JoAnn P. makes our case

[JoAnn Portalupi cc'd me on this letter she sent this Foster's.   I don't know if they'll get to it before the election, so I'm happy to post it here.  It gives a great first hand account of recent board history.  Thanks, JoAnn.   - Dean]

The Facts Speak for Themselves

I was on the Oyster River School Board in August of 2010, when Jim Kach was appointed to fill a vacated seat. I voted to appoint Jim based on his easy going, friendly demeanor and his claim that he had no agenda other than to serve his community. He thought he could help heal tensions that were rumbling in the district.

At his second meeting he voted against a nomination put forth by then Superintendent Howard Colter. This was a clear vote of no confidence, which struck me as odd coming from someone without an agenda who additionally claimed to know little about the school system. 

At the Candidates Forum in February of 2011 Mr. Kach told voters he was in support of hiring a permanent principal for the high school. But on April 14^th, shortly after his election, he voted NO on the nomination that came as a result of a long and thorough search process, a vote that directly led to the need to hire an interim.

In June of 2011 Mr. Kach stated at a public board meeting that he believed every dollar of the unreserved fund balance should be returned to the voters. And yet at the very next meeting (June 30^th), he voted to spend $185K to buy out the last year of Superintendent Howard Colter’s contract. The money came from the unreserved fund balance.

Mr. Kach includes support for technology on his list of accomplishments and yet on December 7, 2011, after already approving cuts in technology hardware for our teachers and students, he voted to cut further. 

A clearer picture of the real Jim Kach has emerged.

I’ve also observed that Mr. Kach does not follow the will of the voters. On September 21^st, 2012, he voted NO on a motion to expend the $15K that voters approved to help heal the tension in the district. (Henry Brackett, also up for re-election, voted NO as well.)

I’ve watched Mr. Kach minimize issues when confronted with concerns about his or the Board’s behavior.

About a string of personal tweets that offended many in the community, Jim claims they were attempts at humor and that he didn’t mean to offend. And of the first of two lawsuits against the Board, Jim claims this was merely a matter of 3000 emails. When asked what he would do to prevent this from happening in the future? He quipped, “Hire a better lawyer.”

Such attempts at humor are fine for shooting the breeze over a cup of coffee, but they are not the response one seeks from an elected school official. They reveal an inability to look reflectively at, and take responsibility for, actions that have wronged or hurt others.

Voters in all three communities will be allowed to cast a vote for the Madbury race between Jim Kach and Ed Charle. We need school board members whose words are backed by actions and who respect constituents enough to own up to mistakes when they are made. Eighteen months ago I gave Jim Kach my vote. This time around my vote will go to Ed Charle, a Madbury resident and civic-minded individual who sees the facts and knows our community deserves better.

JoAnn Portalupi

Lee, NH

Mr. Kach's Faux News Website

I run a biased blog here, and I don't try to hide that fact.   Practically every other sentence  is something like: Vote Tuesday for the TEAM - Tom, Ed, Al, and Maria!

But incumbent board member Jim Kach appears to really be trying to lure people to his site by deliberately conflating it with the official district site, and to further the ruse by calling his propaganda "NEWS".   This is low even by the standards of the current board.

You may know that the district's website is orcsd.org.  Mr. Kach's website is, incredibly, orcsd.net.    This seems a blatant attempt to confuse voters into thinking that they're looking at the official district site, when what they're really getting is Mr. Kach's propaganda.

But it's even more deceptive than that.    The banner on the site (reproduced below) reads "Oyster River School Board ELECTION NEWS."    It's not news -- it's his campaign's website.   I can't help but be reminded of Mr. Kach's deceptions that brought us illegal secret meetings and secret ballots, and his claims like he's supporting technology when he's really cutting technology.   After all the trouble he's gotten into with the New Hampshire courts, it's unbelievable that he is once again trying to deceive the community.   He's demonstrated once again he thinks transparency is optional, and that misleading the community is an OK way to get reelected, and to govern. 

Stop the deception.   Do not let this man represent Oyster River anymore.  Do not let this man represent YOU anymore.  I've already debunked his flyer and reminded everyone of his vile tweets. Please vote for Dr. Ed Charle this Tuesday.

