Apparently no one has come forward in Madbury to volunteer the time to be on the school board. According to NH law, the school district has sent notification to the Madbury selectmen to find a replacement for Mr. Townsend for nomination.
If you are new to this blog, Mr. Townsend - former Madbury school board member and chair - resigned recently. The details on this are found in previous posts and Foster's.
hmmm...No one wants to step forward and participate as a member of the ORCSD. I wonder why? My own thoughts; Having to deal with Henry Brackett as a voice for Roger Speidel and the misleading statements and assumptions is simply an impossible task. My compaint with Howard Colter and the ORCSD is that they don't respond to Roger's claims. By not doing so, it only gives his statements more credence.
ReplyDeleteI know many will attack me about how Roger researches all his stuff, but the fact is that one can't compare to the degree he does given tax bases in different communities and a variety of associated costs due to items like buldings, Title grants provided to districts by the NHDOE, etc. There are too many factors to consider and the arguments are oversimplified by Henry, Roger, and ompany
A fair criticism. I myself believe that Roger Speidel does his homework and appears to have his facts straight, but I am in no position to be able to verify his conclusions, therefore I can make no judgment as to whether he is “right” or not.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as a professional communicator, I know that ANY message that’s repeated over and over, without challenge, becomes credible. So here is a broader question: our School Board and administrators ARE in a position to be able to answer Roger Speidel, as well as their other critics—so why do they refuse to?
As you point out, their silence gives credence to any accusations made. But I think it goes farther than that. Their refusal to communicate has resulted in a continual erosion of public support for the administration, the School Board—and, I would argue, the ORCSD itself. Even a brief look at the comments on this blog, or a glance at recent media coverage, reveals the lack of trust their actions have engendered.
So, are they going to wake up, engage with their critics, and take the necessary steps to rebuild public trust? Or are they going to let the District collapse under the weight of public mistrust?
Public service can be quite thankless at times and I think we owe our school board members some consideration for putting themselves out there in a time of strife. I only hope that our school board and community have learned from the recent experiences and are able to improve the processes and avoid such outcomes in the future. We need to move forward in a positive manner amidst the present tide of misguided thinking. We don’t need anyone rubber-stamping," our childrens education. I believe this board will shape into an excellence group.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to see some reasonable responses and dialogue:)
ReplyDeleteThank you Tom. You are absolutely right. If Roger Speidel is wrong, then someone needs to expain exactly why. Ignoring this question is unwise.
ReplyDeleteI agree that our current School Board has the potential to be a strong collaborative team. It is too bad that they don't have a different superintendent.
Go figure, no one from Madbury wants to serve on the School Board. Can you blame them? What a thankless job. And as long as Howard Colter is in charge of the district, the position of SB member will be like bashing your head on a brick wall. Remember the old Saturday Night Live skit "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave"? Just saying...
ReplyDeleteEarlier post... "Having to deal with Henry Bracket as the voice of Roger Speidel"? I really don't get that impression. Bracket seems to be ducking from the verbal rocks that Joanne is throwing at him all the time. She needs to get off from her HIGH horse and attempt to collaborate. [And if you don't know the meaning of "Collaborate" Joanne, please look it up.] Joanne seems to be Colter's pitbull and Reif seems to be Joanne's lap dog (which is very weird since she was opposed to Joanne and David Taylor in the beginning... guess she drank the cool aid... so sad).
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