TOWN MEETING 2010 is COMING! VOTE ON MARCH 9, 2010
Please see our front page for the candidates and positions.
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Thanks for posting the candidate slate for 2010. Thanks to all the candidates who are running this year particularly the candidates who will be fighting for the taxpayers.
Nice e-mail heads up!
My son says that there is a Dean of Humanities whose last name is Coe. Does anyone know if there is any relation to the school board candidate Shawn Coe?
I see some very good candidates with positive voting records for Selectman- Rick Hiland and Tom Keane
Thanks for updating me on your e-mail list. I never received one before. I was wondering who was running and am very interested what others have to say.
I was wondering on how that budget freeze thing is working out with the school. What school board member proposed it? I also heard that one school board member told the attendees that people can raise the school budget a million dollars. Is this true because it is not a very responsible to do in a deep recession.
Is there any chance someone could write up what is happened with this so we can stay informed. I do not trust the Concord Monitor so I hope someone at this website can enlighten me.
I know I’ll be voting for Keane and Hiland for Selectmen and I will NOT be voting for Bloomfield that’s for damn sure. hahaha.
Bow Tea Partiers: Yes, Ms. Bloomfield told the public that ultimately it is the voters who have the final say. Those in attendance can lower or raise the budget as they please. A dangerous precedent was started last year when the BFL folks increased their line-item. Now, I was for that, but I don’t want to see a line-by-line vote for each item.
Jim Hoffman should be given a chance, but I doubt he’ll make it in.
This is wonderful news. We have some conservative candidates to vote for. I agree with “enoughalready” that Mr. Hoffman should be given a chance on the Budget Committee. I like his style and the research he puts into his PP presentations at TM. Certianly Mr. Keane as Selectman and Mr. Hiland on the Budget Committee have proven themselves friends of the taxpayers.
The big question is can the BIG spenders be overcome. It is obvious that the Judd machine is active in Bow. How many more lawyers and past government employees do we need running things in Bow and spending tax money that many do not have in this economy?
It is refreshing to see the current slate of candidates stepping up to the plate in Bow. Maybe we can bring some sanity back to the tax structure in Bow.
The following are e-mail comments forwarded to me:
Shawn Coe’s wife Jackie teaches at BHS and is the Dean of Humanities. Coe’s wife already has his running for SB on her facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/jacqueline.coe.
Another BHS teacher Westcott has him up on her facebook – ja-jp.facebook.com/julie.westcott
The second link didn’t work
Another BHS teacher Westcott has him up on her facebook – http://www.facebook.com/julie.westcott
I just went to Julie Wescotts’ face book page and she is a fan of Shawn Coe for School Board.
I got a questions to the my fellow Bow voters. Are you comfortable with a Bow Teacher promoting a Bow School Board candidate using a social networking website that is highly influential to her students?
I would like to see these candidates post their philosophies on this website. I know Jill Desrochers and Ginger Fraser were huge Obama fans and they lean to the left. This scares me if they are running as big spenders. We need to know more about them. Does anyone know anything about Kally Abrams? Shawn is employed by Londonderry School District. He and his wife are career educators. They may be union hard liners. I don’t know, let’s hear from them. I don’t want to read what they are about by other lefties on Facebook.
Where are the 1/26 and 1/28 Budget Committee Minutes? I can’t go to midweek public hearings and have been keeping up with them in this manner. I expected them to have been posted by now.
Bow Tea Party person – I am not comfortable. These underhanded actions are just like what is going on in Washington. I think it is very irresponsible of the Bow administration to allow teachers to get involved in political campaigns that are such a conflict of interest.
I think we need to send a message to Bow Administration that if they don’t stop the politicking going on in Bow schools than we till cut their budgets. Just like with the library we can go right to the budget line item for principals and superintendents and cut cut cut if they are not willing to do their job then they will have to get paid significantly less.
My kids have all graduated but teachers have a huge influence on our children if they are supporting a candidate use that influence on a voting age student than that is indoctrination which makes the Bow administration even more accountable and take urgent action that is transparent to the public.
Interesting background on Selectman and SB candidates.
Jill Desrochers is an attorney and has often represented school districts. If elected Bow would have three lawyers out of five selectman. That’s a scary thought.