- Dean Rubine, Lee

Update: I just noticed (8pm Friday Mar 9) the banner on orcsd.net has changed.  Of course, it's still the deceptive orcsd.net.  Mr. Kach has come half way back to not deceiving the voters.  Kudos.  There's still a form on the right where you give Mr. Kach your email address and "Get the latest news!" and "Subscribe Now."    Here's a screenshot:

Want to email Mr. Kach?    jimkach.blogspot.com (yet another of his campaign sites -- he seems to have a few) gives his address as orcsdschoolboard@gmail.com.   No, not misleading at all.

Voting Instructions for the 2012 Oyster River Cooperative School District Election

This is the 2012 guide.  Click here for the 2013 guide.

This is my very biased yet oddly informative voting guide to the upcoming ORCSD election.  If you just want to see the unadulterated ballot, skip to the end.

Election Day is this Tuesday, March 13th, 2012.   Vote at your regular polling place.   Depending on which town you live in, that's the Lee Public Safety Complex, Madbury Town Hall, or Oyster River High School in Durham.   Lee has a sign outside that says the polls are open 7am - 7pm; I'm not sure about the other towns. If you're not already registered, you can register at the polls on election day.   To register, bring proof of age (driver's license).   If you don't also bring proof of citizenship (birth certificate) and proof of address (utility bill) they'll ask you to sign something swearing you've told the truth about these.    I think it's still the case that voters who are already registered don't even need ID.   Here's FORE's voter information.

Voters in Madbury, Lee, and Durham will all see identical school district questions, including the four races for board seats.   Everyone gets to vote for all four seats.   I want to be clear: Lee and Durham voters vote for the Madbury seat on the board too.   For example, everyone in all three towns can vote for all four of Tom Newkirk (at large), Ed Charle (Madbury), Al Howland (Durham), and Maria Barth (Lee) (Remember their first initials spell TEAM.)  Or they can vote for any or all of their opponents.  When it comes to school district questions, including seats, each vote from any voter in the district always counts equally.   Some people complain that this gives Durham, with the largest population, more influence.  But it comes down to every voter in the district being treated equally.   My understanding is that this rule for cooperative school districts was decided by the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

Let's go through the ballot:

Article 1 elects the moderator, and there's only one person running.   Vote for him, write yourself in, I don't care.

Article 2 elects the school board members, and there are four races.   My recommendation is that you vote for the TEAM - Tom, Ed, Al, and Maria.   On this ballot the order is Tom, Al, Maria, Ed -- TAME !   Al  Howland's running unopposed but there's a rumor of a write-in campaign, so please fill in his oval.    If you don't want to take my word for who to vote for, here's a questionnaire the candidates all filled out.  Ed (whose full name is Dr. Edwin Charlé) has learned a lot since he's filled out this questionnaire, as you can tell from the interview on his website.

Article 3 is the ORPaSS contract  (paraprofessionals and support staff).  I would say that ORPaSS gave the district a good deal and I'm voting YES.    Thanks, ORPaSS.   At the March 7 meeting, the board clarified that the 2014-2015 number of $52,718 is the year-on-year increase, so represents an $86,258 increase above current levels.  I just spent a few minutes looking in the budget for how much in total we spend on paraprofessionals and support staff but I didn't find it,  though I seem to remember it's there.     At the last board meeting somebody suggested putting the total on the poster, but nobody knew offhand how much it was.  I didn't find the new contract, though the one from three years ago has the current pay rates.    Be nice to these people -- they work hard for our kids for not alot of money.

Article 4 is the ORBDA contract (bus drivers).   They too gave us a good deal, so I'm voting YES to take it.    Thanks, ORBDA.  I'm glad the board didn't outsource transportation.  Stephanie in a comment below says she checked and the real ballot contains an oval to fill in for for YES.

