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Neighbors miss promised officer

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:40:00 GMT

Neighbors of a convicted child rapist whose house is within feet of a school bus stop say their concerns are falling on deaf ears.

Gayle Gillespie says there was no police officer patrolling the bus stop on Monday, Sept. 28 -- something a police captain said would happen every day at the previous Town Council meeting on Sept. 23.

“Don’t come out and tell the public you’re going to send a school resource officer out here, and now say that you’re not going to do it,” Gillespie said. “You wonder why everyone’s so upset.”

Gillespie’s neighbor, Joel Dutton, 45, of 24 Dundee Ave., was convicted in 1999 of aggravated felonious sexual assault of a child, police and court records said. He was arrested again Sept. 18 for allegedly molesting a 7-year-old girl and was released from jail to await trial.

“A police officer definitely told her there would be one there today, but there wasn’t,” said Gillespie’s boyfriend, Steve Hanson. “I’m not too happy about that.”

Despite his words at the council meeting, police Capt. Paul Cecilio said on Sept. 28 a school resource officer would patrol the bus stop as often as possible, but not every day.

“There was no (police) car there this morning,” Cecilio said, adding that the school resource officer took the day off and the patrol supervisor might have been unaware of the bus stop routine.

“He should have ended it with ‘when available,’” Police Chief Stephen Agrafiotis said. “We can’t guarantee somebody being there at a specific time.”

Gillespie and several neighbors addressed the Town Council on Sept. 23 to push for an ordinance that would restrict where convicted sex offenders can live. The town administrator said legal counsel advised against such an ordinance because similar laws have been ruled unconstitutional.

Town Councilor David Boutin, who is also a state representative, filed legislation the following day in an effort to give communities more freedom in notifying residents about convicted sex offenders. Since then, police records show Gillespie called police on Saturday, Sept. 26, reporting several children, including the molestation victim, were seen going inside Dutton’s house. Police investigated the call and said Dutton was not home at the time, meaning nothing illegal occurred.

“We verified he was at an address in Manchester at the time,” Cecilio said. The children were apparently visiting family members who live with Dutton, police said.

“Why did we waste our time at Town Hall?” Gillespie asked. “They’re letting everyone slip through the cracks.”

Cecilio said the police department doesn’t have the resources to patrol the same bus stop every day. He also said the resource officer routinely patrols all school bus stops in town at random to look out for suspicious activity.

“We can’t put a car there every day for the entire school year,” he said. “For a long-range goal, we’re hoping the school can move the bus stop.”

David Ross, vice chairman of the Town Council, said having a police officer at the same bus stop every day is not a solution to the problem.

“When that was stated, there were a few of us that looked at each other,” Ross said. “I don’t see that as being a viable solution. Are we supposed to have an officer at all the bus stops?”

Town Councilor Michael Pischetola, a former Manchester police captain, said enhanced notification of where sex offenders live, similar to a city-wide phone alert system that Manchester has, would be a step in the right direction.

“This town isn’t that big. Manchester is like 20 times bigger than Hooksett,” Pischetola said. “Things like that are used for snow emergencies, but there’s a whole host of things you could do.”

Ross said he would like the schools to provide a map to parents on where sex offenders reside. Hanson, who now says he plans to work with Boutin on his legislation, says the schools provide similar notifications already but would support the map idea.

Investigation report on Hooksett Police Department, Commission: No coverup, poor communication

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:23:00 GMT

By Ginger Kozlowski

An investigation by the Merrimack County Sheriff into whether the Hooksett Police Department tried to hide the existence of safe school reports or cover up safety issues in Hooksett public schools has found no such coverup exists.

However, the report also took the Hooksett Police Commission and Hooksett Police Department to task for its handling of requests by former School Board Chairman Maura Ouellette to get those reports, as well as the town of Hooksett for failing to keep taped recordings of meetings.

“Of particular concern,” reads the report, “is that the Hooksett Police Department appeared to take a defensive stance towards the Ouellettes, giving the impression that no further action was needed on their part and that only the department’s word that additional Safe School Reports did not exist should suffice.”

The report continues: “The fact that a formal written request for the Safe School Reports had not been initially submitted did not supply a strong foundation for the basis of the complaint that a coverup was occurring. A request detailing the exact information requested should have been submitted/requested by the parties involved.”

In November, Ouellette had requested the reports, having noted in a letter to the editor to this newspaper that there were incidents she was concerned about. At the time, Police Chief Stephen Agrafiotis said there were just three incidents involving knives. Months later, the department produced 51 reports, most of which were for incidents like fighting, criminal threatening, theft, bomb threats and the like. One was for the case of “sexting” where a student sent photos considered to be pornography by cell phone.

Poor recordkeeping and communication were brought out in the report.

While Police Commission meetings had been taped, the tapes were not kept, which the Merrimack County Attorney’s Office said proved to be a hindrance to the investigation.

“It was found that persons involved had varying accounts about what had transpired and had been said during meetings,” according to the report. “Each person had their own interpretation of the information surrounding the case.”

The Police Commission could have taken a more active role in the case, said the report.

“This view is based on the fact that communication between the police department and the complainants was clearly deteriorating at a rapid pace,” said the report. “As a result, the lack of effective communication between the parties may have given an appearance that a coverup of Safe School Reports was taking place. It is believed that the Police Commission, being both independent and unbiased, should have recognized the situation forming and stepped in sooner and taken a stronger role in the process of resolving the issue. The commission could have ordered the production of the Safe School Reports prior to this action taking place by the Ouellettes.”

