YourNeighborhoodNews.com: The Hooksett Banner

It was undoubtedly a crushing blow to the majority of the Candia School Board members to lose the vote on last March's school renovation bond. That, however, is no reason to put a muzzle on members who disagree with majority decisions by the board.

It seems obvious to us that the board's desire to put a policy in place to force all members to put up and shut up about their decisions was spurred by Ingrid Byrd's letter to the editor last March disputing the majority decision. They didn't like her speaking out, and they didn't like losing that vote.

But what this policy would do is make it impossible for elected officials to truly represent the people who put them in office. Byrd clearly represented the majority of Candia's voters when she spoke against the bond, even though she did not represent the majority of the board members. We need representatives in our government who will speak for the various segments of society, no matter how unpopular the opinion. That's what we elected them to do. The people on a school board, as well as other town and school positions, are there to represent all of us, and must be free to speak on town and school policies to the public and the press.

This policy is no less than an infringement on the First Amendment right to free speech and must be stopped now. The ability of the public to trust its elected officials is at stake with this move.

I can't see how anyone would vote blank. One or two, well? But 73 blank votes - something smells in Hooksett.

I think the state should look into this. Until then, a fog hangs over this vote.

Editor's note: The 73 "blank" ballots were determined to be ballots that were not marked correctly. While the counting machine considered them to be blank, there were found to have circles, checkmarks or penciled votes that were later counted. The recount passed the budget 690 to 642.

The library decided to help after reading a newspaper article that stated that blood donations often fall significantly during the summer while the need increases. The article also mentions that senior citizens sometimes mistakenly believe that they cannot donate. There is no upper age limit, and we urge our seniors to help out in our efforts to replenish the blood supply available to help area residents who need blood due to accidents or health issues.

For young moms and dads wishing to participate, the local Girl Scout troops will provide supervision and simple crafts for your children to do while you donate. We especially invite college students who are home for the summer to join us.

This is a great way for everyone to give back to their community. TR Brennans will provide some wonderful refreshments for all donors and Lisa Gillis, baker supreme, has promised some of her outstanding cookies.

So, please mark June 20 on your calendars, bring your friends and neighbors and join us. We really need your blood! It's not often that we can provide the gift of life to someone with such little effort on our parts.

People who break the rules are the ones who get into trouble." So fascinated by the headline he decides to read more.

The article states that the provision of a law known as SB2 (all-day voting), states that a revote can be taken, requires a new budget, new hearings and a new vote. He discovers that the town had changed its voting from the traditional Town Meeting, which had on average no more than 150 citizens attending, to this SB2 ballot law and allows more citizens to participate in the decision process.

As he reads on, he discovers on this day most of the voters of Hooksett had to either decide on getting home safely because of a major storm or going to the polls. He sees that it took one fellow almost one hour and a half to get one from one end of town to the other when it normally takes 20 minutes.

The article states that the bad weather, extremely low turnout, and a five-vote margin had reduced $600,000 of a proposed and necessary school budget.

And based on that, the school board decided to ask for a revote as prescribed under SB2.

After finishing the article, he scratches his head, and says, "Based on that information even I would have asked for a new vote." Being a stranger in this strange land, he knows that it's important for school board members to follow the law and get what is needed for the children of Hooksett and the town's future. He knows that the intent of SB2 is to allow voting for 13 hours, not seven hours. He knows it would be wrong for the school leaders not to try, just as it would be wrong for anyone not to fight for increasing state school funding or for fighting to keep a local military base from closing, when all the rules and laws have not been exhausted.

If he was a school board member, he would resign if they didn't ask for a revote because he failed to do what was necessary and allowed. If the citizens of the strange town of Hooksett don't like the rules of the game they should adopt new ones.

They should either vote those leaders out who follow the rules or they should change the ballot law known as SB2 and not allow new votes.

So, as he takes his last sip of coffee he says, "If he was an editor of the local paper, his headline would read, "Extra! Extra! Read all about it. Hooksett School board is honored for doing the right thing. "

So much has changed over that period of time. We have survived budget cuts and building projects. We have added a kindergarten. Too late for our five daughters (who were able to attend private kindergarten), we consider this a vital part of leveling the educational field for first-graders.

After several years of requests, we have finally seen the introduction of Algebra I and Spanish I that allows our students to enter high school on equal footing with other schools. The same had been true of computer class until the school board decided to remove this as a separate class and have it taught in the classrooms.

Our daughter that graduates this year has far less computer skills than her two next oldest sisters. We feel that this has put her at so much of a disadvantage that we are requiring some form of a computer class for her this summer.

We regret that the school board has allowed this regression and feel it is very unrealistic to expect classroom teachers to have the time to teach computers on top of their curriculum. And how in the world do you expect them to do it with so few computers? We hope the school board will revisit this issue.

More importantly, what we wanted to express to you is this: We are so grateful that our children have grown up in Candia and attended Moore School.

This is what we envisioned for them when we moved here 28 years ago - a community that welcomes parents as volunteers, teachers who are unafraid to have an open-door policy and are genuinely interested in their students.

With five children, spanning 21 years, we have come to know many Moore School teachers. We have found them to be hardworking, dedicated and often passionate. They get far too little credit for the tremendous and often difficult job they do.

