Facebook Reality.

When citizens get involved and ask our elected officials to act, things start to get done. 

I've seen two examples of this in Newmarket in recent weeks:

• A group of citizens got together, formed a petition and gathered signatures in the hopes of asking the Town Council to consider allowing studies for hydroelectric power at the Macallen dam. They presented their case to the Town Council a couple weeks ago. At last night's Town Council meeting, a resolution was read (though not voted on yet) to support such a study.

• A couple parents stood up at the last School Board meeting and requested that the administration and School Board take a second look at the current plans for a new school and do their due diligence to make sure that the estimated cost for a new Jr./Sr. High School is as low as possible.  Reworking the plans has been in the works since the October public forums, and the issue was highlighted publicly by these parents. Now more people are paying attention. 

I hope this trend of public involvement continues. But last night I was one of three citizens at the Town Council meeting. People can complain that they're not being heard, but if you want to speak directly to the leadership of our town you have to show up.

In the last few years, several Facebook forums have been created in Newmarket and they're great for a lot of things.  People have used them to rally support, increase awareness, and disseminate information. It is a place to vent and to express ideas. But it DOES NOT replace expressing your opinion to your elected officials through appropriate channels.

Go to meetings. Write letters. Send emails. Leave Facebook for other things.

Back to square one.

School Board members from Newmarket and ORCSD met yesterday and the initial reports from that meeting don't sound promising for a tuition agreement between the two districts.

So what's next? 

A group of people approached the School Board in November to ask that the school designs be reevaluated to ensure that we are keeping it to the absolute minimum in both scale and cost. My understanding is that a committee has been formed and will be working on this over the next couple of weeks. The hope is to bring the cost down to something a majority in Newmarket can swallow.

And we are still looking at a budget that represents a significant tax increase if approved and warrant articles still need to be finalized.

Here's a list of meetings we should all be paying attention to:

School Board--Thursday 12/5 at 7pm
Budget Committee--Wednesday 12/11 at 6:30pm
School Board--Thursday 12/19 at 7pm

We go to the polls in 96 days. 

Cry me a river.

Last night was not the first time, nor will it be the last time, that I've cried in front of the school board. I wish I could talk about our kids' education without getting emotional, but it's just not in my DNA.

Here's what I said through the tears:

I’m here tonight to ask you to endorse a budget that accurately represents the cost of educating kids in our Town. 

I understand that our SPED costs are astronomical, through the roof, unlike anything we’ve seen before—pick your description. And I appreciate the need to educate all students in our district. 

But we can’t cut out the rest of the budget because SPED costs are high and funding is low. 

I’ve watched the recent budget workshops and want to add some comments. 

Computers are necessary and the 8-10 year old computers we currently have in our classrooms are unacceptable.

Document cameras aid the learning of all students, and while outfitting the entire Elementary school might not be an option this year, cutting them out entirely and hoping for a better year next year doesn’t seem like a smart plan to me. How has that worked out for us in the past?

Cutting classroom teachers is also unacceptable. We talk about what makes Newmarket a great district—start eliminating staff and increasing class sizes in the elementary school and let’s see what happens.

And while I understand that new textbooks for the High School might not be the best purchase with the Oyster River option still on the table, Smart Boards are. A Smart Board could easily be moved to the elementary school or put to use in the middle school should a tuition agreement happen. 

We SHOULD all be outraged at the tax burden on property owners in Newmarket and throughout the State. But let’s not take it out on the kids. Call your State Reps and let them know that this is the cost of their decisions in Concord. Tell them that they need to fight harder for us. 

For now, our community needs to accept what it costs to educate ALL OF the kids in Newmarket.

The School Board rose to the challenge last night and approved a budget that represents a roughly 7% increase. We can expect cuts to be made by the Budget Committee--we all need to pay attention to this process and fight for the education that we have here in Newmarket. 

But I'm not going to sit around and cry about this. Budget meetings will be held 11/25, 12/2, and 12/11 at 7pm. I'll be there and I hope you will be too. 

109 Days

This is the time of year when I start to beg you to show up at meetings. 

It's hard to get motivated to go out when it's dark and cold and you have better things to do, but now is when decisions get made and it helps to have people in the room. 

The School Board meets tonight at 7pm.

The Budget Committee meets on 11/25 and 12/2, both at 7pm,  to discuss the proposed school budget. 

There will be a public hearing in January and then we'll have the Deliberative Session on 2/8 and Voting Day on 3/11. 

We have 109 days until Voting Day. Let's get to work. 

Just the beginning.

I'm watching a recording of last week's School Board budget workshop and I'm sick about it. Not the School Board, not the budget workshop, but the astronomical increase in SPED costs and a decrease in State aid. You can read more about that here.

So, how do we make up the difference? A few suggestions were made during the meeting. Things like increasing SPED case managers' case loads, cutting classroom teachers at the elementary school and only funding what we're contractually obligated to fund. 

None of these suggestions had any real traction with the SB, but I doubt this is the last time we will hear them. 

For now, I'll let some of the School Board members' comments speak for themselves.

"I don't see where we can find the money." 

"How do we go on?"

"I've never seen an explosion in Special Ed like this before."

"I can't get my head around how we're going to find almost half a million bucks."

"We have a responsibility to the kids."

"We need to be prepared to stand up for the teachers that we have and justify why they're there."

"This is what it costs to educate kids."

The budget is on the agenda for tomorrow night's School Board meeting at 7pm. Tune in.

Annoyed again

During the School Board meeting last week, the Finance Director explained that we have approximately $600,000 in unanticipated Special Education costs. That's $600,000 that we didn't budget for, but need to find somewhere. 

I'm annoyed, because in addition to these extra expenses, we've seen our funding sources dwindle. It was mentioned on Thursday evening that one grant was reduced because of sequestration and Catastrophic Aide has been cut repeatedly. 

In order to get accurate numbers and better understand the situation, I scheduled a meeting with the SAU's Finance Director. I hope to better understand the process, the numbers and who's responsible. 

I'll keep you posted. 

Annoyed

Both the SPED coordinator and Enrichment positions were on the chopping block a year ago and both were officially eliminated from the budget 8 months ago.

Back in August, on the first day of school, there was a plan in place for how one SPED coordinator was going to administer services to 2 buildings.

Two months into the school year, it was announced that an enrichment program for some kids was just started last week and they're still "kicking around ideas" for what a school wide program would look like and how it will be implemented.

Too bad enrichment isn't federally mandated.