New Hampshire: The Real Facts

Now that the voting dust has cleared regarding Keene Middle School, the
new issue of repairs to maintain safety is huge. I don’t envy the
board their task, but I have to also admit I’m quite angry with the way
this has evolved and the manner in which previous boards handled years
of neglect in the Keene School District buildings.

Board member, Carol Brown, says there is “wiggle room” in the budget to
put towards some problems at the middle school. What that means is
they will redirect money allocated for other buildings to go back and
do things that have become “emergencies” at Keene middle school. This
is Band-Aid management at its worst and yet no one is ever held
accountable in the voting booth. As long as the union contracts are
okay, the same union sycophants get elected year after year.

My dismay includes their seemingly constant insistence that their
delayed “ideas” are the best solutions. We’ve yet to see solutions to
any real long term issues including the continuing debacle at 34 West
St. and now they are considering replacing the building at Royal
Avenue; a property they bought because it was a “good deal”.

I’m angry because Keene School District properties has been front and
center for several years taking time from what might have been more
quality education, the job they were elected to accomplish.

To be sure, Keene isn’t alone in it’s quagmire of too little money,
undereducated board members, and disenfranchised voters. Just look
around the region and there are new school issues, failed budgets,
failed contracts and the list goes on. Take a further look around the
state and around the country and we’re just a dot in the microcosm.

To compound the infrastructure problem is the SAU system in New
Hampshire is set for failure in this arena. They have personnel to
handle the work directly relating to hiring and retaining teachers,
managing the budgets as well as curriculum issues, but there is no
functional presence of any programs to maintain the huge cadre of
buildings in the state; Keene having approximately $50Million in
buildings on their own.

Keene hired a superintendent to maintain structures after years of
insufficient attention (without Tom Remillard we’d be in worse shape,
but he can only fix things when they give him money), but he answers to
an accountant who has what kind of engineering expertise? And what
about the capital improvement budget which was funded and now, all of a
sudden has been severely cut? What other issues are being sidetracked
to make sure union contracts passed? How perverse is that when it
happens year after year and none of you notice?

The entire issue of the Middle school is, of course, a catastrophe, but
why wasn’t it in the news for years, not months? This building didn’t
just all of a sudden get to be old and have issues the state now
refuses to overlook. When you have a board of education that doesn’t
understand that to change 100 years of history (WHOOSH lets build a new
school and discard the old) in a small city can’t be done with a “Hail
Mary” pass at the 11th hour, you
have a problem When the interaction with the
community is limited to teachers and parents, you have a problem. When
the board is surprised by how voters react, it’s a clue the board has
failed to know their own community and failed to work at bridging the
gap of understanding.

A transition of this nature needs to be done with goodwill…something we
don’t see. Did any board members spend time speaking at local
community organizations or ask to be part of any kind of forum, except
their own? Did any board member go before the city council and ask for
assistance in getting the new school idea off the ground? No, they
just sat and waited for folks to come around to their way of thinking.

This isn’t just shame on the board, its shame on the voters for
allowing this to continue. To anyone who voted in the primary but
couldn’t be bothered to vote in the school vote, you get a double
shame! We need to fix the system and community leaders and business
owners need to step up and take a role in rebuilding a severely
depleted system because the fixes are now costing as much as union
contracts and we can’t afford both