Allenstown News : Epsom

Hooksett, Allenstown added to schools in need of improvement

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:03:00 GMT

Hooksett Memorial School and Allenstown Elementary School have joined the list of schools in need of improvement following state testing results.

Several local schools were either added to or maintained their positions on the New Hampshire Department of Education’s “school in need of improvement” list after failing to make adequate yearly progress in either math or reading based on statewide testing.

To be on the list, a school must fail to meet adequate yearly progress, measured by state testing results in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11, in the same content area, reading or math, for two years in a row. To exit the “school in need of improvement” (SINI) designation, schools must meet adequate yearly progress standards in the same content area for two years in a row.

The Department of Education’s 2008-09 adequate yearly progress (AYP) results were compiled based on the state assessments New Hampshire students took in October 2007.

Doing well

Auburn Village School and Epsom Central School made AYP in both content areas this year in all subgroups. Auburn Village School also surpassed the state’s benchmarks for 2007- 08.

After failing to meet AYP for the 2007-08 year, Epsom Central students rose to the performance level of Auburn Village and attained AYP in both reading and math for the 2008-09 year.

“They put a lot of work into trying to emulate the benchmarks in state standards and to match themselves with what the state indicates they should be doing in areas of curriculum,” SAU 53 Superintendent Thomas Haley said.

Dropping down

Test results showed Hooksett Memorial School students missed AYP standards for the second year in a row, getting them a spot on the preliminary 2008-09 SINI list for math.

Memorial students also scored below AYP in reading, and will earn a SINI designation in that subject if they do not show improvement in reading after the next round of testing.

Cawley students missed AYP in math this year, but it was their first year doing so. They are not on the list yet, said Superintendent Phil Littlefield.

Candia Moore School missed AYP in reading but made it in math based on the testing. Having been on the SINI list last year for math, the school must maintain its scores in math in the next testing round to exit that status.

Littlefield said the poor results of the special education subgroup brought the overall schools’ scores down to below AYP standards at both Moore and Memorial.

“As a school, each did fine. In both cases, the issue that they have is the performance of a subgroup and in both cases that is youngsters with an educational disability,” Littlefield said.

After missing AYP in math and reading for the 2007-08 year, Allenstown Elementary students made AYP in reading for 2008-09 and missed it again in math, earning them the designation of a new SINI in math for the 2008-09 year.

Armand Dupont School went into the October testing with a 2007-08 designation of SINI in reading and also having missed AYP in math. After the latest test results showed they missed AYP in math this time around but made it in reading, Dupont is now listed as a SINI in both content areas for 2008-09, and will exit their SINI status for reading if they meet AYP next time.

Three Rivers School in Pembroke missed AYP in math and reading, and will go into the third year of its SINI designation for 2008-09.

Pembroke Hill School made AYP in reading and missed it in math for the 2008-09 year, but is not on the SINI list. The results for Pembroke Village are not yet available because, being designated by the state as a small school, it is subject to a different review of the results.

Haley said the educationally disabled subgroup hurt Pembroke and Allenstown schools, and said those districts might consider appealing the SINI designation after looking more closely at the results.

“The good news is that we made AYP in both areas of the full school and in every subset except for educationally disabled,” Haley said. “We don’t know if we missed AYP in educationally disabled by eight or 10 students, or if we missed by one.”

High schools struggle

Pembroke Academy will enter its third year as a SINI in math and also missed AYP in reading this year. If Pembroke Academy students miss AYP in reading during the next testing cycle, they will go onto the SINI list for reading as well.

Both Manchester Memorial and Central high schools are entering their fourth years on the SINI list for both content areas for 2008-09.

West High School attained AYP in math based on the October testing results, but remains on the SINI list until the next round. Making AYP in math next time will get them off the list for that subject.

West students missed AYP for reading and the school will enter its fourth year on the SINI list for that subject.

According to statewide statistics from the Department of Education, 282 schools in the state failed to make AYP in either reading or math. A total of 175 made AYP in both content areas, based on the October test results.

Police dispatch costs to rise

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:17:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

After the Bow Dispatch Center increased its fees for the four other towns it covers, Allenstown, Epsom and Pembroke are faced with payments that more than double the prior year’s payments for Bow’s services.

Despite having to bite the bullet on the fee spike, law enforcement officials from all three towns say the increases are fair and equitable to the quality of service they get from Bow Dispatch.

“Where do you put a price on someone’s life? And that’s the way I look at it,” Epsom Police Chief Wayne Preve said, adding the dispatch services are imperative to officer safety.

Under the new fee agreement, Allenstown would pay just more than $40,000, Epsom would pay $43,000 and Pembroke would pay $59,000, based on 2006 call volume figures plus a $10,000 base fee for all the towns. Dunbarton, which accounts for the least percentage of overall call volume, would pay almost $23,000.

