Dear Governor...

It was a long week here in Newmarket and yesterday I was angry at a situation that was feeling hopeless. 

So I wrote a letter. Please consider writing one too. (Edited to add: Follow this link for mail and email addresses for our elected officials.)

Dear Governor Hassan, Rep. Michael Cahill, Rep. Patricia Lovejoy, Rep. Marcia Moody and Rep. Adam Schroadter:

I’m writing to you at the end of an emotional week here in Newmarket.

As I hope you are aware, our town has been faced with a school facilities crisis for the last decade.  Our Jr. Sr. High School has many State DoE  deficiencies, including Fire and Life Safety concerns which, if not fixed by September 2015, will cause our school to be shut down. (A full list of problems and deficiencies can be found on the school's website.)

We have explored many options, including most recently a tuition agreement with Oyster River Cooperative School District that fell through when that district decided to partner with Barrington this week.

Thursday evening our Superintendent presented a revised plan for a Jr. Sr. High School project. It is a modest proposal that we believe will meet the needs of our students in this 21^st century learning environment. The cost of this project is $45 million-a cost we will need to shoulder ourselves due to no state aid. It’s a hard pill to swallow.

Add to this an astronomical (and unprecedented) increase in our SPED population that has resulted in a proposed budget increase of 7%. Again, we shoulder a bigger portion of this cost than ever before because of decreased state aid.

And to add insult to injury, last night it was brought to our attention that we will need to update our almost 30 year old heating system at a cost of approximately $122,000 and put aside plans to install a security system in the elementary school.

So here we are, faced with choosing between heating systems or security systems. It breaks my heart as both a mother and as a taxpayer. Can’t we do better for the kids of New Hampshire?

We need attention to be paid to NH schools. We need to stop cuts to Catastrophic Aid and we need to fund a school building aid program. Towns like Newmarket need your support.

Sincerely,

Toni Weinstein

Newmarket, NH