The Candidates are on Facebook
It looks like this year's school board race will, like last year, take place largely on Facebook. Hmmm.
Here's a list of links to the candidate facebook pages.
Matt Bacon https://www.facebook.com/Matt-Bacon-Oyster-River-School-Board-111888801405648
Giana Gelsey https://www.facebook.com/Giana-Gelsey-Oyster-River-School-Board-111653044766731
Heather Smith https://www.facebook.com/Heather-Smith-Candidate-for-Oyster-River-School-Board-101776459105333/
Debbie Harmon https://www.facebook.com/DHarmon4ORCSD
Marie-Therese D'Agostino [no web presence found as of afternoon 2/13]
Candidates Night is this Tuesday, February 15
They don't seem to be advertising it very much, but Candidates Night is scheduled for this Tuesday, 6 pm, February 15. That's six pm, dinner hour. Not sure why they're starting so early.
Candidates Night is the only formally scheduled event for candidates on the election calendar, besides election day I suppose. It used to be moderated by the District Clerk, with the PTOs supplying snacks. Sometimes I'd be the only audience to show up. There was a tradition where the district would make an substantial effort to record video of the event, which then never seemed to get posted by election day.
This year it's hosted by the Middle School PTO. The elementary PTOs did a great job hosting a virtual meeting last year, so I guess that they decided to continue that. It was spread over two nights last year, with a pretty big attendance -- around 50 folks on Zoom and a similar amount on Facebook Live, neither of which we're using this year.
It's right here on the school board meeting schedule.
Apparently there will be an actual live event at the middle school. At least that's the recent announcement, made Friday evening, 2/11/22, and still current on noon Monday 2/14.
UPDATE 4pm 2/15: Due to a room change the meeting is virtual only.
Click here 6 pm Tuesday February 15 2022 for the Candidates Night Teams meeting (Teams is Microsoft's version of Zoom).
Last year they solicited questions from the public ahead of time. There was also an opportunity to put your questions in the chat during the event.
This year they're running out of time to advertise and solicit questions. They solicited questions on the various ORCSD Facebook PTO pages on February 5, which I didn't see even though I think I subscribe. In any case they really should cast a wider net, so please ask your question here.
February 15th is pretty early in the race, three weeks before election day. Last year they pushed the virtual meeting to about two weeks before the election day, which I thought worked pretty well.
Kristin Forselius wins the 2022 Oyster River Distinguished Service Award
Budget Unchanged at Edifying Deliberative Session
It was a well-attended Deliberative Session on Tuesday (video), with at least 184 voters in attendance. An attempt to amend Article 3 (the $52.1M budget) to remove the DEIJ Coordinator position and $100,000 from the budget failed by a vote of 21 in favor, 163 against. No other amendments were moved, so the warrant will be presented to the voters on Election Day March 8 unchanged from what the school board approved in January.
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| Ruth Sample at the 2022 ORCSD Deliberative Session |
Ruth wasn't convinced the DEIJ Coordinator position was well-defined or justified. Like many folks, she hadn't been paying much attention to the school board until a couple of days before the Deliberative Session. She did her usual thorough job researching the issue, reviewing the November 18 Budget Workshop and the February 2 school board meeting among other stuff. She wrote it up and I posted it the afternoon of the Deliberative Session. She made it very clear she very much supports DEIJ work in the district, but thought the coordinator position was unjustified and premature.
I tried to talk her out of it. I wanted to focus on the spending. I knew coming out against the DEIJ coordinator position was touching the third rail in this town. But Ruth persisted, and if there's one thing I've learned in my years, it's Ruth is usually right about most things (Happy Valentine Day, honey!). So I agreed to help, drafting the amendment in writing (future amenders take note) and a request for a secret ballot on the amendment, the idea being that some folks might be more likely to vote in favor of the amendment in secret, as it's a touchy issue.
Article 3 was presented by board members Brian Cisneros and Yusi Turell, with Yusi specifically focusing on justifying the DEIJ Coordinator position. Then the floor was opened and Ruth bravely went to the podium to propose her amendment: to remove $100,000 of the $130,000 budget for the DEIJ Coordinator from the budget and use the remaining $30,000 for consultants to help come up with an actionable plane. (Technically, if passed, all the amendment would have done is alter the budget; it's up to the board to carry out the intent of the vote or not.) There was silence and no second forthcoming, so I seconded it -- I couldn't leave Ruth hanging. She then proceeded to request a secret ballot in writing, signed by five Oyster River voters.
