BY JENN McDOWELL
Candia residents and Moore School teachers worried about missing either of the scheduled public forums on the proposed Candia-Auburn middle school need not worry.
Candia’s School Board has announced that a special meeting for Candia residents will take place Thursday Sept. 27, at 7 p.m., in the Moore School gymnasium.
Only a few Candia residents made it to the first forum at Auburn Village School on Sept. 11 to view designer Dan Bisson’s plans for the building, receive copies of the draft tuition agreement and hear Auburn School Board Vice Chairman Kathleen Porter review and explain highlights of the agreement.
The Moore School’s open house night was on that night, preventing many parents from attending.
Candia School Board Chairman Karen Smith said many parents were worried about scheduling conflicts with other school events, including a public session on Internet safety scheduled for the same evening, which would prevent them from showing up at the second presentation at Auburn Village School on Tuesday, Sept. 25.
“What I’m planning on doing is mimicking the same format, the same presentation with the same handouts. It should basically be a replay,” Smith said, adding that Bisson, of Team Design Inc., would again present his three-dimensional movie program of the building plans.
“We want to make sure everyone getting the same information,” Smith said.
Smith said it is crucial for Candia residents to voice their opinion on the new school proposal, both in terms of it being related to education of the town’s children and of it having a direct impact on taxes in the town.
Also, with teacher contract negotiations on the horizon for both towns, it’s important for teachers to be informed about a section of the tuition agreement which states that not all of the Moore School’s sixth- through eighth-grade teachers are guaranteed positions at the new school.
“We’re sort of caught between a rock and a hard place with that,” Smith said. “Our teachers are in a collective bargaining unit just like Auburn, so we don’t really have much control or say over what the Auburn teacher’s union will want.”
She added that it seems, based on the number of students combined in the two towns, that most, if not all, of Candia’s teachers would be employed at the school, but that there are no official guarantees.
“When you look at the numbers, you need the middle school teachers that we have just to make the numbers work,” Smith pointed out.
She also said there may be Moore School teachers who would not want to move to the new school, but that those things have not been discussed yet.
As it stands, the draft proposal for the tuition agreement offers Candia middle school teachers first consideration in the hiring process.
Auburn’s teachers’ union would have to agree to allow all of Candia’s teachers to automatically have jobs at the new school.
“I think all of us here are being optimistic, and we’re trying not to close any doors,” Smith said.
At this point, only the building designs and the tuition agreement are topics of discussion at any of the forums.
By October, according to Porter’s presentation in Auburn on Sept. 11, preliminary cost estimates for the project, a major source of anxiety among residents in both towns, should be ready for public input.