Letter to Foster's Editor

UPDATE:  This letter was written by:

Luci Gardner
Durham, NH

Foster's refused to print this.

Dear Sir:

Your editorial ‘Respect Calls For Respect’ gives no respect to elected School Board members who voted to reject Superintendent Howard Colter’s nominee for a replacement principal of Oyster River High School. Your statement that you “must chastise the Board for its   [no confirm] vote” has no meaning other than the Board vote had to be to confirm, a sop, instead of a “slap in the face to those who put in countless hours vetting candidates.”   You accuse the Board of cowardly conduct in “hiding behind the Right to Know Law’s personnel exception and “the tight-lipped way it has handled criticism” even though the Board is bound by State statute to be ‘tight-lipped’ and inconsistently you suggest members may also be “in violation” of the same law that prevents them from speaking. Finally, without knowing the salary or term expectation of the candidate, you demand a “cogent and acceptable” explanation for Monday’s vote” as though you are entitled to one.  In your view the Board serves as rubber stamp to the superintendent and has only a pro forma vote and needs “chastisement” when it acts independently.

But, the same editorial gives respect to the Oyster River students many of whom had disrespected Board members on the night of the vote heckling and jeering, yelling code words for obscenities, totally out of control and upset because “ the Board had not listened to their choice of Campbell : “we knew who we wanted.” They demanded the vote be changed and Campbell be immediately hired: shameful bullying conduct which necessitated the police. (April 14, 2011 Foster’s article.)

You praise these students for their “ respectful protest” walkout from school, protesting a ‘ no confirm’ vote of the School Board, the only Board that has the power of confirmation. Your editorial gives credence to a protest about the final vote in a process the students apparently know nothing about.
The protest was not respectful:  Some students who did not join the walk out were asked why they remained in school. The words “get their addresses and go to their homes” were plainly heard with laughing and gaiety from that marching band and signs such as “Open your eyes” and “Two Years Adrift/ No Way” could be clearly seen. Near the end of the video a voice can be heard shouting “We’re coming to get you on the 27th.”

We are not talking Thoreau and civil disobedience here; no governmental injustice had been done to these students who simply did not get the vote they wanted and apparently also thought the Board was required to rubber stamp Colter’s and their choice.  We are talking just plain bullying and intimidation. How much better if Superintendent Colter had turned the walk-out into a learning experience and insisted they return to school and study the Board of Education’s process as well as state statutes regarding the choice of a new principal instead of greeting them with respect after they disrespected the School Board as well as the confirmation  process.
What did the students learn from their “respectful protest” and what further mob behaviors can we expect from them on the 27th as they demand with you “cogent and acceptable” explanation of a vote they do not care to accept?