Article 5 raises $47,000 for Sustainability Committee initiatives, notably energy audits.  I'm voting YES.   If the energy audits of the other schools uncover a fraction of the problems that the one in the high school did, this money will pay for itself many times over.  For a board that's doing victory laps for finding out the high school heat is broken, why are they asking the voters whether to do energy audits for the other schools too?   They could just pay for them out of the general fund but they don't want to look like spenders, even when spending money would save money, not even just in the long run, but this budget year.  For the high school problems, spending $40,000 now saves around $70,000 in fuel annually.  Yet you'll note that, unlike many of the others, this article does not say "The school board recommends this appropriation." It was Mr. Kach, who touts as a major accomplishment "the completion of the district’s facilities report and an energy audit on the ORHS," who suggested the board's recommendation be omitted.

Article 6 is a vote to sustain the Sustainability Committee another year.  I'm voting YES.

Article 7 is the vote to raise $38 million to pay for schools.  The important thing to understand about this question is that your vote affects only one quarter of one percent of the budget.  If YES wins, we raise about $104,000 more than if NO wins.  Either way we're raising north of $38 million. I'm voting YES and hoping the new board uses the extra money to reinstate the High School Assistant Principal, who'll we'll need if we want to carry out the plan for 100 more tuition students over the next four years resulting in a direct savings to the taxpayers of $1 million annually.   Inaccurately, this article states "the School Board recommends this appropriation" when the default budget (what we get if "NO" wins) is closer to the school board approved budget -- the voters at the deliberative session added around $156,000 to the school board's budget to arrive at the budget on this ballot.   There was some loose talk in the paper that this addition is why taxes are going up, but the school tax was going up about 3% even before this addition of 0.4%


I've been told that each individual town counts their own ballots, and brings the result to the high school where the Durham ballots are counted.  The results are announced at the high school, usually around 9pm on election day.  I'll post them as soon as I get them.

- Dean

An Open Letter to ORCSD Voters

[Note: This letter started out life as the script for a phone message to district parents, but I decided against doing that -- the message is too long, I wasn't sure if voters would view it as an unwanted intrusion, and I don't really have time to make all those calls anyway.]

Dear Oyster River School District Voters:

My name is Dean Rubine.  I live in Lee, and I have two children in the Oyster River School District.   I’d like a few minutes of your time to talk about the school board elections this Tuesday, March 13^th.   I’m urging people to vote against those running for reelection, and to vote for Maria Barth and Dr. Ed Charle.  Maria was chairman of the Kittery school board for 11 years, and by all accounts they were sorry to see her go.   Ed founded Salmon Falls Family Health Care in Somersworth 25 years ago, still works there as family physician and medical director, and has experience on several boards.   They’ve both campaigned on trying to heal the district, being good listeners, improving education, and reducing taxes.

Running against them are board member Jim Kach and board chairman Henry Brackett.   There’s really not enough time in a short message to even just list all the ways they’ve caused turmoil in the district.   Mr. Kach, you may recall, is the infamous tweeter who refused to resign after his bigoted and hateful tweets embarrassed and divided the district last summer.   Most  are too vile to repeat here.   Tellingly, Mr. Kach tweeted:  “It starts now at the lowest level:  School board … cut the legs from the beast.”  

In two separate cases, the New Hampshire courts have declared that the board twice violated the right to know law, each time in multiple ways.   The first time the board had illegal secret meetings to avoid public scrutiny of their plan to pay superintendent Howard Colter $185,000 not to work this year.   The judge found "the Board and Brackett knew or should have known their conduct violated the Right-to-Know Law."    The second time a different judge imposed the harshest penalty available: He issued an injunction and now if members of the board again violate the law they face contempt of court and even risk jail time.

Mr. Kach and Chairman Brackett have had their chance.  Their reign over the last year and a half has resulted in an unprecedented loss of seven administrators and a principal candidate whose search was so botched by the board that it led to a student walkout.   The candidate denied by the board has since been hired as principal of Hanover High School, the number one rated high school in the state.  All this turnover costs us money for severance, for searches, and for lawyers.   Taxes are still going up, the new high school is falling apart, and this board still has no plan for the future. Let's start fresh with a law-abiding board.   On Tuesday, March 13th please vote for Maria Barth and  Dr. Ed Charlé. 

You can find out more about the candidates at their websites, and at my website ORCSDcleanslate.org.   Thank you for your attention.