Shawn Coe’s wife already has his running for SB on her facebook page http://www.facebook.com/jacqueline.coe
Shawn Coes’ wife is an English teacher at Bow HS and Dean of Humanities. Talk about a conflict of interest if he is elected.
Shawn Coe is the director of IT services for the Londonderry School district.
One more teacher with ties to Shawn Coe pushing his election
Another BHS teacher Westcott has him up on her facebook – ja-jp.facebook.com/julie.westcott
IMPORTANT
Here is the definitive non-partisan study on US school systems. The highest any state scored was a c.
NH received a D-. In the detailed study the failure in NH as elsewhere was largely due to teacher tenure and a system that rewards teacher failure and makes it impossible for taxpayers to get rid of bad teachers.
http://www.nctq.org/stpy09/reports/stpy_newhampshire.pdf
http://www.nctq.org/p/
Put out by:The National Council on Teacher Quality is a nonpartisan research and advocacy group committed to restructuring the teaching profession, led by our vision that every child deserves effective teachers.
Taxed out
Thanks for the info. The school board candidate is the husband of the Dean of Bow’s Humanities department. What a conflict of interest.
I don’t care how good of candidate he is his huge conflict of interest disqualifies him. I am having my son watch for teacher’s campaigning for him.
Another teacher for Coe, this one from Hollis. Erin White on Facebook
Coe info:
Location:Bow, NH, 03304Birthday:February 13, 1971
Detailed Info
Personal Information:Director of Technology for large public school system in NH
Experience in the construction and presentation of school budgets
Accomplished project manager for large, public software projects
Worked in finance and cost accounting
Undergraduate degree in accounting from Colby-Sawyer College, New London, NH
Masters degree in liberal arts from Dartmouth College, Hanover, NHPersonal Interests:39 year-old Bow resident, married to Jackie for 14 years
Father Abigail (grade 4) and Amelia (grade 1), both at Bow Elementary School
Adjunct Professor at Marlboro College Graduate Center in Information Technology
Active member of NHSTE (New Hampshire Society for Technology in Education
High School football and lacrosse coach
Granite State Gymnastics Center Booster Club Member
Contact Info
Email:shawn.coe@hotmail.com
Shawn Coe for Bow School Board wrote on January 20, 2010 at 7:07pm
As a School Board member, I pledge the following:
A focus on preparing our students with 21st century skills because technology will change both learning and teaching
A commitment to strategic planning at the District level to ensure that current and future school needs are balanced with community commitments through thoughtful planning
An emphasis on communication and transparency to the community so that there is an understanding of what are our tax dollars are getting for us
Dee Reynolds Treybig
Vote for Shawn on Tuesday, 3/9 7am-7pm! If elected, Shawn will be the only member with elementary school age children. He also has a business degree AND is a technology expert to help keep our children up to date with technology training.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shawn-Coe-for-Bow-School-Board/262906424118
The part about the ’21st century’ is new age jargon and I don’t like that.
Not sure what he means by “community commitments.”
Ask to clarify what things mean, especially if they start babbling about ‘global education’.
Beware, and ask if they believe in some of this educational newspeak that you can find here:
http://www.illinoisloop.org/lingo.html
Yeswecan: the only problem will be if we can’t make good on that kind of threat. We all know that cuts have been proposed in the past but, how many of them have actually passed. Unless there are some very gifted orators in the audience who can make a convincing argument, then the gloom and doomers will win out.
Plus, with salaries being a negotiated item, I’m not sure if we can make those changes.
I do have a question/suggestion:
Though we don’t follow Robert’s Rules of Order at SBM or TM, we could still effectively use the filibuster to an advantage. If there is a particularly contensious article that we know of ahead of time, why don’t we organize an en masse effort to get people up to the microphones? Even if the question is called, the moderators MUST stick to their rules and allow all standing at the mics to speak. So, we keep a good stock of speakers up there until we run out.
Sure, it may annoy some, but at least the people will get to hear arguments and debate and NOT just the drivel come from mainly the SB members.
Sorry to post another one, I’ll try to limit these in the future:
I do think a close and careful examination of the line-items may be a good thing. Show the boards that the townspeople are doing their homework. If you see an increase in a line-item from last year, propose we amend it back to last year’s totals. The SB/SM and BC may not like it, but we do have that right and we have prescedent to back it up. All one need do is look at TM 2009.