Though the investigation could not substantiate the allegation that a coverup had taken place, the Merrimack County Attorney advised that the Police Commission may want to consider contracting an independent resource to conduct a full study of the department and its operations.

The narrow scope of the investigation was a disappointment to Ouellette, but she said she felt vindicated for the report’s assessment of a need for further investigation.

“It’s important to note that the scope of the investigation conducted by the Sheriff’s department was very, very specific,” she said. “The fact that the Sheriff’s department has discovered areas of concern reinforces the fact an independent audit on the entire operations of the Hooksett Police Department is needed.

“The finding of this report confirms what I’ve been saying and what the officers have been saying for years,” said Oullette. “The Hooksett Police Department command staff and the Hooksett Police Commission are not acting appropriately or effectively. Their practices and actions are questionable at best.”

At the June 16 Police Commission meeting, Chairman David Gagnon said, “I’m satisified with the fact there was no wrongdoing found.”

Gagnon said there is room for improvement, but no further action will be taken and no changes to the commission or Police Department would be taken at this time.

The report “satisfied what we asked for,” he said.

Police Chief Agrafiotis has not answered a request for comment.

PCs are cheaper but schools buy Apples

Hooksett Editor — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:02:00 GMT

BY LAUREN SAUSSER

Popular ad campaigns aside, if 13-year-old Aidan White had his pick, he said he would choose a Mac.

“I think it’s a little bit easier and quicker,” Aidan said, discussing the pros and cons of PCs and Macintosh computers as his seventh-grade French class at Cawley Middle School worked on multimedia presentations. “I actually like Macs because there are more programs on them. There are some pretty cool things.”

But for David Pearl, a member of the Hooksett Budget Committee and a technology volunteer at Underhill Elementary School, it comes down to dollars and cents.

That’s why Pearl has a hard time justifying a $10,000 price tag for 10 new MacBook laptops when PC laptops are currently on the market for about $400 each.

The school district purchase is particularly concerning, he said as he recently addressed the Hooksett School Board, considering the new MacBooks are being used solely by 6- and 7-year-olds at Underhill Elementary School.

“The issue that I have right now is they purchased 10 MacBooks to be used by first- and second-graders,” Pearl said. “I feel like (the computers) are being bought without any plan. I would feel more comfortable spending the money if there was some sort of plan.”

But Bailey Rigg, the technology director for the school district, insists there is a plan in place and the purchase of the 10 laptops in August for Underhill Elementary School is just a small part of the grand scheme.

The 10 MacBooks for Underhill were included in a $60,000- dollar Macintosh order that included 40 iMacs, the desktop equivalent of the MacBook, and 20 additional laptops spread throughout Hooksett’s two other schools. The recent purchase brings the district’s computer count up to about 500 computers or one computer for every five students. Rigg said 95 percent of those computers run on the Macintosh platform.

“Those 10 MacBooks that we put in Underhill this year are the best machines they have in that school,” Rigg said. “The kids are getting a wonderful amount of technology.”

The brand new computers were paid for using money from a leftover fund balance at the end of the 2007-08 school year. Hooksett voters approved the purchase through a warrant article last spring.

Pearl said he has no qualm with administrators integrating technology into the elementary school curriculum or spending money on new computers. In fact, he was part of a team that spearheaded a fundraising campaign to donate 30 PCs with new flat screen monitors to the school free of charge. Every Friday, he teaches students a keyboarding class at Underhill using the donated computers.

“There were some kids who were very computer literate and we realized there were some kids were getting absolutely nothing as far as instruction,” Pearl said. “We wanted to level the playing field.”

But, he said, there is no good reason the district needs to purchase such sophisticated Macintosh hardware when students at these very young ages are only just being exposed to computers and a PC laptop equivalent is available for less than half the amount spent on MacBooks.

Hooksett Superintendent Charles “Phil” Littlefield said there’s no argument PCs are less expensive that Macintosh computers.

But, he said, the School Board made a decision in 2001 that the district would adopt a predominantly Macintosh platform and, to that end, the administrators are sticking to the decision with the recent computer purchases.

“It’s not about the piece of hardware, it is about the extent we can enhance teaching and learning in the classroom with the technology,” Littlefield said. “My position on this is that it was a decision that was made long before I came on board. We’re going to make purchases that are consistent with that decision. We’re done fairly well striking deals with Apple to get favorable prices on hardware that supports and runs the software that our kids are using. That, to me, is cut and dry.”

Along with the Hooksett School District, Littlefield also oversees the Candia and Auburn school districts, both of which use Microsoft operating systems. He said it is useless to debate the pros and cons of Macintosh versus Microsoft but added that although the Apple platform is more expensive, it is generally considered more user-friendly.

“I’m not going to get into the debate over which is better,” he said. “Myself, I’m a PC person. When I came here, I didn’t really know the state of New Hampshire was so Apple-oriented. I grabbed an Apple, put it here in my office and tried to see what people were so impressed with. The next morning, I went to the store and bought one for myself.”

The software that comes pre-installed on the computers is another reason Amy Gillam, the integration technology specialist at Cawley Middle School, says the Macintosh platform is preferred in an educational environment, even for students in the first and second grades.

