there today. People in the documentary said she wanted students to see the role that ordinary people, particularly women, can play in history.
McAuliffe saw herself as one of them. A lover of field trips, she looked forward to bringing back her thoughts and journal from the shuttle mission “like a woman on the Conestoga wagon pioneering the West,” she had said in an interview.
Holly Merrow, a former student of McAuliffe’s in the women’s history class, feels the documentary embodies her spirit of wanting to inspire children.
“We felt like we were going to space, as well,” Merrow, now a teacher in Maine, recalled about McAuliffe at a recent screening of the film.
The documentary also talks about the importance of telling children who McAuliffe was.
In New Hampshire, many children learn about government beginning in fourth grade. They visit the Statehouse. McAuliffe’s statue stands near the entrance, a good starting point for a discussion. It’s the first statue added to the grounds in over a century, and the first woman.
At Concord High School, Kimberly Bleier teaches social studies in a room where McAuliffe once taught. In the film, she says she often reminds herself that “there’s a lot of responsibility there” to ensure that what McAuliffe brought to the school, such as her love of hands-on learning, is still remembered and talked about.
Bleier currently teaches “Street Law,” a general introduction to the legal system that emphasizes criminal and juvenile law. McAuliffe had taught that class, too.
Bleier was a sixth-grader when she watched the space shuttle launch on television. She recalled how devastating it was.
“I don’t want to watch the shuttle blow up again,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday. “I want to watch her. I want to hear her.”
The 30-minute documentary can be viewed online on the New Hampshire PBS website. Viewers also can stream it on the PBS App.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
New Hampshire
Trans athletes drop lawsuit to gain access to girls’ sports in New Hampshire after SCOTUS ruling
Fighting the transgender sports ban is ‘utterly misogynistic’: Riley Gaines
Fox News discusses the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold transgender sports bans. Former NCAA All-American Riley Gaines states it’s ‘insane’ to challenge biological sex in sports, asserting boys should not compete in girls’ sports. She calls the opposing movement ‘misogynistic,’ advocating for female athletes’ rights and fair competition, a view echoed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon. This highlights the contentious issue in women’s sports.
A pair of trans athletes in New Hampshire have dismissed their lawsuit to challenge the state law that protects girls’ sports after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Title IX ruling on June 30.
The trans teenage plaintiffs, Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle, originally filed the lawsuit in 2024 to challenge a current New Hampshire state law prohibiting trans athletes from participating in girls’ sports. The lawsuit later expanded to add President Donald Trump’s administration to the defendants after Trump signed the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order on Feb. 5, 2025.
The lawyers for the trans athletes claimed Trump’s executive order, along with parts of a Jan. 20 executive order that forbids federal money from being used to “promote gender ideology,” subjects the teens and all transgender girls to discrimination in violation of federal equal protection guarantees and their rights under Title IX.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
A transgender athlete and the Supreme Court (Getty Images)
The U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire then ruled last year that female athletes represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys were permitted to intervene in the case to defend the state’s women’s sports law and the administration’s executive orders.
Now, after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling, which protects state laws that ensure only females compete in girls’ sports, there is no room for the trans teens to fight the law in New Hampshire.
“Women and girls deserve privacy, safety, and equal opportunities. That can’t happen when males are competing in women’s sports, taking spots on women’s athletic teams, and winning women’s championships,” ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Litigation Strategy Jonathan Scruggs said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital.
USA POWERLIFTING, ONCE IN TRANS ATHLETE LAWSUIT, SUPPORTS SCOTUS RULING: ‘LAW HAS CAUGHT UP WITH THE SCIENCE’
“President Trump’s executive orders and New Hampshire’s law recognize common sense and track Title IX, the federal law that ensures equal opportunities for women in athletics. We are grateful this case is coming to an end and that New Hampshire is free to protect its female athletes.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Tirrell and Turmelle’s attorneys at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) for a response.
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A protester waves a transgender pride flag outside of the U.S. Supreme Court Building on June 18, 2025 in Washington, DC. Advocates organized a rally in response the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in US v. Skrmetti, in which the justices ruled to uphold state bans on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The SCOTUS rulings in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, the high court upheld state laws requiring student-athletes to compete on sports teams that correspond with their biological sex at birth rather than their gender identity, in a 6-3 decision.
However, there are still 23 states, including California, New York and Massachusetts, that don’t have any such laws, and some of those have laws to protect trans athletes in girls’ sports.
New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte (Getty Images)
New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte has signed legislation requiring public school employees to disclose information about transgender students to their parents or legal guardians, reversing a 2024 state Supreme Court ruling that upheld students’ privacy rights in certain circumstances.
Ayotte’s office announced on 2 July that the legislation had been signed into law. Under SB 430, educators must respond to written requests from parents for “material information” about their child, even if a student has asked that the information be kept confidential or fears negative consequences at home.
Supporters of the legislation, such as Republican state Senator Tim Lang, argue the measure strengthens parental rights and enables families to better support children who may be struggling. “If you don’t tell the parent, the parent can’t watch for the signs of self-harm,” Lang told New Hampshire Public Radio.
Educators and LGBTQ+ advocates, however, say the law places teachers in an impossible position by forcing them to choose between complying with the law and protecting vulnerable students. Megan Tuttle, president of NEA-New Hampshire, the state’s largest teachers’ union, said in a statement that the legislation is “vaguely written and risks putting educators in a position of outing a student.” She added that schools should remain places where every student feels “safe, seen, and free to be themselves.”
Aimee Terravechia, executive director of LGBTQ+ advocacy group 603 Equality, warned the law could erode trust between students and educators while speaking with New Hampshire Public Radio. “Schools should be a place of learning… and a place of critical self-examination,” she said. “Placing educators into a role of monitoring and reporting removes the trust necessary for a thriving academic environment.”
The legislation also effectively overturns a 2024 New Hampshire Supreme Court decision, in which justices ruled that keeping a student’s gender identity confidential did not unlawfully interfere with parents’ rights, noting that parents still retained numerous ways to support and communicate with their children outside the classroom.
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