Those payments will add up to around $165,000 in revenue for Bow Dispatch, more than double the $79,000 they collected from the four towns for the 2007-08 year.

The need to increase fees arose from a need to create more revenue for Bow after a budget season that left the town, like all of the four remaining towns, with a tighter belt.

Bow Police Chief Jeff Jaran said it’s going to cost Bow taxpayers about $400,000 to run the dispatch center for the coming year, and, after collecting the fees, they’ll be left with about $235,000 to pay.

This is consistent with the call volume devoted to Bow service calls, which account for about half of the total.

In 2006, Bow Dispatch handled a total of 44,534 calls. Bow service calls counted for about 42 percent of that total. Allenstown and Epsom each made up about 15 percent of the total, Pembroke comprised about 22 percent and Dunbarton about 6 percent.

Preve said the increase was hard to swallow as the town works its way through the third year on a default budget, saying he budgeted $50,000 to prepare for the extra costs.

Preve said the costs were fair, given the workload at Bow Dispatch, the employees’ familiarity with all five towns and the lack of facilities to fold their dispatch service into Merrimack County which serves 13 communities.

He added moving to Merrimack County’s dispatch service would require better facilities and adding frequencies to the radio waves that would be specific to Epsom and possibly surrounding towns willing to get involved, namely Pembroke and Allenstown.

Pembroke Police Chief Scott Lane said he favors a regionally based dispatch service at some point, but agreed with Preve that would not be possible in the next few years.

Lane said he explored Merrimack County as well as the dispatch centers for Concord and Hooksett as options upon hearing about the fee increases for Bow’s service, but found there were spacial and technical issues that would not be worth the money saved at this point.

“No one’s happy about it, but it’s the cost of doing business,” said Lane about Bow’s new fees. “I can certainly understand where the residents of Bow would want to make sure everyone’s paying their fair share. We’ve been fortunate that fees were as low as they were for so long,” he said.

Allenstown Police Chief Shaun Mulholland said his department looked at folding into Merrimack County as well as running their own dispatch center, which would cost the town at least $350,000. He added the increases were fair, pointing out Bow is still paying the majority of the costs to run the dispatch center.

Police departments in Allenstown and Epsom have paid secretaries that filter out some of the less pressing calls that would otherwise go straight to dispatch, but both Preve and Mulholland said they still feel they are paying their for their weight of the overall call volume.

Mulholland added that Allenstown’s costs for Bow Dispatch services would likely increase in 2009 if voters pass a default budget at the election in March, which would force the department to lay off their nights and weekends secretary.

Holidays bring out drunk drivers – and police

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:12:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

To combat drunk driving around the holidays, local police departments created extra shifts and paid out some overtime for more manpower during Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

The police departments in Allenstown, Pembroke and Epsom are part of a task force with Chichester and Bow police as well as the Merrimack County Sheriff’s Office to take action against drunk drivers, a move to decrease arrests and accidents, something that has caught hold nationally.

The task force got funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation to run “saturated patrols” as part of their “Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest.” campaign.

The extra money paid for the man hours spent on the additional patrols.

Bow police recently joined the task force, so they are not being funded for their patrols this season, but will participate with the other agencies in future saturation patrols and sobriety checkpoints.

Those who behaved While most towns saw no arrests or accidents related to drinking, police chiefs agreed that’s a product of preparation on the departments’ parts and residents’ wise choices.

“Everyone was doing what they were supposed to do,” said Epsom Police Chief Wayne Preve, adding his officers made plenty of stops that yielded no drunk driving arrests.

“There were so many cops out there, you couldn’t move without getting stopped,” he joked.

In a few situations, he said, his officers stopped vehicles that had already been stopped in other towns. Being the most central town in the task force, some cars were stopped for the same infraction in two or three towns, he said.

Keeping with a yearly tradition, the snow emergency parking bans in Allenstown and Epsom were lifted on Christmas and New Year’s Eve to allow parking on the streets. This encouraged people to stay where they were in the event they were impaired, Allenstown Police Chief Shaun Mulholland said.

“We prefer that they not drive impaired if it means they have to stay where they’re at,” he said.

Pembroke residents also seemed to stay under the radar, Pembroke Police Chief Scott Lane said, adding that no arrests or accidents related to drunk driving occurred during Christmas or New Year’s.

In the 1980s, Lane said, drunk driving was much more prevalent in town.

“When I first came on the job, you made your bread and butter on DWIs,” he said, adding that amount of driving-while-intoxicated arrests in town per year has decreased to around 30 from around 100 in the 1980s. “We still have too many problems with it, but it’s still better than it used to be,” Lane said. He added the force will be out in droves during the NFL playoff season, which he said often yields more drunk drivers than the holiday season.