I expected people to speak forcefully in favor of the DEIJ Coordinator position, which they did. What I did not expect was a frontal assault on that underpinning of American democracy, the secret ballot. This was from what I assume was a room mostly full of progressives. Coming into the event I'd have assumed they were on the pro-democracy team.
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| International Law re Secret Ballots |
Another person asked, even more incredibly, if we could just have a "non-binding" show of hands before the secret ballot. Just between us, as it were. The lawyer again appeared to rule that having a public show of hands was against the spirit of the secret ballot that had been lawfully sought. Again the mob was thwarted, but democracy lived to fight another day.
I'm not naming these folks because they're good people who I like and hope to continue to be friendly and cordial with in the future. But perhaps a little self reflection is in order. I'll guess the motivation for attempting to thwart the secret ballot is to identify the DEIJ dissenters among us, perhaps to subject them to future scorn. Democracy is tough; the scorners will have to settle for just me and Ruth.
As to the substance of Ruth's objection, Peter Taubman, retired New York high school teacher and professor, offered, "I find it astonishing in 2022 we are actually debating a position that over that past thirty years has been taken for granted in not only public schools in New York, but some of the best public schools in New Hampshire, and I will tell you, in every single prep school in the Northeast."
We shouldn't even debate? Can't we ask if the DEIJ problems in Oyster River are on a scale equal to those in a New York City school? Of course they aren't. The average NYC public school is under 20% white and serves a much more socioeconomically challenged population than Oyster River. Can't we ask if the size of the school system should impact the decision to create a new position? Of course it must.
The New Hampshire districts with DEIJ positions include Exeter and Manchester. Oyster River has about 2200 students carried by $2.5B in equalized taxable property value. Manchester has around 9000 students carried by $12.9B of property. Exeter Coop has 4500 students and a $9.9B value. (If I read this report correctly where we seem to have to add up the coop and the individual towns of SAU 16: 3.6 coop + 2.6 Ex + .8 Br + .4 EK + .5 KE + .3 NF + 1.7 St. Not sure about this.) So at the same salary, Oyster River's cost per student for the position is twice Exeter's, and four times Manchester's. The burden of the position on Oyster River taxpayers is four times as much as in Exeter and five times as much as in Manchester. We probably wouldn't expect a school district with 400 students to employ a full time DEIJ Coordinator or Chief Equity Officer -- where is the line? It's clear there's plenty to debate.
We heard the claim at various times that we've had plenty of consultants; that we need someone to coordinate acting on their advice. (This seems like an admission that once we hire a DEIJ Coordinator, we can look forward to a future with even more DEIJ consultants.) Contrary to the story, Superintendent Morse recently told Ruth that paid consultants were not used to produce the report that suggested the position. Ruth read the report, which apparently doesn't really recommend the ORCSD DEIJ Coordinator position either. I'm not going to publish that report because as far as I can tell it's not (yet?) a public report.
In fact the whole process seems rather non-transparent. The committee is a "superintendent's committee" which seems to exempt it from public meetings and recorded minutes. It seems to exempt it from being mentioned on the district website as well. I can appreciate the need for secrecy in these HB2 divisive-concept times, but we also have Right-To-Know Laws. In fact, the board probably should tread very carefully: they're still operating under an injunction to obey the RTK law under threat of contempt of court. The increased scrutiny was a result of the bad board in 2011 being found guilty of violating RTK twice.
As for what a report produced with a consultant might look like, Ruth offers this example, UNH's response to a professor (seemingly abetted by his wife) sexually preying on students that came to light in the media. It includes dozens of action items, each one assigned to a particular person at UNH, with a description, expected completion date and current status.
Anyway, I do want to give the community props for good meeting form -- we had almost 200 people in attendance, two in-order, properly formed motions to call the question (both of which succeeded in getting 2/3), in addition to Ruth's amendment in writing and a properly executed secret ballot request. It's almost like we know what we're doing.
[I want to write more about the spending in the district, but I better post this much before Candidates Night is over. - Dean]
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