Not to mention you have a far better chance of amending the town’s budget by making specific line-item cuts RATHER than letting the respective boards choose from where they come. As an example:
In 2009 the town spend $7,000.00 on widgets
In 2010 the town wants to spend $8,500.00 on widgets.
Go right to that line-itm and reduce it by the $1,500.00 and it’ll probably pass with some good convincing; a whole heck of a lot easier than trying to reduce the budget in one fell swoop by cutting say $300,000.00.
Just my thoughts on this and I could be wrong.
Dee Reynolds Treybig reason to support Coe is because he has kids in the elementary school. What kind of reason is that? As an elected official she should should be concerned the massive conflict of interest of having a spouse as a school employee.
I am wondering if the press is going to cover the fact that this candidate’s wife works for the school district. Lets hope so. How about it Union Leader?
ConservativeMom-Warning Kally Abram is off the scale liberal. Huge Obama girl.
I have read previous budget minutes from this website and her voting record is full steam ahead spender. As Obama would say we have to spend our way out of this recession.
Signed another conservative mom
Has anyone asked Mr. Coe if he would remove himself from teacher contract issues? Whose better, him or Mrs. Bloomfield?
Please take our poll on the home page.
Oh God, I wouldn’t vote for either Bloomfield or Coe!
But that’s just me. I nreality, you have to make that choice.
New Hampshire teachers rated “F”
http://www.nctq.org/stpy09/reports/stpy_newhampshire.pdf
Area 3: F
Identifying Effective Teachers
New Hampshire’s efforts to identify effective teachers are sorely lacking. The state only has two of the three necessary
elements for the development of a student- and teacher-level longitudinal data system, and it does not offer any direction to districts about teacher evaluation content, including requiring the use of subjective and objective
measures such as standardized tests as evidence of student learning. New Hampshire also fails to require multiple evaluations for new teachers or annual evaluations for nonprobationary teachers. In addition, the probationary period for new teachers in New Hampshire is just three years, and the state does not require any meaningful process to evaluate cumulative effectiveness in the classroom before teachers are awarded tenure. Further, the state’s licensure requirements are not based on evidence of teacher effectiveness, and it does not report any school-level data that can help support the equitable distribution of teacher talent.
Conservative Mom
A bullet vote for Robert Louf is the wisest choice. A bullet vote means voting for just one candidate when you have the option to vote for 2 candidates.
You may ask why would you do that? The answer to that question is that if you vote for the lesser of 2 candidates it could be your own vote that knocks out the candidate that you really want to win.
How would that work:
Lets say 1000 people voted for school board for 2 seats. You could have as many as 2000 votes.
Candidate A got 701 votes
Candidate B got 650 votes
Candidate C got 649 votes
You and your spouse’s favorite candidate was candidate C. You are not really sure about candidate B but you really don’t like candidate A so you vote for B & C. Your 2 votes for candidate B made your favorite candidate C lose.
This is why they call it a Bullet vote because it is very effective to make sure that the candidate that you really want get the best chance to win.
Just to add if you just voted by bullet vote the vote tally would be:
Candidate A: 701
Candidate B: 648
Candidate C: 649
Because there 2 seats available you favorite candidate would win a seat.
I hope this makes sense.
Now imagine if a lot of people voted this way. It is very effective!
Here is how I see it:
Friends of taxpayers:
Tom Keane & Rick Hiland for Selectman
Jim Hoffman & somone else for Budget Committee
Robert Louf & somone else for School Board
We need more taxpayer friendly candidates. Does anyone have any ideas?
What is with the Library? I heard they have increased their budget by several percent? Is this true?
I also heard that health insurance costs have increased significantly across the board. Is this a result of the NHMA LGC mis-using funds?
I find it interesting that its a conflict that Shawn Coe is running for School Board, however, its not a conflict that both Cindy Martin, who is on the Budget Committee, and Tom Keane, who is on the School Board have blogs on this site. Apparently its only a conflict if the person’s views differ from those on this site.
Admin note: We don’t see a conflict of interest since this blog is merely a vehicle for freedom of speech as anyone has, and neither Tom nor Cindy or anyone else will benefit monetarily for their efforts and opinions here.
