Monday, I was (pretty much ) gone all day after 11:30 am and have been trying to play catch up ever since. My LAST meeting was at the Loudon (NH) Fire Station.
It was a second bite at the apple by the NH State Reps from the Loudon District who had set up a SECOND meeting with the Merrimack Valley School District MVSD Board (first attempts here, here, here, and here).
The first bite was when Chair Seelye Longnecker decided to ruin the first meeting by insisting the audience put on masks or go to the cafe and watch the live stream or leave the building – or she’d call the cops. After a 40 minute Mexican standoff where the audience (3-1 unmasked) just sat quietly, she did call the cops.
Two Concord (NH) police showed up – and still, no one budged (it was clear that the officers didn’t like being there at all). A motion was made to kill the meeting and that was it (other than people refusing to leave due to the mistrust that Longnecker was going to call the meeting back into order after everyone had left).
The same NH State Reps for Loudon tried to hold another meeting with the Merrimack Valley School District’s School Board members to discuss the problems that their voters brought to them as the MVSD SB refused to listen or acknowledge them. The reasoning behind using the Fire Station was that it was on neutral ground for everyone. They even offered to use the same agenda that the School Board originally had EVEN AS the topics that the NH State Reps want to bring up were placed at the very bottom. Being a time-limited meeting the first go-around, the thought was that the School Board would run out the clock and it was just going to be a “State bashing” session.
Oh, the other bit was that the Reps were going to be asking questions and expected to have them answered. Result? The School Board were No-Shows. So the Reps held the meeting anyway.
I’ll be putting up more video in a while but I’ve singled out this bit of comment from two gentlemen that shows how the School Board representatives don’t care about constituents.
These two gentlemen perfectly encapsulated the arrogance of the School Board towards them and how bullied they felt as the School Board simply ignores their concerns.
I’m sure that this will not be the last meeting. The People are looking for a redress of grievances – the Board acts like they don’t exist.
The real Champions, in this case, are the Republican State Reps, upon being beseeched by the voters, who are trying to fix the problem.
Isn’t that what Elected Representatives are supposed to do when asked by a put-upon group of people whose OTHER part of Government refuses to even acknowledge them?
It’s a shame that this is happening but it is – all over the nation. It’s like all the School Board Associations and Superintendent Associations are trying to “breed out” hearing and acting on concerns of those that really “own” the schools. And they wonder why the rebellion is leading to more homeschooling, private schools, and charter schools being looked at hard as alternatives.
It’s just about at the point of them NOT WANTING students/parents at all, right?