“When the students are doing a multimedia piece, all the applications on the Macs really speak to each other,” Gillam said. “We’re not teaching operating systems, we’re teaching the software applications.”

Danette Noboa, a second-grade teacher at Underhill Elementary, used the 10 new Mac- Books computers to help her students research information about children’s book author Tomie DePaola.

“They love using these computers,” Noboa said. “Technology is their life. For them to succeed, they have to learn how to use this technology and how to gather the information.”

Hooksett police priorities are questioned

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:34:00 GMT

BY GINGER KOZLOWSKI

To some parents, where Hooksett police officer Jason Defina spends his time is a matter of safety.

To some residents, it’s a matter of money and where it gets spent.

To school officials, it’s about keeping a valuable program running. And to Hooksett Police Chief Stephen Agrafiotis, it’s a choice between putting an officer into the schools or taking a detective off cases and slowing down investigations.

The issue? Retaining the school resource officer. And complicating the matter is the cost of a new sign for the Hooksett Safety Center with an alleged price tag of $33,000.

Cuts to the Police Department The school resource officer is a position both the Police Department and School Board have wanted in place since about 2000. While Agrafiotis planned to have an officer fill that role from about that time, he was constantly short on staff. Finally, in 2006, there were enough officers on staff and Linda Warhol became the first school resource officer in Hooksett.

“Now, we have 29 positions,” said Agrafiotis. “The default budget only covers 28 positions. We started with a budget that didn’t cover all the positions. We’ve looked at it and said the SRO is good, nice, but we need manpower on the road. I tried to leave an officer on day shift so he can spend some time, if possible, in the schools.”

Reaction has been vehement in letters to the editor to The Hooksett Banner.

“Officer Defina’s presence in the school is akin to fixing the broken window in the neighborhood before all the windows are broken and it becomes a slum,” wrote Stephen L’Heureux.

“Has the chief forgotten the numerous times that half his department was at Cawley School last year due to bomb threats?” wrote Miriam Martin. “Where is the chief’s priority? Why is he not concerned for our kids?”

“I don’t want the safety, security and peace of mind of my children sacrificed due to these games,” wrote Nancy Proulx.

Much as Agrafiotis favors the program, budget concerns force tough choices. Asked what he would have to cut if the school resource officer was reinstated full time, he said he would have to cut back on officers on the street or cut back the detective division, which would slow down investigations.

“We’re supposed to serve the whole community, not just a niche group,” he said.

The $33,000 sign Probably the most difficult part of the story for people to grasp is why so much money was spent on a new sign for the Hooksett Safety Center, now renamed for the late James Oliver, police chief of Hooksett for two decades. While the specific cost of the sign itself was unknown to Agrafiotis off the top of his head, he explained there was far more to the price than the sign itself.

He explained that it covered far more than the sign itself, including extensive work by PSNH.

“That money came from last year’s budget,” said Agrafiotis. After Oliver died in 2007, his widow toured the Hooksett Safety Center and noted many deficiencies in the building, he said. On April 17, the Hooksett Town Council voted to rename the center after Oliver, which began the process of finishing lighting, security cameras and more at the building. While the council did not have the money to spend on the deficiencies, the American Legion donated $500 to add Oliver’s name to the granite sign outside the building, and then the Police Department got approval to spend money left over from the budget ending in June.

“That was surplus money. July 1 started the new budget, a default budget. You can’t mix and match that money,” said Agrafiotis. “Now we’re operating on a default budget. It can’t legally be carried over for personnel.

That’s the encumbrances they talk about. The money can’t transfer to the next year. July 1 comes, you start with the new budget.”

Nevertheless, many question the wisdom of spending such an amount on any signs when there is a clear need for money for officer salaries.

“They don’t have enough money for this officer in our schools, yet they have plenty of funds to buy a new sign?” wrote Jamie Boucher.

At issue is that this particular $33,000 was not legally allowed to be spent in the following year’s budget.

“Money was left over because of unfilled positions, but that money had to stay in that year,” said Agrafiotis.

It’s one of those accounting and legal procedures that is confusing.

If you’ve got this money, most will reason, spend it where it is best used and needed. But it was not legally allowed to be used for an officer’s pay in the following budget year.

What does the officer do in school?
Though Hooksett schools are not rife with crime and in need of police presence, having a uniformed officer in the school buildings may prevent a violent crime or at least speed up the response to such an incident. That was never the goal of the school resource officer program.

“He’s provided support in social studies classrooms, discussions with students about law. He’s visible, he’s in the community, he’s in the schools,” said Cawley Middle School Principal Stephen Harrises. “He told me, with the change in schedule, he was on road yesterday, cutting through neighborhoods, kids come out and talk to him when raking lawns. It’s true community building.”

Discipline is sometimes the school resource officer’s role, but a minor part, said SAU 15 Superintendent Charles “Phil” Littlefield.

“The emphasis is on prevention, relationship building” he said. “Our kids are growing up in a far more complex world. Families are really stretched. This is support for kids, family and community.”

Now what?
For the time being, Defina is spending about four to eight hours a week in Hooksett’s schools. Pressure on Chief Agrafiotis may persuade him to change his priorities regarding the use of Defina’s time, but Hooksett residents should understand the choice they’re asking him to make. Do they want police on patrol on the streets, or in the schools? “That’s the consequence of the vote on the budget,” said Agrafiotis.