However, if someone is running for a position that oversees jobs held by relatives, it’s a clear conflict of interest. That said, if they would like to blog here too they should drop me a note.
So let’s see, Cindy, Tom and others on the boards encourage on this site people to vote to reduce school budgets and to vote for candidates that agree with this position so that a quality education is near impossible to give our children do not monetarily benefit from those proposed reductions. So are you telling me that the only people in Bow who would benefit from a reduction in the budget are people who are related to school employees? If that’s the case, I better find a teacher to marry and quick!!
That is rather an extreme view. Near impossible? Bow spends millions on their schools first of all. The best teaching years I had were when the funding was CUT, because then I wasn’t forced to do such wacky things that interfered with real teaching and learning.
Secondly, EVERYONE in Bow would benefit from a reduction in the budget but only a few will benefit from increased spending, such as we teachers, since there is absolutely NO correlation between money spent and quality of education.
Not saying the board members themselves would benefit, but their relatives will…and this would mean they would have a tendency to vote in their favor rather than looking at the objective problem we have with too many administrators, too many fad programs, and not enough real teaching going on.
Look at the studies – NH got an overall “D”. An “F” in many categories. Teachers are not educating our children. Sure, the very, very few students who are good at science and math and head to Dartmouth to become doctors. But the vast majority? They are left behind. Our schools are a failure.
FMKS must stand for “For My Kids Sake” ??
You need to open your eyes for your kids sake.
AS long as teachers are going to be forced to use fuzzy academics and watered down curricula in favor of political agendas like climate change, redistribution of the wealth and overpopulation = humans as the enemy, they will not learn anything else…
As long as teachers are discouraged to correct spelling, grammar and not teach phonics or handwriting, the quality of education will continue to decline.
If the nationalization of our schools happens, as Lynch is pushing for, we are in deep trouble. They want to turn high schools into country clubs where the ‘whole child’ will dictate what he or she learns, when he or she learns it, and how he or she learns it.
Total fad education.. total nonsense.
Blame your clueless little governor and his NGOs, Tracy, Lyons, Arne Duncan and Marc Tucker, the Clinton’s education guru for all the garbage.
http://www.ed.state.nh.us/education/News/HSvision.htm
Teacher: After reading your posts, I’m not sure you know what “real teaching and learning” is – when budgets are cut and class sizes are increased to the sizes we are heading toward at BES and BMS, GOOD teachers are not able to provide differentiated instruction. All classrooms are made up of low, middle & high learners. With the size of classrooms at BES and BMS, it is becoming increasingly difficult for teachers to bring all their kids to their full potential. Since you seem to be disenchanted with teaching in Bow, perhaps you should consider putting your name on the chopping block and allow 1 of the 7 teachers whose positions hang in the balance to breathe a sigh of relief.
Secondly, EVERYONE benefits from children who are well educated and contributing members of our society and yes, there is a correlation between money spent and quality of education. When money is cut that equals teachers being cut which will in turn continue to increase class sizes. In this case, size matters!!
The reason large class sizes are not feasible is the way they are asking teachers to teach or actually NOT teach. If they used tried and true methods they could handle 25 children.
All classrooms are made up of low, middle and high learners I agree, so why then must it be a one-size fits all situation? The reason it’s impossible is the lousy methods they are touting as ‘best practices’. These are created by psychologists to bring about an attitudinal change, NOT to teach skills and knowledge.
You should be happy that there is at least one teacher who wants to keep teaching instead of swallowing all these expensive fads that have failed our kids.
Telling me that EVERYONE benefits from children who are well educated and contributing members of our society is an old cliche that is overused. It’s like saying eating food will stop me from being hungry.
Numerous studies have shown repeatedly that there is NO, NONE, NADA, ZIP correlation between money spent and quality of education.
While spending per pupil has more than doubled, reading scores have remained relatively flat. In fact, you will also see that during years when ‘reforms’ were pushed, test scores actually went DOWN. Is it any wonder when we are taught NOT to teach?
http://www.heritage.org/research/Education/bg2179.cfm
Some towns in NH are spending more tha $17K per child per year!
Is your school using THIS BOOK?
http://gunowners.org/fs0306.htm
What exactly are the “tried and true methods”? Please elabrorate on the “expensive fads” which is news to many of us in this town considering we have not spent any money in the past few years to implement any new curriculum or add any new programs. We don’t even properly support the few academic programs we do have.
