Let's start with the bios of the candidates, which I've summarized from their initial introduction. I'll follow this with a summary of the candidates positions. I'll try to keep it unbiased until the end when I'll tell you who I'm voting for; feel free to skip that part.
William Howard
30 year residence of Durham, 1996. 3 children attended ORCSD K-8. Two boys played football at St Thomas Aquinas. Retired professional engineer, worked for US government and waste management. Supporter of STEM education. US needs to train the next generation of engineers.
Giana Gelsey (facebook)
From Madbury. School board member the last three years. Children at the middle school & high school. Works in Biological and Geological Sciences. In the district 10 years, ORPP, LRPC, Moharimet PTO chair, Madbury Resource Board. Community Organizing, COVID school board forums. Students first, public education advocate, Strategic planning committee, Sustainability Committee, Wellness Committee. New Hampshire Schoolboard Association delegate for three years. Clear and honest. Looks forward to a second term on the school board.
Elizabeth Copley
Raised in Wilton CT. Wilton HS. Marketing at Franklin Pierce. In Lee for 24 years, loves it. Lots of experience working with Board of Education, father was a member, fundraised, built a stadium. Parents live in Kittery, got on the board of ed there. Kids first. Taught Skiing in VT 16-20 and NH. Only taught kids, every weekend, every season. Interested in tracking school expenditures, assuring the budget money is used in the most cost effective way, maintaining the high standard of quality education. "Wilton HS was highest accredited school in New England, Oyster River can be the same."
Colin Black-Butler (facebook)
Late addition: Denise Day
School board member for 12 years, including a stint as chair. From her facebook post:
That was too much work. I'm on vacation right now. Let's try this. I annotated the transcript with the speaker names and asked Gemini to summarize each candidate. I tried to remove things that did not accord with what I heard at the forum. Here's the lightly edited result:
Free advice to the candidates: if you don't win this time around, just keep trying; sooner or later almost everyone who perseveres gets elected.
Please comment or send me correction or updates, like facebook pages for the other candidates, which I was unable to find.
Colin Blake-Butler
- Platform/Inspiration: Focuses on bringing his professional skills in IT, Cybersecurity, and Data Analytics to the board, emphasizing proactive transparency and ensuring every dollar spent is linked to student success. He aims to build stronger relationships across the ecosystem (educators, parents, students).
- Student/Teacher Input: Advocates for implementing anonymous digital surveys for both students and staff to gather real-time, empirical data on the learning environment. Supports building site-based management teams for teachers to collect and relay feedback.
- Academics/Extracurriculars: Believes true balance requires intentionality and developing the whole person. Plans to find efficiencies in administrative overhead and back office costs to reinvest money directly into vibrant student programs.
- Open Enrollment: Believes the district should only participate if data proves it is a net positive, with a transparent cost impact model to ensure local families are not subsidizing outside students.
- Biggest Challenge: Preparing students for a world rapidly changing due to AI and digital connectivity. Proposes balancing high-tech tools with high-touch human support, ensuring technical literacy while protecting social and emotional foundations.
- Performance Audit: "You can't manage what you can't measure." Would use a district scorecard with criteria like academic growth, administrative efficiency, staff retention, and fiscal transparency.
- Staffing Budget: Seconded the $519K budget rise at the deliberative session. Will focus on data-driven decision-making.
- Platform/Inspiration: An incumbent running for a second term, driven by a belief in public service and a deep value for the community. She is a huge public education advocate, looking at everything through the lens of "students first." She wants to continue to fight against the "unprecedented attack on public schools" and emphasizes that public school is a public good essential for democracy.
- Student/Teacher Input: Considers student input "incredibly valuable" for multiple points of view. Highly values the school board's student delegate and encourages students to use their student government and attend public comment. Notes that teacher input is somewhat limited by "guild agreements" (contracts) and procedures.
- Academics/Extracurriculars: Believes the district does a "decent job" but sees room for improvement. Advocates for looking for budget efficiencies to fund expensive co-curricular activities like robotics and musical instruments. Suggests working on fundraising to equalize funding for more expensive sports (hockey, football, swim).
- Open Enrollment: Does not support mandatory open enrollment as currently proposed at the state level. Points to New Hampshire's tax structure and chronic lack of adequate state funding as issues. Argues that current bills are not detailed enough to allow for proper district planning regarding cost, special education, and transportation.
- Biggest Challenge: The challenges to public education at the federal, state, and local level (funding, teacher retention) and the rapidly changing environment (AI, mental health challenges, climate change). The solution is to teach students to be lifelong learners with critical thinking, analysis, and flexibility to adapt to the future.
