It has been five days since we reported on Peter Vlaming. The Virginia teacher irked the social justice beast by choosing not to use a transgender students pronoun of choice. He didn’t use the wrong one. He didn’t use one at all. The school suspended and then fired him.
Articles tagged as
School Board
Who Violated the Law in Manchester, Mayor Craig, and Leaked a Confidential Letter to the Press?
Local New Hampshire media recently reported on a letter from a lawyer representing a student to Manchester School Board member Rich Girard. That confidential document was leaked to the press in violation of New Hampshire Right to Know law. The list of people who had access is short enough that Mayor Joyce Craig should be able … Read more
SDGA Improving Governance Seminar Series – What is your statutory Authority & Where does it comes from?
Improving Governance Seminar Series Legal Basis: Fact or Fiction As a School Board or Budget Committee member, do you often wonder what your statutory authority is and where it comes from? How can you reconcile what your Superintendent tells you versus what the NH RSAs command you to do? Come join us for a discussion of … Read more
Metzler ‘School Board Choir’ Sings Praises, Hands Out Maximum Bonus!
The Earl of Metzler, Grand Vizier (SAU55), praise be upon him, is thus bequeathed an increase in his annual stipend and a cash reward for; keeping the ‘little people’ down through the prodigious use of taxpayer monies to finance acts of legal force against his detractors (or threat thereof); the intimidation of political opponents who might question his divine guidance; and by using all means at this disposal to thwart efforts at transparency during his rule.
Well, that’s what it should have said. Instead, we got this.
How Windham’s Transgender Policy Violates Your Rights
Skip Murphy explains how the Windham School Board’s new transgender bathroom policy includes language that could infringe on first amendment rights by compelling speech with threats of disciplinary action and how he is trying to pry more details from the board. Visit the original post for more ways to listen.
Windham School Board Gets Right To Know Request On Trans-Bathroom Policy
Skip Murphy explains his first (of perhaps several) Right to Know requests to a Windham School Board that has rammed through transgender bathroom rules without following district policy. Listen from the original blog post page here.
Respecting the People who Pay The Bills
Rich Girard is running for a seat on the Manchester School Board. We talk about transparency and right to know, partnering with parents, respecting the people who pay the bills, and campaigning in the age of social media.
Most Education Dollars go to Adults and not Children
We continue with School Board candidate Rich Girard on budgets, spending, direct to indirect labor costs, and how most of the tax-dollars in a given school budget are spent on the adults and not on the children.
Why Aren’t The Public and the School Board in The Loop?
ICYMI – Part two of our interview with Rich Girard, who is running for the Manchester Board of School committee. We talk about how good education policy only comes from ensuring that parents and school boards are not just involved but informed so they can be educated participants in the process.
Rich Girard -School Board Transparency
Humble host Rich Girard comes out from behind his microphone to get behind ours as we discuss Education issues, transparency from administrators and school boards, and his upcoming election for a seat on the Manchester Board of School Committee
GrokTALK! – September 12th, 2015
We are joined by Canadian Health Care refugee Shona Holmes, talk show host Rich Girard , and Max Abramson gives us a primer on bills up for a veto override vote this week in the NH legislature.
Superintendents v. School Boards
Jorge Mesa-Tejada delivers our education update on what an SAU is (School Administrative Unit) and how Superintendents–the administrative leaders of the administrative units–have seized powers reserved to the School Boards.
URGENT! HELP STOP COMMON CORE
From Doris Hohensee c/o Facebook URGENT! HELP STOP COMMON CORE Manchester Board of Education meets at 7pm this evening (Monday, May 13th) at City Hall. NH DoE Chief of State and Director of Instruction, Heather Gage, will be making an emergency presentation to the school board on Common Core. Remember how it was inappropriate for … Read more
Red Rover in Dover
In Norwegian, apparently, Røver means Pirate. I won’t hold fast to that definition. I just learned it on Wikipedia, which is about as reliable as a school board in Dover spending your tax dollars to pay lobbyists to push legislation you may not support. Which is what I mean by pirate. The Dover school board, like many similar cabals throughout the Granite State, spends your tax dollars on professional lobbyists to promote the “interests” of the “district” up in Concord over your own, though they will always insist these ideas have parity when they do not.