I would like to bring your attention to some very astute 2009 graduates of BHS who recently wrote that a 2005 Columbia University study stated that small class sizes are the most cost-effective in the long run. Class size reduction is one of the five “successful interventions” that improve education, decrease dropouts, and increase productivity. In order to achieve small class sizes, money must be spent to keep and hire good teachers and give then the tools with which to teach in the 21st century.
As far as cost per pupil – the State average is $13,521 – in Bow we spend $12,013. In addition to being below the State average, we are also below the average of towns with comparable NECAP scores. Before you get all up in arms, yes, Bow’s cost is higher when compared to geographic neighboring districts, however, neighboring districts DO NOT score comparable to Bow on the NECAP.
We are slowly becoming an average school district and myself as well as many others in this town will not go down without a fight!!
There isn’t enough space here to debunk ‘best practices’ propaganda and small class sizes could be achieved if you look at your administrators and get rid of half of them, or at least put them in the classroom where the work is done.
Only someone who works within the system sees the true picture of how education is delivered.
NECAP scores are not what they seem — they are based on standards that get a D-. Listen to this researcher who knows her stuff…
http://www.nhtaxpayerradio.com/othermedia/Banfield_NECAP.mp3
OMG – now it’s the administration and the people who produce the NECAPs fault for the issues in the school district. Your continued comments about not having enough space here or not knowing the true picture are just more empty excuses. The ultimate decision on how our school system grows or doesn’t grow comes from the people who live and vote in the District.
Why not do your own research. Did you listen to the interview? I know the true picture, I’ve lived it, studied it and studied it some more.
I know the issues inside and out. The trouble is, does the school board even listen to the voters?
I can answer that one Teacher: No, the School Board really hasn’t listened, until recently. Though I’m sure the scare tactics will come out full boar and we’ll end up with those teacher’s jobs being saved.
I’m all for education, but I also see For Sale signs sprining up everywhere.
We need to start a new subject blog, this one is too long.
Gee, a report from Columbia, I wonder how objective they were in writing it? Did they focus on big, failing, urban schools, or ones like what we have here in Bow?
This is the issue, enrollment is down 18% (I’ll have to see the numbers for myself on this one) If this is right, we should take the current staff back to what it was when the numbers were 18% less. We hired when we needed to, approved those budgets, now can we make an adjustment? Is it really a problem to have 20-21 kids in the HS classes? In a town like ours we don’t need to waste just because “we’ve always done it that way” I guarantee unless they are going to New England College in Henniker, there will be more than 20 students in a class. I don’t agree w/ a cut beyond what is reasonable. The education of our kids is very important. Not every class will have over 20 kids. Personally, I would rather have 2-3 more kids in a class and have some money to make curriculum and school improvements. How about a sports track at the Middle School, painted tarmac at the elementary school for recess activities, anti-bullying curriculum. This is in addition to upgraded IT equipment. Maybe the big spenders in town have large open homes and their kids are not used to tight quarters and sharing bedrooms and bathrooms. Mine are not that priviledged.
One of the excuses you hear for spending extra money for programs like IB, (which should be driven out of our system by the way just on its mission), is to recruit because enrollment is declining.
Government is not a business that should be looking to grow. It should shrink appropriately when enrollments decline.
If you want to cut, start from the top –
Administrators and ’special’ instruction overseers who walk the halls and ‘advise’ other teachers but who don’t actually teach. You’ll see a lot of those I’ll bet
Have the guts to say NO to programs that are offered for money but come with strings.
Have the guts to demand that if something is required by the state or feds, to fight it in court as unconstitutional, or at least demand the money if it is unfunded, also illegal.
And have the guts to listen to teachers who tell you that the methods touted as ‘best practices’ just do NOT WORK.
Get rid of the political agenda — we are not here to teach kids about socialism, the redistribution of the wealth, to succumb to world government, or to be community organizers. However, since 1946, that’s been the agenda of public schools.
I say “AMEN” to the Teacher on what we should be teaching!
I just read the Budget Committee minutes from the 1/26 meeting. We can find out more on Monday night, but it appears that our school enrollment is NOT down 18% in grades 5-12. Therefore, I cannot support a reduction in teaching staff on those merits alone.