Corri Wilson hopes having an officer on the street will at least address other problems, thought she supports the school resource officer’s reinstatement.

“I find it troubling when day after day people drive their cars exceedingly fast on Joanne Drive while students are waiting for the bus,” she said. “Perhaps the Police Department can now post officer Defina in a squad car, something I have asked for several times and seen only very rarely in the more than nine years we’ve lived on this street.”

Hooksett police needed on streets, not school

Hooksett Editor — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:51:00 GMT

BY LAUREN SAUSSER

The Hooksett Police Department needs more officers on the street and – to that end – it is pulling the town’s school resource officer out of the schools and onto the road.

Hooksett Police Chief Steve Agrafiotis said personnel issues dictate that the department’s school resource officer will need to cut back his hours spent at the three Hooksett schools from 40 hours a week to somewhere between four and eight.

“Right now we’re down staff. We have a number of personnel who would have been going on the road that aren’t,” Agrafiotis said. “So basically we’re not up to full strength to fill our normal openings on the road so we’ve cut back the hours that the school resource officer can be in the schools.”

Agrafiotis said he does not know how permanent the officer’s new schedule will be. Private personnel issues and the upcoming budget cycle will dictate the length of the arrangement, he said.

Hooksett school Superintendent Charles “Phil” Littlefield addressed School Board members on Oct. 21, briefing them on the conversation he had with the police chief. Littlefield said if it comes down to the school system funding the officer’s presence in the schools, he couldn’t find a way to fiscally justify it.

“Under no circumstances do I think we’re in a position to cut back services to youngsters to fund the public safety position,” Littlefield said.

Cawley Middle School Principal Steve Harrises said the position cutback would be felt.

“He is a part of the building,” Harrises said. “I think there is a nice rapport developing that we will lose. We will miss him here. The students will miss him. I think he’s had such a positive impact.”

School Board Chairman Maura Ouellette agreed.

“He has developed as such a positive role model in all the buildings.” Ouellette said. “We will really miss that. And he is ideal for the position. He really likes spending time with the kids but we have no control over this. It is too bad.”

Agrafiotis said if a safety issue arises at any of the district’s schools, the police will not hesitate to respond. He also said cutting back on the school resource officer’s hours should not pose a real safety threat.

“The schools have very good safety programs in place,” he said. “We were just there to give an extra presence and interaction for the children. If we have any issues that pop up, we will certainly readjust.”

Hooksett schools search for energy savings

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:57:00 GMT

BY LAUREN SAUSSER

Hooksett Schools Superintendent Charles “Phil” Littlefield is looking at what the district has been spending on energy costs and is more than a little worried. With sky-high gas prices sure to set in this winter, the picture isn’t looking any brighter, either.

“The problem we’re facing is that a year ago when we were developing budgets, we all knew we’d have some increases in energy rates, but I don’t think anyone anticipated a near doubling of those costs,” Littlefield said. “What we’re trying to do now is figure out what we can do to mitigate the impact of those costs on the organization.”

No firm plans are in place to lower costs, but Littlefield and the Hooksett School Board are discussing ways – like replacing older model light fixtures with more energy efficient ones – to save money in the long run. Simpler practices, such as making sure windows are sealed during winter months and that computers are shut down at the end of the day, will also help, he said.

“Part of this is setting an example in schools of the responsible use of energy,” Littlefield said. “Our kids play a vital role in this. We don’t want to be draconian about this and we don’t want to be overly aggressive with people, but we do want to identify ways to be more efficient and incorporate those ways into a learning environment.”

Littlefield estimates the school system spends about $200,000 on electricity alone per year. This figure does not include heating the district’s schools. He said if they can cut that bill by even 5 percent, it could save the taxpayers thousands of dollars.

“My goal in the end is to break even,” he said. “I don’t want to have to spend anymore than we did a year ago and I want to be able to absorb the energy increases through efficiency. Whether that’s possible or not, I don’t know. But we’ll see.”

Schools face enrollment ‘bubble’

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:56:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

After just about a year of studying the elementary levels of the Hooksett School District, the School Board’s Long Range Planning Committee came back with the conclusion that the town would need another school in the next 15 to 20 years, according to enrollment projections.

They also concluded the district would need to do something to alleviate a projected first-grade enrollment bubble in the next few years.

At a School Board meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 19, the committee presented its 70-plus page report and findings.

The committee came up with a computerized data model using factors including yearly certificates of occupancy that come through the town planning department, birth rates, average number and age of children per household, and move-in to moveout ratios of homes in Hooksett to closely project the amount of growth or decline in enrollment over the next 20 years.

They used the same numbers for each kind of housing unit that planning consultant Bruce Mayberry used when he extensively studied the town’s growth last year.

“Going into something like this, I think a lot of people on the committee had some perceptions of what we needed in town,” said the committee’s chairman, Matt Comai. “Once we really looked at the data, we found ways which that data was speaking to us differently.”

The committee recommended reassigning students in the district to prepare for a projected 2010-11 enrollment increase that could max out Underhill’s capacity. The school is already approaching the standard 90 percent capacity rate.

The bubble would be passing, Comai said, and would not justify the need for a new building at this point. The committee also advised the School Board to continue working with Manchester Sand and Gravel to obtain a suitable future school site.

The committee emphasized enrollment’s direct correlation to housing construction, and encouraged the board to keep a close eye on those factors to update the multipliers periodically and re-project enrollment.

