Fosters Opinion: FORE looks to solve ORCSD problems

Opinion letter published in Fosters promoting F.O.R.E in response Calvin Jarvis' recent opinion piece.

FORE looks to solve ORCSD problems

I'm writing to express my disgust at Mr. Jarvis's letter of July 8. This is the type of rhetoric that has been popular on the Oyster River Community Resource blog which has served to polarize our community in the Oyster River Cooperative School District. I am no doubt one of those "has beens" he is referring to, having spent 20 years of my life teaching at Oyster River High School. As a matter of fact, the group is comprised of a wide range of people, some new to the district, some with students in school currently, and some whose children are Oyster River graduates. We are small business people, doctors, full time parents, social workers, artists, and yes, some are past ORCSD faculty and school board members who, like me, have devoted considerable time to education in the district.

I'd like to set some small parts of the record straight. The group Friends of Oyster River Education formed after 400 people signed a petition requesting that the School Board state their reasons for their "no" vote on the principal candidate and asking them to reconsider their vote. At least 400 people attended a board meeting on April 16 in anticipation that there might be an explanation for their vote. None was forthcoming.

So far, in the two months the group has been in operation, in line with our broad mission to restore community, build trust and productive dialogue about complex educational issues, we have done the following:

1. Attended public School Board meetings and public School Board subcommittee meetings, as is our right, indeed our responsibility, as citizens in a democracy.

2. Spoken during public comments at School Board meetings. Again, a right accorded to us as citizens.

3. Written letters to the School Board and Foster's Daily Democrat. See reasons cited above.

4. Opened a website www.forenh.org where we have clearly stated our mission and goals; posted informative articles and answered Frequently Asked Questions, and offered a chance for civil discourse, allowing no anonymous or pseudonymous comments, or comments which are potentially libelous or in violation of copyright.

4. Sponsored an event at the high school to offer the community an opportunity to say good-bye to outgoing principal, Laura Rogers and highlight the good work of the teachers at the high school.

We may be a vocal minority, which I doubt, but we have every right to support the professional educators in our district, to try to understand actions at the School Board level, and to shape their outcome.

The most recent actions by the School Board, including the buy-out of the superintendent, the price tag for which is approaching $200,000, including the cost of extensive consultations with a Portsmouth law firm and very little documentation of the decision-making process either in public or nonpublic meeting minutes, has done nothing to indicate that we should, as Mr. Jarvis suggests, go silent.

Fifty-plus years of quality schools in the Oyster River School District have not vanished overnight, as the current School Board and its supporters would have the community believe. Nor did the ORCSD achieve excellence over the years because people agreed on everything. In previous years, mistakes, missteps and reforms occurred, but usually after debate among participants who trusted that their voices would be heard. In a community which had a common purpose in educating our children, we always found a way forward.

Finally, as to the clever term "school -boarding," I suggest that it is, at best, an inappropriate figure of speech. Torture, sadly, has been all too real in recent years. Using thinly-veiled allusion to compare that nightmare to the desire of a large group of residents to attend meetings, discuss how our taxes are spent, and publish articles on important issues and quandaries facing the school may win snickers and back slaps among political extremists, but has no place in civil discourse. FORE was founded on the premise that solving our schools problems requires a different level of dialogue. We hope our friends and neighbors agree and join us in working together to support Oyster River schools.

@Letters name:Kay Morgan
@Letters town:Durham