So follow the bouncing ball.
Schools, like any government agency, seek bigger budgets. Those budgets are paid for with local and state taxes. The folks who run the school–boards, committees, administrators, the unions and the teachers, want budgets to exapnd to protect their jobs and benefits. To that end they are funding or promoting the funding of other professionals, with your tax dollars, to go before those with taxing power, including the state Legislature, to support laws and policies that will give them more of your money, and further secure their monopoly on education.
Windham School Board Bans ‘Human Target’ Activities (aka – Dodgeball!)
Susan posted a link to the story here, but the first sentence from the Concord Monitor article was all I needed to see. The Windham School District has banned dodgeball and other “human target” activities over concerns about violence and bullying. That’s a very broad statement. Almost every action of government is a form of … Read more
Is My School Board Ready To Run On The NHSBA Agenda?
Irritating the Bureaucracy makes me smile. Irritating the lobbying arm of the bureaucracy that disguises itself as something else is even better. And that is what my friend Gary Krupp has done on his maiden voyage into the Blogosphere. (Welcome to the deep end of the pool.)
Gary gives us an update on the local effort at damage control by the pro-lobbyist faction in town; the New Hampshire School Board Association (NHSBA) was invited to perform for the school board, which like some corpulent monarch was adequately amused to continue offering them indulgences…it is not, after all, their money.
The School Board lapped it up. They threw a few softballs Mr. Comstock’s way, and then discussed the process for submitting resolutions of their own for the upcoming NHSBA delegate assembly.
Thank you sire, thank you…
Membership Has Its Rewards – Just Ignore The Part That Violates State Law
In what appears to be a “Head them off at the Pass” move by Merrimack School superintendent Marge Chiafery, tonight’s school board meeting includes a visit from…Ted Comstock, the executive director of the NH School Board’s Association (NHSBA), and Barrett Christina, a NHSBA staff attorney to discuss “NHSBA Membership Benefits” This conjugal visit from the … Read more
To The Manchester School Board – ‘You know..You’re Breaking The Law, Right?’
I wrote about this back on July 9th. The Manchester School board voted to cut transportation funding as part of a deal to find the cash to put teachers back on the payroll. At the end of the day, cuts made to public school jobs were reinstated at the expense of school choice and charter … Read more
NH Unions Using Religious Bigotry to Affect Merrimack School Board Elections?
(Derp- Fixed the title.)
I was recently informed (my source has asked to remain anonymous for good reason) that a teacher from a nearby town was repulsed at the sight of a Joe Kearns for School Board sign on a Merrimack residents lawn. When asked “why that reaction” she proceeded to explain that her union had told her that Merrimack School Board candidate Joe Kearns was a member of the Christian Coalition. If the union told her, it must be true, right? Smart lady like that would have looked that up.
But if she had looked it up she would know that Joe is not a member of the Christian Coalition, and so would her union. Neither of them did, or neither of them cares to know the truth. But they did want someone to know the lie.
Merrimack Elections Tomorrow – My….Observations
I don’t usually weigh in on local elections but after someone stole my Krupp for school board sign I have been properly pissed off. You wanted my attention, you have it.
So here we go. I am not endorsing so much as suggesting. And I am not weighing in on everything this time around. But that will change in the future.
School Board – Two positions
Gary Krupp, Joe Kearns. I want to see some fresh meat on this board. But if you can’t find room in your ballot for Joe’s fresh face, go with Andy Schneider. Vote for Gary either way. We need this guy on the School Board.
School District Article 6 – (Article 6 would eliminate the School Budget Committee.)
Four words – Don’t frikkin Do It! Do not disband your budget committee. In fact, you should be trying to figure out how to add one to the town side. Budget committees are not a waste of time or resources. Spend five minutes looking at the history of waste, corruption, inside deal making, tax scams, and embezzlement schemes in small town New Hampshire and you will find responsible budget committees sorely lacking.
You can never, ever, have enough eyes looking at any budget, particularity one as large as the Merrimack School District.
Vote NO on Article 6.
Now for a quick trip to the Town side of the ballot,