They also compared the current grade-span configuration model for the district to a neighborhood schools model, which if implemented would require some redistricting. They presented several options for both types of models for the future, including keeping it as and building a preschool and kindergarten facility that would change the grade spans for Memorial, Underhill and Cawley.

The district’s newly formed High School Study Committee will use the same sort of data to explore and make recommendations on the district’s future high school facility needs.

Long-range Planning Committee ready to reveal schools’ futures

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:25:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

Just how crowded will Hooksett’s schools be in the future? Will the town need another elementary school? What about building a high school? The Hooksett School Board’s Long Range Planning Committee has been working to answer these questions, to be reported to the community soon.

Committee members will reveal their findings and reccomendations on the future of Hooksett schools, concentrating on kindergarten through eighth grade, at the School Board’s next meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 19, at 6:30 p.m., in the Cawley Middle School Media Center.

The Long Range Planning Committee, which is composed of school administrators and district officials as well as school board members, parents and community members, has been meeting since April 2007 to look at the needs of the Hooksett School District over the next 20 years.

Committee members have been using data from the Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission, the last census, the New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning, the town’s Master Plan, current enrollment and projections and the New Hampshire School Administrators Association’s 2005 report to make recommendations about the district’s facilities needs in the future.

In September 2007, the Long Range Planning Committee submitted a letter to the School Board urging them to seek land for an additional elementary school.

Based on the town’s projected growth and increase in school enrollment, the committee determined the town would need an additional elementary school by 2011.

The Long Range Planning Committee’s findings will be one piece of the data a new High School Study Committee will use to focus on Hooksett’s high school needs.

“That committee will be put together probably the first or second (school board) meeting in September,” said Littlefield, adding community members have contacted the school administration office expressing their interest in being part of the committee.

The School Board voted in June to establish the committtee, shortly after the budgetary trouble with the Manchester School District, to which Hooksett tuitions almost 600 students.

A new high school will be just one of the options on the table for the high school committee, as well as partnering with other communities in such an endeavor.

Continuing to send students to Manchester schools is also still on the table. Hooksett still has 15 years remaining on its contract with Manchester.

“The High School Study Committee is probably part B of the long-term plan for the Hooksett School District,” Littlefield said shortly after announcing the establishment of the High School Study Committee. “It’s a natural outgrowth of that.”

Littlefield said the goal is for the High School Study Committe to return to the School Board with its final report by September 2009.

Hooksett, Candia, Auburn and Bedford all warn city that budget cuts violate tuition agreements

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:47:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

Cassie Hobbs of Auburn said she might have gone with other friends from Auburn Village to Derry for high school had she known the sports and art classes she loves at West High School would be struck from the school’s budget for her senior year.

“I wouldn’t be in this district if it weren’t for these programs,” said Hobbs, 17, who plays on West’s junior varsity soccer and varsity lacrosse teams and has a growing interest in photography.

“I hope that you think this over,” Hobbs told Manchester’s Board of Aldermen at the city’s budget hearing for the 2008-09 fiscal year.

Thousands of concerned parents from Manchester and its contracted school districts, including Candia, Auburn, Hooksett and Bedford; teachers, many anticipating pink slips; Manchester taxpayers and dozens of students wearing school colors and raising signs showed up at the hearing on Monday, April 28, quickly overflowing the 550-seat auditorium at Memorial High School.

“We estimate that there was close to 2,000 people there,” said Manchester Fire Chief James Burkush, adding the auditorium and cafeteria were both filled to capacity with the rest spilling into the gynasium, which was about half full.

The Manchester Fire Department herded hundreds of others toward the cafeteria and gymnasium to watch the proceedings on projection screens.

The hearing started shortly after 6 p.m. and finally wrapped up around midnight, with the majority of the budget discussion focusing on the school cuts.

The $140 million school district budget Mayor Frank Guinta included in his budget preparation is $13 million less than what Manchester’s Board of School Committee asked for, largely due to the reduction in revenue from Bedford’s high school students transition out of West to their own high school.

This year, the Manchester School District is running on a $147 million operating budget. The $153 million request was a 4 percent increase in the budget.

The cuts mean a level tax rate for Manchester, but also the loss of many teaching positions, eight vice principals, athletics, music and art classes, NJROTC program, performing arts, and virtually all other funded extraand co-curricular programs.

The academy structure that West High School was planning to implement next year has also been canned.

Hooksett School Board Chairman Maura Ouellette spoke around 10:30 p.m., warning aldermen and the mayor that cutting these programs and eliminating teaching positions that would inevitably increase class sizes, which would constitute violations in the Manchester’s tuition contract with Hooksett.

The cuts may affect the accreditation renewal of Manchester schools, also a breach in contract, Ouellette said. “With the proposed budget, Manchester will certainly put its accreditation status at risk, thereby jeopardizing students competing for slots in the highly competitive college arena,” Ouellette said.

She added cutting such programs would affect Manchester students’ college applications and scholarship eligibility.

“These programs not only offer a student the chance to excel, it gives them a reason not only to attend school but to do well in school,” Ouellette said.

The Hooksett School Board’s attorney sent a letter to Guinta and aldermen Chairman Michael Lopez informing them of this point.

Ouellette added the cuts would increase class sizes to levels beyond the state’s accepted levels, the minimum being 30 students per class or 24 students for lab classes.

