To Rep. Glenn Cordelli, Sen. Ruth Ward and other legislators trying to dissolve ConVal and other regional school districts, have you visited ConVal High School or the Applied Technology Center? You might be as amazed as I am at the quality of the academics, spanning special education to accelerated learning, theater to football to calculus to German. Did you know that students can take welding and walk into a $60,000-per-year job from high school? They can try their hands at VR game design, 3D engineering, web marketing, network cybersecurity, robotics, architecture, automotive repair, laser-cut woodworking or manufacturing.
I would have jumped at the opportunity to attend such a school. So why do Cordelli, Ward and the other libertarians running our State House want to dismantle ConVal and other regional districts, without any say from the taxpayers who support our outstanding schools or the students who attend them?
Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut has a master’s degree in divinity, not education. He is inviting reactionary religious organizations into the state. He is promoting their “Black history” videos that exclude parts of history they don’t want to admit, as if we’re part of some dictatorship that has to cover up the truth. We are a democracy that believes in open discourse and that all are created equal. Yet our state is sending tax funds to extreme-right church schools.
Is this the “choice” New Hampshire taxpayers want to support instead of excellent public schools like ConVal and the ATC? Will we let these libertarians destroy the school systems our educators and school boards have worked, through pandemic and all, to build and sustain? I hope we elect better leaders this fall, including one who will name an educator to lead our Department of Education.
Jeanne Dietsch
Peterborough