We travel extensively around the country and have heard many discouraging stories about public education. We always tell people how fortunate we feel about our public elementary school in Candia. We always believed our children were getting a solid, even excellent education.

The true test came as they moved on to public high school, private Christian high school, Christian college, public college and even Ivy League schools. In every case, our daughters continued to excel at an honor or high honor level, proving that the foundation they obtained at Moore School was solid.

We applaud and thank the teachers of Moore School for the stellar work they do. We think they're awesome!

We would also like to thank all of the professionals who work so hard there on a daily basis: classroom aides, office staff, administration, nurse, custodians and lunch ladies.

The council has again told Mount Zion that they are still not interested in any discussions. They have already made it clear to me that they aren't interested in any plans but their own, and that they will let nothing get in their way. Not me, you or our votes.

The implication that I need to explain something (as if this would cost Hooksett taxpayers a dime) is, at best, mildly clever deception. The concept was simple: Hooksett receives money instead of spending it. If the building needed something, Mount Zion would fix it.

How much would it cost? Is it even worth it? The problem there was the town council would not let them, especially me, into the building to even get a glimpse. Am I the only one that finds this suspicious? Maybe if I joined CEDCOH ...

The "constitutional" blather was laughable. First, Mount Zion wasn't looking for anything but a chance to do business with a "corporation," Hooksett. Second, they currently lease space from a "state," New Hampshire.

Third, Mount Zion is a nonprofit "corporation," not a church. The only other time I heard the $13 million claim was from some woman yelling it from the top stair at Cawley. You know, the stairs without a railing that land onto an uneven grade and an unlit path. Who was that lady? The sun was in my eyes and I never engage in conversations with screamers, so I can only guess.

The planning board should occupy the council room. It's very big and is rarely used for anything productive. Maybe they should have their meetings in the Memorial School gym, unless they are worried about the plastic ceiling coating flaking off onto them, or the exposed fiberglass insulation getting in their noses. Achoo!

Our school board contracted with Cafe Services Management, (CSM), for the 2004- 05 school year to manage the lunches at Underhill, Memorial and Cawley schools. There was confusion and concern about several aspects of this lunch program from the start, and hence, our Healthy Lunch Committees, (HLC), were formed.

We have attempted to work with CSM and the schools. administrators since the fall in order to improve the quality of the foods being offered, the system of account balance notification, the increase in families.

lunch bills (often due to a la carte items), the issues with children being denied lunch or milk, etc., and have had little success.

In fact we recently distributed a lunch survey at all three schools and found that these issues still exist, even though we have worked all year long at trying to correct them.

We've been in contact with the school board several times. The most recent meeting being on June 7 when we presented our survey information, along with a short excerpt from the documentary, "Supersize Me," describing how some schools have managed to institute a healthy lunch program at a very reasonable price, and we requested two things: improve the quality of food being offered to our children and do away with the privatization of our lunch program.

Besides the fact that any private company's main goal is to make a profit, and here at our children's expense, there is great inflexibility with having a contract with an outside company running the lunch program. For example, CSM's contract stipulates that they are only allowed to order certain foods from certain vendors, regardless of what the schools may wish to incorporate into their lunch program.

Case in point, when Memorial and Cawley recently had a fruit sampling to determine which fruits the children liked best and to offer them a healthy alternative at lunch time, CSM informed us that they were unable to order those fruits because they didn't fall within their restricted ordering parameters. The HLC had to go to the supermarket to make these purchases ourselves.

Also, if you happened to look back over the lunch menus from this school year, you would notice a few things. Most notably is that the daily lunches are repeated from month to month with little variety, and rarely are any of these lunches prepared/ made from scratch at our schools. They are the ready to heat and eat foods that are typically highly processed, high in fats, sugars, etc.

We have two new state-ofthe- art kitchens at Memorial and Cawley, and the only thing they're being used for is to reheat packaged foods. Clearly there are issues with this system, and we provided information to the school board describing ways that these issues could be addressed, yet their vote was 3:2 in favor of CSM. In fact, even our principals who have been acutely aware of the complaints regarding this service supported CSM.

It is confusing and frustrating to see existing problems and have them overlooked especially when it affects our kids. Perhaps we could understand the vote if it was done out of fiscal responsibility, but unfortunately in their haste to push this vote through, our business administrator and certain members of our school board never clarified the cost of CSM's service for next year.

In fact CSM has promised to make improvements to the lunch program, yet there was no discussion of what this would cost Hooksett. How can this be fiscally responsible? It is difficult to understand why the best interests of a private company have been placed before that of our town, our schools and its employees, and most importantly, our kids.

Cafe Service Management's renewed contract is for the 2005-06 school year only and we intend to work very closely with them and the administrators to insist on change. It is our hope that with an increased national awareness of the epidemic of childhood obesity and the related health issues, and with the national focus on improving lunch programs nationwide (many states have already eliminated the sale of soft drinks, sport drinks and other foods in their schools), and with the fact that there is a federal mandate for all schools to institute a Wellness Program by June 2006, that our community, our administrators and our school board will be much more responsive to incorporating positive change for our schools and our students.

Barb Brennan
Maura Ouellette
Linda Penney
The Parents of the Healthy Lunch Committee