Problems have been plaguing the SAU16/ Exeter school district for a few years now. Parents have been fighting to improve their schools during this time, only to find themselves dismissed and ignored. What does this tend to do to families who are frustrated that their voices are being ignored?
If they can afford it, they pull their kids out of school and find an alternative. This results in lower revenues because the state will no longer provide funding for children who are not educated in the district. This also means that those who support school choice initiatives have new allies in their political battle.
Here is an email from one of MANY parents who explained to the SAU16 school board members why she is fed up and pulling her kids out of the school district. If you are willing to ignore these parents, then don’t be surprised when they remove their children from the school district and then become school choice supporters.
THIS CAN’T BE THE NEW NORMAL!
mailto@sau16.org,bduffy@sau16.org,ahiggins@sau16.org,lbedard@sau16.org,mfitzgerald@sau16.org,mlyons@sau16.org,tdabrieo@sau16.org,aherum@sau16.org,dbullens@sau16.org,poday@sau16.org,psurrette@sau16.org,hikemire@sau16.org,sdrinker@sau16.org,jgould@sau16.org,jleonard@sau16.org,aroy@sau16.org,thayward@sau16.org,jtassinari@sau16.org,jbishop@sau16.org,eherring@sau16.org,jscrafford@sau16.org,kotto@sau16.org,kadavis@sau16.org,egarciadeparedes@sau16.org,bgauthier@sau16.org,sdennehy@sau16.org,kmeyer@sau16.org,dslifka@sau16.org,bhall@sau16.org,kcasey@sau16.org,pbauer@sau16.org,tthompson@sau16.org,hjoyce@sau16.org,Governor Chris Sununu
Good afternoon,
Kindness and moral values are taught at home and school should be reflection of kindness and acceptance. In many instances this is NOT what my children have experienced at SAU16.
I’m currently receiving ESSER fund surveys about prioritizing children’s Social Emotional Learning, from my perspective the adults at SAU16 need to learn this, not the children.
Helen Joyce’s comment to me, “P***, no matter what we do we can’t make you happy,” was true because almost every decision made in the last two years proved NOT to be in the best interest of children. In my opinion this school board put fear before the needs of children and before parental rights.
This should NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.
Multiple studies have shown for schools that remained closed for most of 20-21, children were much worse off socially, emotionally, physically and educationally. Prolonged school closures caused real lasting harm. Dr. Ryan and this school board rejected 80% of the concerned parents plea to return to in person learning.
You also rejected the notion that parents knew what was best for their own children’s mental and physical health regarding masks. In the end mask mandates DIDN’T make a difference! States with mask mandates haven’t fared better than the 35 states that didn’t impose mask mandates. Even when the masks children wore were proven to be little more than facial decorations that caused anxiety, depression and learning loss, this school system doubled down making my elementary school children eat with a mask on their face! Your own policies didn’t make sense! You had children take off their dirty mask, wear them as bracelets around their wrist during recess and put the same dirty mask back on their face. It was ineffective and actually placed children’s health at greater risk.
This fact/failure needs to be acknowledged, not met with the response, “P*** I’m not having this conversation with you, what do you want to do, take away recess or sterilize the toilet seats?!” No, what I wanted was for parents to have a choice about what goes over their child’s face, not neurotic adults.
I was recently standing in line at Stillwells with a group of young heathy Phillips Exeter Academy students who were visibly sweating wearing N95 masks in 90 degree weather, trying to stand under the shade of a tree while waiting for ice cream. When I asked the students why they were wearing a masks outside, they told me they were still required to be masked in any group setting! I found this unbelievable! Yesterday I drove past the school and kids again are masked outside in July!
This is posted on PEA’s website July 3, 2022- Masks will be required indoors in classrooms, dorm common spaces, assembly hall, student center, etc., exceptions are when students are in their own rooms or when actively eating and/or drinking. Masks are optional in outdoor spaces where physical distancing is possible. The approved mask types are N95, KN95, or surgical; no cloth masks will be allowed.
Are you kidding me? This makes my head spin, those poor children! What I also find unbelievable is that SAU16 is one step behind in this extreme thinking. You were sending home letters at the end of this year recommending that parents continue to mask their children. I am terrified for next year, THIS CAN’T BE THE NEW NORMAL!