Very truly yours,

Dean Rubine

Tom Newkirk at the Candidate Forums (video)

I've been told my blog is boring because it's insufficiently multimedia -- it's nothing but text.  There are no pictures.  I even do math on it sometimes.  It's like I'm trying to drive people away.  So here goes.

I haven't written much about the at-large seat on the board that's up for election.   That race is between Tom Newkirk and Peter Macdonald.  Both would be new to the board, and I'm pretty focused on the races in which current board members are running.  The incumbents deserve to lose, and we happen to have excellent alternatives.   I urge everybody to vote for Dr. Ed Charle and Maria Barth on Tuesday, March 13th.

I also support Tom Newkirk.   I'll let these videos speak for themselves.









Cody Jacobsen is the student representative to the board.   I've observed him in meetings for months now, and I've come to see him as an impressive young man.   At times he has demonstrated much more maturity than some of the senior members.   Here he is asking a very important question, and getting woefully inadequate and dissembling answers from Mr. Kach and Mr. Brackett.  They can't even agree on whether the first lawsuit is done.   At the evening forum Chairman Brackett and Member Kach both blamed their lawyer -- the lament of convicts everywhere.






- Dean

Jim Kach's Tweets

I've been going on about Mr, Kach's tweets since last July.  They were pretty big local news, so I'm always surprised that people keep coming  up to me to tell me they just read them for the first time and how disgusted they were.   I guess I shouldn't be surprised -- I spent most of my life ignoring local news and the school board -- that's probably typical.

I'm pretty sick of the tweets as a topic.  Horrific, stunning, unfortunate, controversial, noxious, reprehensible, bigoted, misogynistic ...  I'm running out of adjectives.  But I'm telling myself it's ten days before election day, Tuesday, March 13th.   If Dr. Ed Charle wins against Mr. Kach, I'll never have to mention them again.   So I'm going rehash them one more time in this post, because they show Mr. Kach does not project the values I want in my elected representatives.  I am hopeful the voters in the district will agree.

Some Selected Tweets

Let me start out by saying something nice about the tweets.   Some of them are genuinely funny:

Worrying that Obamacare may have a cash for clunkers provision. If the wife finds out, I'm gone!   3 Sep 09

This is clever, sweet and self-deprecating while managing to convey a political message.   I happen to support the Affordable Care Act, but reasonable people may disagree.   If all the tweets were like this one, they would not cause me to take issue with Mr. Kach representing me on the school board.   (Of course, the repeated violations of the law would remain a problem for me.)

These weren't the only sort of tweets.   Some were less than acceptable.   For example, referring to the Beer Summit at the White House, Mr. Kach had some plans for a bottle of Pabst.  He tweeted

Thinking if I was Crowley, I'd be at the WH with a long neck PBR and a jar of vaseline.

Is this really the kind of talk we want from our school board members?

Mr. Kach directs most of his hate toward liberal women.

Shea-Porker (D-NH01) All about her "Lighter Footprint" in Afghanistan http://bit.ly/c3Qedq via @addthis  28 Jul

HuffPo has picture of #Maddow when she used to be a woman   9 Jul 10

@AlinskyDefeater With Kagans looks, maybe the Gov't should regulate what we can SEE

  

Kagan will be nominated if only because she posesses the stunning good looks so common to progressive women   29 Jun 10

Rxrthepoet Rex Gero   All you home remodelers out there. LISA JACKSON the STUPID BITCH who heads the EPA has just put you out of (cont) http://tl.gd/n1o79  1 Apr 10

Michelle's war on obesity: If someone told her to haul ass, she'd have to make two trips.  16 Jul

There is plenty of birtherism and vitriol aimed at the president:

There may be something to this. Is Obama eligible to serve as POTUS? http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=186825  3 Aug

It does'nt matter where Obama was born. Culturally he is not an American  11 Jun 10

Joe Wilson: Balls the size of Hilton Head. A great man!  9 Sep 09

You'll recall that Joe Wilson is the US congressman who yelled "you lie" at the president during the state of the union.

