Press Release: 12/6/2018
Contact: Skip Murphy ( skipm@metrocast.net)
School District Governance Association of New Hampshire
First Amendment Rights in School District Governance
The SDGA holds that the preexisting Rights enumerated in the First Amendment are sacrosanct and must never be infringed upon even in difficult situations such as we see taking place with the Manchester School Board (“MSB”). We speak of MSB members castigating another member for using the District’s email system in factually correcting an 18 year old student’s Op-ed that criticized the current teacher contract negotiations that was published both the student newspaper and an outside media website.
We side with the First Amendment in all cases – it is what distinguishes America from almost all other nations in allowing the free flow of ideas without Government coercion. It either holds true in all cases or merely becomes a privilege doled out by those in power – which the MSB members seemingly are doing. Thus, we speak out in defense of Rachel Phelan’s Right to Free Speech in her right to criticize the MSB’s efforts during this contract negotiation.
Similarly, we also speak out in defense of Rich Girard’s
