School Board Considers Renaming Track and Sending Firearm Resolution To NH Governor – Dresden School Board Update (04/24/2018)
April’s Dresden School Board meeting took place in the HHS library as usual on April 24th. It began with a proposal by a member of the public, Karina Lukovits, who graduated from HHS in 2015. She ran track throughout high school and was coached by Chris Brown, who passed away in the fall of 2016. She made a Facebook page to gather quotes and comments from people who knew him, and is now proposing to officially name the HHS track after him.
Here is the sheet she handed out to the board summarizing the work she has done:
Andrew Winter, the executive director at Twin Pines Housing (a development company that has worked with the town of Hanover before to build condos and affordable housing) also spoke during public comments. He gave an update on the company’s plans to redesign the senior housing across the street from HHS. There will be a town meeting to discuss the new plans on May 8th. The new buildings would be more energy efficient and will have elevators; construction would start next summer.
Next on the agenda was an update from the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), which operates across the road from the Richmond Middle School on Lyme Road in Hanover. Due to the facility’s proximity to the middle school, the school ground are often checked for any toxins that may have escaped from CRREL. However, officials at CRREL now want to reduce the amount of testing at RMS due to low levels of toxins.
Neil Odell, the head of the DSB shared a draft of a Firearm resolution that he wrote shown below:
This resolution is just a draft but it calls on Governor Sununu to pass legislation that allows local school boards to determine whether or not firearms are allowed on their campuses. Currently, New Hampshire law states that school boards cannot prohibit members of the public from entering campuses and schools with a gun.
The board was not completely in agreement as to whether they should send a resolution stating the board’s opinion on firearms to the New Hampshire House in Concord, and what the resolution should include. Some board members contended that the board should just argue for local control and standing behind the district’s current policy (which is does not permit guns at school) instead of taking a broader stance on the issue of gun control in schools. They will continue their discussion at the May meeting.
The Dresden School Board will have their retreat on May 15th and will hopefully host members of both the VT and NH state legislatures.
Finally, Business Administrator Jamie Teague gave the quarterly financial report of the district, which ended March 31st.
INTERESTING! Note: Neil Odell, the chair of the Dresden School Board recently attended the National School Board Association meeting as a Vermont representative. He told the board that when he was there the two major topics were adding gender identity wording into National School Board resolutions and the issue of whether to arm teachers. There were representatives from each state at the conference, and the body was evenly split as to whether schools should arm teachers. They then voted electronically (and anonymously) on whether they should add gender identity into the discrimination wording. It failed with below 2/3 of the body in favor. However, Massachusetts called for a re-vote and this time it could not be anonymous. Members had to hold up paddles indicating whether they were in favor or not, and it passed. Now, the Nation School Board Association discrimination wording includes gender identity. I think this is a great demonstration of the importance of accountability in democracy.
Also of note: Teacher Appreciation Week starts on May 7th so start to think about how to show your appreciation!