- Performance Audit: Believes the School Board effectively is a "continual audit" of the system through its policy work and annual review of the superintendent. Criteria for evaluation include student outcomes (academic, social, emotional), and staff satisfaction (continued education, compensation, belonging).
- Staffing Budget: Expresses fiscal concern about the added $519,000, noting it is about a 0.5% tax rate increase. Is more concerned about the risk of the budget failing at the final vote, which would lead to a default budget with $1.4 million in cuts to programs, staff, and administration.
- Platform/Inspiration: Her passion is helping the children, ensuring they have better futures, are prepared, and have their "own special thinking and not be told what to think." She has experience working with the Board of Education through her father's involvement and fundraising efforts. She is interested in tracking school expenditures to ensure budget money is used cost-effectively and maintaining a high standard of quality education.
- Student/Teacher Input: Believes people should be able to call, text, or email her directly.
- Academics/Extracurriculars: States she does not have enough information on how well the district balances these areas, though she observes they "got ahead on the football" and the school has "adequate, if not good, sports and all that."
- Open Enrollment: Believes kids should be able to go to different schools but recognizes the cost must be studied, as classroom size is important. If there is room and "it doesn't cost the school anything," it should happen, as Oyster River is a "better District" than some others nearby.
- Biggest Challenge: Returning back to basics, such as teaching kids to write in script, make change, and balance a checkbook. Advocates for business classes and teaching entrepreneurship so students can adapt to the changing world.
- Performance Audit: Supports the audit, stating, "More eyes on it will be better for all." Agrees that having more people involved is a good idea.
- Staffing Budget: No clear comment on the $519,000 addition, but her interest in tracking expenditures suggests a fiscal focus.
- Platform/Inspiration: Sees running as an opportunity to provide public service back to the community where he has lived for 30 years. He has a background as a retired professional engineer and is a strong advocate and supporter of STEM education. He wants to put greater emphasis on the importance of classroom instruction and the human interaction between teachers and students. He also wants to ensure public dollars are spent on public education and not siphoned off by political groups.
- Student/Teacher Input: A strong believer in promoting the interaction between teachers and students and directing more resources there. Believes students should have input on curriculum content, but the final determination is for the professionals/educators. Supports "whatever means" can be developed for student input.
- Academics/Extracurriculars: Based on his experience with his own children, he believes the district has a "pretty good balance" in its support for academics, sports, arts (theater), and extracurriculars (robotics). While there is always room for improvement, he thinks overall the district has "done a good job."
- Open Enrollment: Believes the district needs to "consider meeting its own needs first"—ensuring adequate resources for its resident students—before evaluating if there are sufficient supplemental resources to accommodate enrollment from outside the district.
- Biggest Challenge: Offering a course of instruction with a balance between classroom learning and experiential learning (like co-op programs in engineering). He is concerned that in the digital age, students must be able to independently critically think and use the machine (AI) as a tool, rather than relying on it to do their thinking for them.
- Performance Audit: Not in favor of a third-party audit, believing it is the role of the School Board to continually monitor performance. Would evaluate effectiveness by comparing standardized test performance, graduation rate, and college enrollment, and by comparing dollars spent to academic achievement attained using available state-level data.
- Staffing Budget: Agrees with the override, stating, "if the taxpayers want to do that, so be it." He believes that if the people speak and want to spend the additional money for education, he doesn't have a problem with it, as they are paying the bill.
My opinions
That ends the unbiased part. If anyone cares, I'm voting for Giana Gelsey and for Denise Day, who we have to write in. Both are excellent and well-known. There's some false crap on the net about Giana that I won't repeat but you should definitely ignore. I would have voted for Colin Blake-Butler if Denise hadn't entered.
As for the others, Elizabeth Copley seemed clueless in the candidates forum, and William Howard got on the ballot last year and then never showed up, which gives me pause.
There's some information that the citizen warrant articles, on the ballot due to petitions from Blake-Butler and his cohorts, aligns with some from the School District Governance Association of NH (SDGA). [Edit: I don’t mean to imply Blake-Butler is associated with this group, just that he's drawing his ideas from the same well as those known to act in bad faith. I will add his comment when I get it. ] Those folks are big supporters of Republican legislators and former Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, who are all actively hostile to public education in our state. As far as I can tell, Blake-Butler's intentions toward our district seem good and honorable, but this is definitely a huge red flag to me. In Blake-Butler's defense, I don't buy the claims that he seconded the budget increase at DS as a backhanded strategy to increase the odds the budget does not pass.
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| SDGANH 2025 NH Senate Scorecard |
Please comment or send me correction or updates, like facebook pages for the other candidates, which I was unable to find.
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