Letter: Effort gives Dublin a chance to vote

The Feb. 6 Monadnock Ledger-Transcript contained a letter, “Not everyone in Dublin,” regarding the withdrawal process from ConVal. The authors of this letter chose to cast aspersions on one member of the Dublin Education Advisory Committee. It also contained several inaccurate statements. They stated that “there has been no vote on this issue.” In fact, Dublin voted overwhelmingly to authorize the withdrawal study. The DEAC, appointed by the Select Board, voted to recommend withdrawal. Our Select Board voted unanimously to support withdrawal.

Another comment states that “not once have we seen Blake Anderson’s name on the ballot (in Dublin).” Does not being an elected official eliminate one’s First Amendment rights? One comment is accurate: “The members of the DEAC, almost all of whom don’t even have children in the ConVal district, want to withdraw.” Our conclusions were based on facts. The educational results for Dublin students have failed to reach the state’s, or even ConVal’s, goals. It costs our town approximately $5.3 million to obtain these mediocre results. Our local school is still vulnerable to future attempts to close it.

We did try to get residents of Dublin, especially parents, involved. We held multiple forums. We stood outside the Dublin Consolidated School handing out information. We published numerous articles and reports. Ultimately six people, one of whom is a parent of ConVal students, were willing to invest the time and energy required. We will be holding one more educational forum on March 1, at 10 a.m., at the Dublin Town Hall.

The purpose of this effort was to give Dublin’s citizens the right to vote. The election will be on March 11. We hope all Dublin’s voters make their opinions known.

Jay Schechter

Chairman of the former Dublin Education Advisory Committee