“The ramifications of an ill funded school budget are far reaching and almost impossible to correct at a later date,” Ouellette said.

Elaine Hobbs, mother of Cassie Hobbs and Chairman of the Auburn School Board, agreed with Ouellette’s statements and added that the cuts may overwork the school district administration and remaining staff at the schools as well as affecting students’ well-roundedness.

The Auburn School Board’s attorney also sent a letter to the Board of Aldermen outlining their concerns about violating their tuition contract.

“So, if the cuts are to take place, you may be in breach of contract, which would allow for Auburn, Hooksett, Candia and Bedford to opt out early without penalties and/or (those districts) would not be responsible for the capital component of the contract,” Hobbs, one of the last speakers, told the Board of Aldermen, adding that could further affect the budget.

Candia School Board Chairman Ed Caito said he could not make the meeting, the board being represented at the meeting by other board members who did not speak or issue a statement.

“I really feel that the mayor and the acting superintendent should try to get beyond the rhetoric and both be willing to roll up their sleeves with their own people and say let’s work on this together and come up with a solution,” Caito said, adding Mayor Frank Guinta and Superintendent Henry Aliberti have taken “extreme positions” on both sides of the coin.

“There’s no question that the economic environment is different, but there’s got to be some middle ground,” Caito said.

Prior to the meeting, Ouellette said Hooksett sends 560 students to Manchester schools.

The Hooksett School Board has been searching for buildable land to possibly go to voters with to construct a high school in town.

“We knew that it would be coming up,” said Ouellette about Manchester’s school cut, “that’s why we’re looking at sites for a new high school.”

Manchester wants money now for Hooksett high school tuition

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:27:00 GMT

BY GRETA CUYLER

A major enrollment miscalculation on the part of Manchester schools means the city is asking Hooksett for nearly $250,000 more in high school tuition costs for the 2007-08 school year.

And that means most of the projects Hooksett planned for improving local schools will be put on the back burner.

“We sort of got hit with this by surprise,” Dr. Charles Littlefield, superintendent of SAU 15, told the Hooksett School Board last night.

Hooksett sends its students to Manchester high schools -- this year, that number is 512 students.

Contractually, Hooksett pays a tuition fee per student, a figure that gets reconciled each year. For the past three years, Manchester has divvied out an annual credit to Hooksett, anywhere from $147 to $278 per student.

Now the tables have turned dramatically.

The initial estimate for Hooksett this year was a per pupil cost of $7,100, a $200 increase over the last year. But Manchester told Hooksett lower-than expected enrollment -- with no decline in costs -- has upped that figure to $7,584.32 per pupil, an increase of $484.32 per student.

Littlefield attributes the miscalculation to a number of factors, mostly the new high school in Bedford. He also cited general enrollment declines across the state and Hooksett students who attend high school outside of Manchester.

“The Bedford pullout, honestly, was probably the most difficult to predict,” Littlefield said.

This year, Bedford High School has 588 students in ninth and 10th grades. Next year, the enrollment is expected to jump to 959 students with the addition of 11th grade.

Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta said the city has lost 1,500 students over the past four years.

His $276 million budget proposal slashes education spending in the city by $7.3 million.

Instead of waiting until October, when Manchester and Hooksett typically reconcile their high school enrollment figures, Manchester is asking if Hooksett can pay the shortfall now -- a total of $247,971.84.

“We think we can pay a healthy part of this,” Littlefield said last night. “Our hope is to pay all of it and start the school year on solid ground.”

But that means four local projects won’t get done in Hooksett because the board hoped to pay for them with leftover budget funds. Postponed projects include a traffic study at Underhill School, additional lighting at Cawley Middle School, installing cameras on school buses and putting in two means of egress at the elementary schools.

The district promises to complete the projects approved by the voters on this year’s warrant, including a technology upgrade and a new maintenance van.

Littlefield said he also plans to turn over $130,000 to the town as promised for health care costs saved under the new teacher contract.

The increases for Hooksett aren’t over, as Manchester has also revised tuition estimates for 2009. In 2009, the estimated per pupil student cost is $7,990.22.

Hooksett Village School soon to be Town Hall

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:56:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

Work crews are making headway at Hooksett’s old Village School in converting the antiquated building into a town hall and community center.

The hope is to wrap up construction in February said Hooksett Town Administrator David Jodoin, who has been putting volunteer effort into the renovations along with many other Hooksett residents.

Resident Jim Levesque and Southern New Hampshire University’s Daryl Dreffs were presented with award certificates at a Town Council meeting on Nov. 26 for their work on the school. Levesque spent long hours on Saturdays doing the electrical wiring for the building and Dreffs worked on the data and phone cables.

“It’s good use of an old building,” said Levesque of the project, noting the cramped space of the current town offices and lack of storage room.

At Town Meeting two years ago, voters approved the project and a year later $500,000 in funds to turn the building and 15 acres of land over to the town from the school district’s hands and pay for the renovations.

The intent is for the building to house all of the town offices currently located in the Town Hall at 4 Main St. and provide space for community functions.

The gymnasium in the building will be cleaned up and pretty much left unchanged for this purpose, Jodoin said.

Currently, crews are finishing the painting. Carpeting and tiling still needs to be done, as well as plumbing.

Before he passed away in January, Alan St. Pierre constructed a safe at the school, donating about $5,000 worth of labor and materials, Jodoin said, and finished in about a day and a half.