Growing up I remember reading about propaganda in history books thinking nobody would fall for treating people like this… but I guess I was wrong.
When we let ourselves be bullied into acting in a way that has no rational reasons then we end up not thinking ourselves. We learn that the powers that be, can at any time decide how we should act.
Because of these reasons my husband and I are doing everything in our power to pull our four children out of SAU16. It’s truly sad because we moved here specifically for the school system, however, in the end it boils down to politics. If you lived in a conservative area your children had normalcy with in person learning and schools were mask optional, if you lived in a liberal area schools were closed and masks were required.
My oldest is a freshman and will be attending Saint Thomas HS, our three younger children still remain on a long wait list at Sacred Heart. We pray every day that there will be a space for them next year. This response below from the NH Catholic schools is what we have been craving from SAU16.
“We listened to parents’ desire for a return to normalcy with in-person learning, and now we’re listening again. We believe that our schools are partners with parents in the education and formation of their children. Parents throughout our system will have the flexibility and freedom to make their own decisions on whether or not they want their child to wear a mask at school, and the same is true for our teachers and staff.”
In my opinion SAU16 still has so much to learn. Our children played lacrosse this year and I was shocked sitting in the sidelines. So many conversations surrounded around what was happening at SAU16 and how many parents felt desperate to get their children out! My whole life I believed in public schools, however, after these last two years I now believe in school choice! Things need to change! Never in a million years did I think that what I would have to protect my children from the most was occurring during their school day.
P****
Real examples of how SAU16 adults treated children;
-numbering children on their arm and making them raise their hand every third song if they were unvaccinated at an outside prom, and this is coming from the school that preaches inclusion!
-making children……actually babies in the elementary schools eat in silent lunches.
-making children wear a mask on their face while eating.
-making children wear masks outside/inside (in the heat) while playing sports.
-having teachers tell children that if someone in their family gets sick it’s THEIR fault because they didn’t wear their mask properly.
-making children go out in the hall during class to drink their water bottles.
-yelling at children constantly for two years to pull up their mask and making them sit in the nurses office alone with closed blinds and a fan blowing at them on high when they needed a mask break.
-having a teacher tell my daughter to put tape on her nose to keep her mask up.
-having staff follow my child and her friend (who slept over our house the night before) down the hall, after school hours to yell at them to pull up their mask.
-having our school board chair tell a child she could pull down her mask because she couldn’t hear her speak and yet this board member continually voted to keep children masked.
-having elementary school board members publicly shame people to pull up their mask, when the same people on the board five minutes before the meeting were walking around the crowded Seadog restaurant without masks.
-having staff/teachers post pictures of themselves going to concerts and restaurants maskless on social media then show up to school masked.
-entering CMS with staff (masked behind plexiglass) enforce masks when standing alone in a corridor to sign your child out of school. Meanwhile schools down the street similar in size like Bedford and Catholic schools were mask optional for the entire year not allowing adults to act like dictators.
-having a teacher at CMS the last few weeks of school tell my daughter (who has asthma with a caugh from allergies-pollen) that she’s irresponsible for not wearing a mask and then not wanting to touch her paper in front of the class, treating her like she’s dirty because she coughs!
-having a board member attend a 100-year-old‘s birthday party with seniors unmasked and then vote to keep children masked.
-having children sit on computers and I-Ready for hours at CMS many times in the auditorium 3 to 4 classes a day, this is not happening in other towns, why is it consistently happening here?
-having an eighth grade dance where masked women were going around yelling at young girls to cover up their shoulders, God for bid they show their shoulders at a middle school dance! Can’t anything be normal?
-telling High School kids at a board meeting that having dances with multiple grades (like every other high school homecoming dance) would be, “a recipe for disaster and that they would have to separate the grades and have the lights on in the gym,” I guess it’s because the children are so bad in this district they don’t deserve to have dances?
– these children are also told they are racist and they are learning it in their halls and in their community. They are getting sent the message from Dr Ryan that “we care about the color of you skin,” what about the continent of their character? My eighth grader came off the bus and said, “Mom we had a presentation today that said white people are privileged and black and Hispanic people are oppressed!” This is a dangerous way to teach diversity.
-having my 12-year-old receive an advanced sexual survey that I was told I signed up to have my child receive, which was far from the truth.
Sadly the list is long and continues to grow…..