Mr. Kach's attitude toward his school board service is troubling:

@zillatweet It starts now. At the lowest level-school board, selectmen, alderman, State reps   and senators. Cut the legs from the beast   30 Sep 09

The Story of the Tweets

My wife Ruth discovered the tweets while trying to learn about the buyout of Superintendent Colter.  I think it was late June or early July, 2011.  She wasn't looking for trouble.  At that point she didn't know much about the recent controversies in the district.   She certainly wasn't digging for dirt as some have stated.   I doubt she knew of Mr. Kach other than as a name she once saw on a ballot. Upon seeing the tweets, she came to the conclusion that they alone were sufficient cause for Mr. Kach to resign.   I agree.

A Google search for Jim Kach tweets turns up 992,000 results.  I'm sure most have nothing to do with our controversy, but I paged through the first 10 pages of these and most of these were still relevant.   I'll highlight some links here in recounting the history, but won't include them all -- they're just too many.

Ruth wrote a letter to the school board asking Mr. Kach to resign.   She got a petition going to this end. 

The press coverage started with Foster's.

ORSB member Kach of Madbury refuses to resign; defends tweets some call offensive

What of Kach's future on OR School Board?

Local TV and NH press picked it up.

WMUR - School Board Member's Tweets Called Sexist, Racist

Concord Monitor: Official in hot seat after tweeting

It spread to Boston television and print.

WBZ - NHH School Board Member Under Fire For Controversial Tweets

The Associated Press picked it up and we were national news.   Here's the article from a paper for a town in Texas:

AP - Tweeting NH school board member won't step down

This all led up to the next school board meeting (pdf minutes) on 7/20/2011.  The crowd was overflowing and  a TV monitor and additional seating were set up outside the board room.     Many members of the public, including students, spoke out against the tweets.   Mr. Kach did have supporters as well.   I uploaded this meeting to youtube at the ORCSDcleanslate channel.  I was especially proud of the students and recent ORHS graduates who spoke out so eloquenty.

The public comments are pretty good TV.   I was particularly moved by Brenda Worden.  Many people pointed out the "just a joke" defense has been used to justify lots of ugly behavior over the years.   One student (recent graduate? not sure) said how if he had made such tweets, he would have been fired from his job as an associate at Rite Aid.    Several people made the point that had a teacher, administrator, staff member, or student made such tweets, there would have been serious consequences.



There were plenty of letters to editor and articles in Foster's, most against; some supporting Mr. Kach.  Here's a random sample:

Foster's 2011 07 20

Foster's, 2011 07 24
Fosters 2011 07 29
Foster's 2011 08 18
Foster's, 2011 09 28
Call for ORSB board member Kach prompts ethics policy review

There's so much I've left out.   But the bottom line is that, even if Mr. Kach's intentions are good (and the tweet Cut the legs from the beast raises doubts) his very presence on the board divides the community.   The community is divided between those who believe Mr. Kach does not represent them and who thus want to distance themselves from his hateful comments, and those who are willing to overlook the ugly comments if he somehow manages to lower their taxes.   But it will be much easier to lower taxes and improve education when the school board is not justifiably mistrusted by a large subset of the community.

Mr. Kach and Chairman Brackett had their chance.  We got incredible churning of staff - two superintendents, two directors of instruction, a high school principal, a principal candidate that led to a student walkout, a director of IT, an assistant principal to be named, more I'm probably forgetting.  That cost money for severance, for searches, and for lawyers.   The board was twice found by a New Hampshire court to have violated the Right-to-Know law in multiple ways, and the second time was given the harshest penalty available: an injunction compelling them to obey the law or risk contempt of court and jail time.    And taxes are still going up, the new high school is falling apart, and there's still no plan for the future.   Let's start fresh.   On Tuesday, March 13th vote for Maria Barth, Dr. Ed Charlé, Tom Newkirk, and Al Howland.   



- Dean Rubine, Lee

Mr. Kach's Flyer

I picked up one of Mr. Kach's flyers at the candidates forum.  They look really good.  I thought I might comment on them point by point.  Anyone out there, feel free to straighten me out with a comment.

According to his flyer, Mr. Kach's contributions are

- Raised discussion of essential 21st Century facility/technology for students.