“He’s always been the type of person to help out with the town,” Jodoin said. “Everytime I go in there and I see (the safe), it brings back the memories.”

The main entrance will be at the back of the building, allowing people to walk up to the second floor and access the administration, finance, planning, building and human resource departments among others. The new Town Council chambers will be on the first floor. There are currently wheelchair lifts at the staircases to make the building handicap accessible, which need to be repaired before the building can open, Jodoin said.

Emergency Management Director Albert Dionne is looking at grants to further upgrade the building, including funds for a full-service kitchen that would give the community an emergency location, in case of evacuations, from the Cawley School.

The older front section of the building has not been touched yet, Jodoin said, but the plan is to restore that section to its original character.

Student to be charged in second bomb scare

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 21:04:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

A second bomb threat at Cawley Middle School on Wednesday, Sept. 27, has led Hooksett police to a student.

According to the school’s principal, Ron Pedro, the student wrote something on the wall of a boys bathroom, and two other students who knew of the incident told Pedro.

The student who wrote the message this time has not been connected to the first bomb scare on Friday, Sept. 21, which led to the entire school’s evacuation.

Hooksett police Capt. Paul Cecilio said this newest incident was apparently a copy-cat case.

“We haven’t ruled him out, but we’re pretty sure it’s not him,” said Cecilio on a possible link between the cases.

The school was not evacuated, Pedro said, because the message written this time was one word and was not a threat, per se.

“There was no direct threat to the school,” he said.

He added that he did not send letters home to parents explaining the incident, as he did with the first one.

“We’re afraid to let some information out that shouldn’t be out,” Pedro said.

Detectives Nick Pinardi and Chris Dupuis responded to Cawley at after 1 p.m., about 30 to 60 minutes after Pedro said the incident was reported to him.

Police said the student wrote the word “bomb” in pencil above a urinal in the bathroom and erased it before faculty or staff could see it.

Cecilio, who has a child in the school, said he would expect that the school would notify authorities as soon as something like this happens, and was concerned police weren’t notified sooner about the second incident.

“You have a crime, and by law, they’re supposed to report it to us,” Cecilio said, citing the Safe Schools law.

No charges have been filed against the student yet, but Cecilio said they would be once the investigation was completed. Charging will get complicated, Cecilio said, because the suspect is a juvenile.

An adult committing the same crime would be charged with false public alarm, Cecilio said. The student’s charges will probably be similar, he said.

He added that the fact that the writing was erased will make it harder to move forward with the case.

“Some of the evidence was destroyed. It makes it tough to prosecute cases when you can’t provide the evidence,” Cecilio said.

Pedro said he personally has been checking bathrooms every hour on the hour since the first scare, and that other faculty members are doing the same.

Police and school district officials will discuss the issues and the exchange of information, as well as policies, at an upcoming meeting.

“We will be meeting with school department to make sure something like this doesn’t happen in the future,” Cecilio said.

Pedro said the student has owned up to his involvement and will face scholastic consequences. Usually, he added, such an act warrants suspension.

“The important thing is the student is taking responsibility for what he did,” Pedro said.

Online access – Web sites make it easier to stay in the know

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:58:00 GMT

BY GINGER KOZLOWSKI

When it comes to getting access to public information, your best bet is often to go in person to the town hall, school district office or police department itself. But that is time consuming and difficult for many people. Going online is not only simple but available at any time.

The Right to Know Law does not specifically address electronic communication, since e-mail and the Internet did not exist at the time of its writing. Many towns and school districts do make minutes and other information available online. One police department in the 16 towns covered by Neighborhood News has even put its arrest logs online.

The law requires minutes to be posted within 144 hours (six days) of a meeting. Posting usually consists of pinning a printout to the bulletin board in a town hall, library or other public spot.

In the six years since Neighborhood News first took a look at what local governments make available online, things have changed significantly. Auburn, Allenstown, Candia, Epsom, New Boston and the Bow SAU didn’t even have Web sites at that time.

Today, every town and school district can be accessed online. Only the Hooksett Police Department has no Web page at all, while most police departments offer at least basic information through pages on a town Web site, and the Weare and Pelham police departments have their own complete Web sites. In one unique twist, SAU 24 has video of a school board meeting right on its home page for all to view.

Most town sites post not only the minutes to the town council or selectmen’s meetings, they also include planning, zoning and other committee minutes.

Costs

Costs associated with Web sites can mount, but hosting one is not always expensive.

In Auburn, Kate Lafond, administrative assistant to the Board of Selectmen and the person who updates and maintains the town’s Web site, said two years of Web hosting cost $48 and the town pays $8.99 annually to use its domain name.

In Weare, Town Administrator Fred Ventresco said they pay about $180 every two years to their Web host.

Keeping up the content

The big cost may be just keeping Web sites up to date. Someone has to put that content online. Lafond typically updates the Web site once a day.

“It takes a few minutes, depending on how much I need to post,” she said. “It’s fairly easy to do.”

Goffstown Town Administrator Susan Desruisseaux said the Web site’s design and maintenance are performed internally.

The minutes are uploaded to the site as soon as they are available and all press releases are sent to the town’s information technology worker.

“The economic development council originated it to get news out to attract business and industry to the town several years ago. It’s grown to provide more public information as time went on,” Desruisseaux said.

Lisa Cox, the Web site coordinator for SAU 53, said she spends anywhere from half an hour to multiple hours per week updating the content on their Web site. The district’s individual schools, she said, maintain their own Web sites.