Those who didn’t While Candia is not a part of the task force, they do coordinate with Raymond police to provide extra patrols in their towns during the holidays, said Candia Police Chief Michael McGillen.

Candia did have two drunk driving arrests during the afternoon on New Year’s Eve, according to Sgt. Scott Gallagher. “It’s a good thing they were off the road earlier in the day,” he said.

Eric Johnson, 49, of Deerfield, was charged with one count of driving while intoxicated after a concerned resident observed him acting intoxicated in the parking lot of Ace Hardware on Raymond Road. Officer Daniel Gray responded and pulled Johnson’s vehicle over as it exited the parking lot.

During a thorough search of the vehicle, Gray found an open bottle of vodka strapped to the inside of the vehicle’s hood with a bungee cord.

Johnson refused a Breathalyzer at the scene and was taken into custody. His arraignment was scheduled for Feb. 6 in Auburn District Court.

Robin Dahlbloom, 52, also of Raymond, was stopped about an hour later for operating without headlights. Gallagher, who pulled her over, said Dahlbloom was showing signs impairment, including slurred speech and awkward motions.

“She was lethargic in her motions and evasive as far as speaking with me,” Gallagher said, adding she refused a Breathalyzer. Her court date is also scheduled for Feb. 6 in Auburn District Court.

National trends
A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study looking at the trends in holiday drunk driving from 1982 to 2005 shows increases in the number of fatal accidents involving at least one impaired driver during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

According to the study, the average number of fatal accidents during the holidays involving drunk drivers jumps from 36 during regular year to 45 around Christmas and 54 around New Year’s.

Researchers predicted that if trends held this year, accidents involving a drunk driver would kill about 430 people nationwide this holiday season.

The study also found that fatal crashes resulting from drunk driving account for about 40 percent of total fatal accidents on Christmas and New Year’s.

Sobering stops – Local police find sobriety checkpoints make drivers aware

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 21:17:00 GMT

BY JENNIFER MCDOWELL

The number of vehicle accidents involving impaired drivers is on the rise across the state said Allenstown Police Chief Shaun Mulholland.

In an effort to combat that important public safety issue, the police departments of Allenstown, Epsom, Pembroke and Chichester have teamed up with the Merrimack County Sheriff’s Office to form a task force dedicated to organizing sobriety checkpoints.

Mulholland said the task force has already performed 12 checkpoints this year.

“All of our departments work together to put a maximum effort out there,” Mulholland said.

Judging from the activity at the checkpoint in Allenstown on Friday, Aug. 10, by the Mega X gas station on
Route 3, it appears the checkpoints are a crucial part of the fight against impaired driving.

During the checkpoint, police arrested three individuals with 65 ecstasy pills, marijuana, and other paraphernalia including weighing devices.

Zachary Patton, 18, of 28 Cross St. in Allenstown, and Devon Newbegin, 18, of 10 Garvin Hill Road in Chichester, were held on $12,000 cash bail an arraigned in Hooksett District Court on Aug. 13 on charges of possession with intent to distribute.

Mulholland said Newbegin was arrested the night before in Concord on similar charges.

Patton was also charged with breach of bail on a previous offense.

Jonathan Clark, 18, of 15 Fisher Ave. in Boscawen, was in the car with Patton and Newbegin and was released on personal recognizance that night. He is scheduled to appear in Hooksett District Court on Tuesday, Sept. 25, on a possession with intent to distribute charge.

Mulholland said the bust resulted from claims made by two girls, friends of the three suspects, who entered the checkpoint in the car directly in front of the one containing Clark, Newbegin, and Patton.

At 2:45 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 11, police arrested Alyssa Ramahlo, 17, of 399 Gold St. in Manchester, for driving while intoxicated. Her passenger, Marissa Leafe of 120 1st Ave. in Manchester, was charged with illegal possession of alcohol and underage possession of tobacco products.

“There were two cars altogether coming back from a little get together,” Mulholland said.

Upon their arrest, the girls admitted that they had been drinking and smoking marijuana that night with Clark, Newbegin, and Patton, which led to the search that revealed the drugs, paraphernalia and $700 cash in the vehicle containing the three male suspects.

Both Ramahlo and Leafe were released that night on personal recognizance and will answer to their charges in Hooksett District Court on Tuesday, Sept. 25.

In addition to those five arrests, police made four more that night for a total of nine arrests: four charges of driving under the influence, three on drug charges, one unlawful possession of alcohol, and one driving after suspension, second offense, Mulholland said.

Police departments across the state have taken strides to reduce the occurrences of impaired driving.

“Checkpoints are one of the most effective ways to do that,” Mulholland said.

He added that plans for next year’s checkpoints are already underway.