(one three-year seat)
Years living in town: Since December 2014.
Previous or current elected office held: Town Moderator
Other qualifications: My professional career was spent in public education culminating in school and district leadership. Since we moved to Francestown I have been attending School Board committee meetings to gain an understanding of the local school system. As a community volunteer, I assisted with the selection process for a new high school principal and currently serve on the “ConVal 2025” committee for the high school. In 2018, at the request of the Superintendent, I completed a study of the research that has been done on the impact of closing the school in a small, rural town that was provided to the School Board.
What are two issues you think are important and how would you address them?
I will advocate for good schools, healthy stable towns, and responsible budgeting and taxation and provide the students, families, and citizens of Francestown improved representation on the School Board.
We need better communication between the Town and the School Board and its administrators.
I pledge to communicate regularly and candidly with the Town’s officials, parents, and all citizens regarding the issues considered by the School Board. For the past six years the lack of communication from our current representative has been a disadvantage for Francestown.
I will advocate for thorough and respectful decision-making processes.
Whatever decisions the School Board makes should be done with a careful process that includes thorough and patient fact-finding. There should be truly open communication with all district towns and their citizens. The process followed in the sudden discussion by the School Board about closing Francestown Elementary was the opposite of this.
Years living in town: 8
Previous or current elected office held: Currently ConVal School Board Chairman
Other qualifications: 6 years on the board, 40 years as a NH Real Estate Broker
What are two issues you think are important and how would you address them?
Increasing demands and costs in providing a quality education to the children of our district.
Education is the best investment any society can make in its future. I believe all the members of this board conservative and liberal alike agree in this. However, in the state of NH those costs fall most heavily on the shoulders of our property owners. Yet every year the state and federal government continue to place unfunded mandates, requirements and reporting guidelines for both general and special education needs. At the same time funding from those sources continue to be steadily cut and eroded with those costs being shifted to the local tax base. Both state and federal funding sources often only pay a fraction of what was mandated by law yet we as a public school system must fully make up any shortfall. Every year we have striven to find ways to improve the quality of education we give our students while finding ways to stretch and spend every taxpayer dollar wisely. Even so, we face challenges in an aging infrastructure, increased operational costs that must be met year after year and budgets that the taxpayer can support. We are asking the public to support our first 50 million dollar budget In a good economy I believe we will have the public’s support but there will be another recession eventually and how we maintain the quality of education then is what concerns me and many on this board.
Educational equity: Our district is both large in size and diverse in economic status. We must provide the same quality education for all our general education students and those with special needs. A solid base in a child’s educational career is critical and it has become apparent that early intervention is a wise investment that improves educational outcomes and saves money in the long run. It is for this reason I support preschool programs for our district, with a mixed funding model where there is a means-based tuition paid by those who can afford it but in which no child would be denied access due to economic means. I hope such a larger program will eventually available to all wishing to make use of it at three sites in the district. Programs such as this cannot be offered at our smallest schools due to the costs and lack of students. There are also other programs and educational choices that have to be made at our micro-schools due to the very small size of the student bodies involved. Once upon a time, tiny schools could function well but times have changed. The state of NH and Federal requirements mandate what services MUST be provided and more of our children, rich and poor are identified as needing special help. 50 years ago none of these mandates existed . 1 or 2 teachers in a building of 40 kids met the needs that the law and taxpayers expect. Now we have to have 7 people on site to properly meet the law and we have specialists driving all over the district to meet other needs in these micro-schools. Simply if we are to meet all our students’ needs we need to be willing to discuss and find solutions that allow for some of our micro-schools (less than 60 kids) to be merged. We provide excellent programs at these micro-schools but the smaller the school the greater the educational and financial challenges to the district. The cost per general ed student at some of these micro-schools is approaching $20,000 per student (w/o transportation) while just down the road less than 5 to 8 miles away we provide equal services for around $10,000 per student at other elementary schools. Solutions can be found but must be discussed by the towns affected. Recently, I attempted to make my constituents aware that this is a problem and to ensure that they had first say and input before any plan was studied or enacted. Instead, it is perceived that my only wish is to close Francestown school with its 40 (plus or minus) kids and not to discuss, educate and perhaps find viable solutions. I felt it was my duty to the town to let no discussions of this issue progress unless all discussion happens before the town affected. It is not a problem that affects Francestown alone but, as chairman, I was able to table a discussion at the board until such time as it could be held in Francestown. I have earned the trust of the board members, members from large towns and small, because I will always make sure such discussions are in front of the public, even if they are painful and distasteful subjects such as merging micro-schools. In the end the final decision is always in front of the voters of the district as to how, and where, to spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars in support of our excellent public schools.
Win or loose I am proud to have been part of the ConVal School board for the last six years and to have had a small part in weathering declining enrollment while improving the future for all the children in the ConVal district.