Yes, he raised discussion of cutting those things.  First the board cut the paper budget because technology was letting the district go more paperless, then they cut the technology budget.   No new laptops this year.   No equipment for the new cable channel.

- Supported new initiatives in SPED to increase achievement

Not quite sure what he's talking about here.  He supported hiring a district Director of Special Education because of the amount of money being spent.   This didn't happen.   It ended up being one responsibility of our newest Director of Instruction, Phyllis Schlicter.   Dr. Schlicter took over for Merideth Nadeau, who was a Director of SPED and got promoted to be one of the Directors of Instruction, where she worked to integrate regular and special education.   Dr. Nadeau was by all accounts excellent, and she quit while Mr. Kach served on the board, but I have no reason to believe anything nefarious was involved -- she ended up as a superintendent elsewhere. 

Mr. Kach voted against, then subsequently for, the middle school to replace 15 SPED paraprofessionals with 3 special educators and a savings of around $60k/yr.

- Contributed comprehensive policy direction to serve Oyster River.

Yes, Mr. Kach provided the impetus to update the board members' code of ethics when his reprehensible tweets made the district a national laughing stock.

He introduced policy that he intended would divide the community and divert attention from the tweets:  the pledge of allegiance, teaching religion in class.

I think superintendent Levesque was so disgusted he recommended the board dissolve its policy committee, which they did.

- Promoted budgetary transparency.

Sure, but Sue Caswell did the work and deserves the credit.  The ABC did a lot of hard work.   Not to mention Mike McClurkin.

- Voted to elect District Superintendent, High School Principal and Curriculum Director.

Why did all these administrators and more (I count seven since January, 2011) leave and need to be replaced over the course of a year?   Did the way the board was acting had anything to do with it?   Fosters quotes Laura Rogers, the high school principal, saying when she quit, "I find the political tension around the school system to be unproductive [and] not in the best interest of the kids."   

The board had to hire two new superintendents because they paid the one we had $185,000 not to work this year.

The board now actually has experience with two superintendent transistions -- and  two lawsuits to go with them.   They were found guilty of having illegal secret meetings during the first, and guilty of using illegal secret ballots during the second.   The state of New Hampshire has found their conduct so egregious that they issued an injunction and they now risk contempt of court and even jail time if they continue their pattern of violating the Right-to-Know law.

The High School Principal search was so bungled by the board that the students had to strike -- to walk out of class and march to the SAU office in protest.   Justin Campbell, the candidate the board denied after an extensive search, was subsequently hired by the top-ranked high school in the state, Hanover High.

- Initiated District's Transfinder Report for transportation inefficiencies

I recall two or three board meetings where Mr. Kach wanted to obtain and operate some bus routing software himself, like an absurd parody of micromanagement.   Eventually they stumbled on the obvious idea of hiring a consultant who, you know, knew something about school bus systems.  Transfinder, I believe, is both the name of the software and of the company who makes it, who also peddles consulting.   They generated a report, and I think some of it was implemented as the Mast Way dismissal time was pushed back 5 or 10 minutes.

- Provided benchmark data for Food Services

Not sure what this one is about.   Mr. Kach usually complains about plans to pay more for local food (I agree with him here).  He's slightly inconsistent here -- sometimes he's on record supporting local food.  One of his tweets was "SAU#5-NH needs new Supt.;New HS Principal&New Food Ser. Manager".   I think he made good on all three.

On the other side of the flyer Mr. Kach brags about the new superintendent hire -- how he went on the site visit.  This one drives me a bit crazy.  The board was totally against site visits, which to be fair their NESDEC consultant told them not to bother with.  I and a few others wrote letters and made comments and the board came around, at least for the one candidate they settled on.  All but Mr. Kach called "not it" and he went pretty much by default.  But he did go, the visit was indeed worthwhile, and he and really the community as a whole are pretty enthusiastic about the new superintendent.   Kudos, and thanks for listening.

I've really only been paying attention to the board the summer, so there's about a year of Mr. Kach's tenure with which I am not really familiar.   I've indicated above where I'm not sure about things -- hopefully people more in the know (especially Mr. Kach) will fill in the gaps.

- Dean