“It is very up to date and accurate, as it’s maintained on a daily basis. And I also feel that’s it’s visually appealing and easy to navigate,” Cox said, adding that the last time she updated the site was Thursday, Sept. 20.

Sandi Babson, webmaster for Hopkinton’s town site, said she oversees the updates made by 10 other people from different departments.

“Each department is responsible for updating their own department’s information,” she said. “It makes it easier because, as a webmaster, I wouldn’t necessarily know what’s out of date and what isn’t,” she said, adding that the police department update their logs on a monthly basis.

For the most part, she said, updates are made on time.

“We try to always meet that five-day Right to Know (period), just to keep everybody covered,” she said.

Unique features

Most sites provide the type of information you would expect to find on a town, school or police department. Some offer some unique features.

In Salem, the town runs a monthly photo contest, where contestants are asked to submit photos of the town reflecting a monthly theme. The winners are posted online and will become part of a calendar for the next year.

New Boston introduces itself as the “Gravity Center of the World,” thanks to Roger Babson and his Gravity Research Foundation located in the town.

The Hopkinton Web site is the only one offering police logs online, though the Salem Police Department is close to doing the same.

Bedeviled – Mistake-prone Memorial blasted

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:01:00 GMT

BY DAVE CHOATE

Memorial High School had little margin for error against Salem High School. The team quickly trimmed that margin to zero with a bevy of mistakes and penalties.

The Crusaders were blown out by the visiting Blue Devils on Friday, Sept. 7, 42-7.

Memorial head coach Dante Laurendi said his team was doomed by turnovers. The most glaring was a botched snap into Memorial’s end zone that resulted in a hurried throw, an intentional grounding penalty and a safety.

“We just didn’t come to play mentally. We can’t make a lot of mistakes against a team that good,” Laurendi said.

Memorial, 1-1, managed its one score in the third quarter on a 5-yard run by halfback Chris Tomlinson. The Crusaders also briefly threatened late in the second quarter after running back Ben Copp broke off a 72-yard run, but the clock ran out shortly thereafter.

The score might have been more lopsided if Memorial hadn’t come up with a nice defensive stop in the second quarter. Defensive back Domingo Cruz picked off a floater in the end zone from Salem backup quarterback Peter Allain.

Memorial visits Concord next time out. Laurendi said the team must work on mental focus and run defense in practice this week because Concord is also a team with a physical running style.

“We’ll keep plugging away. Hopefully, we’ll be able to stop the run a bit better against Concord, but we’ll have to clean up the mental errors first,” Laurendi said.

Hooksett off failing list – State to step in on Manchester schools; suburban schools uneven on tests

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 20:30:00 GMT

BY JENN MCDOWELL

Hooksett students have scored well enough to get their elementary schools off the state’s list of schools in need of improvement.

However, graduates of middle schools in Hooksett, Candia and Auburn may step in to high schools in which the state is a heavy presence come next year.

The Hooksett School District, with generally high scoring all around this year, just came out of a “district in need of improvement” status, a dark cloud hanging over it since 2005.

High schools

The state designated the Manchester School District as “a district in need of corrective action” according to the Adequate Yearly Progress reports, released on Monday, Aug. 27.

Students in Hooksett, Candia and Auburn attend Manchester high schools, all three of which – Central, Memorial and West -- were dubbed “schools in need of improvement” for the third year in a row. Schools with such a designation are supposed to receive help from the state to make improvements.

While the three city high schools are noted in one of the state Department of Education documents as failing the progress tests three years in a row, the high schools did not take 10th grade tests in time for this year’s results and did pass graduation requirements.

Pembroke Academy, which Pembroke, Allenstown and Epsom high schoolers attend, met the requirements for proficiency in math and reading.

Elementary schools

The results for Hooksett, Candia and Auburn school districts showed improvement, with all three districts attaining overall positive results.

Allenstown and Epsom schools were found lacking in the report, while Pembroke schools got passing grades.

Overall, Hooksett schools performed well in the testing, the only downfall being that Hooksett Memorial School did not meet the requirement in math.

Auburn Village School also did very well, passing in all requirements, even in subcategories, and remaining consistent with last year’s results.

Epsom Central School did not meet the requirements in reading or math. Last year, the school passed in both categories.

In the “educationally disabled” category, Epsom Central failed to meet requirements in both reading and math.

Subgroups cost schools as a whole

The educationally disabled category was a problem for many school districts across the board, including Pembroke, Candia and Allenstown.

Dr. Betsey Cox-Buteau, principal of Armand R. Dupont School in Allenstown, said the fact that her school did not make AYP in either math or reading is disheartening.

“There’s no good way to put it,” Cox-Buteau said.

She said the school is working on a variety of reforms to improve next year’s results, but those efforts will not be reflected in this year’s NECAP scores since the testing starts next month.

She added that parental involvement is key to fostering literacy in children.

How a school’s status is determined

The reports are issued each year and are based on students’ standardized test scores. In compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act, schools and districts must meet state requirements for proficiency in math and reading.

If a district does not meet the proficiency goals in both categories for two years in a row, that district receives a “district in need of improvement” rating. The district must then formulate an improvement plan.

The district as a whole must meet the requirements for the next two consecutive years to drop that label.

If the district does not correct the problem on its own, it gets a rating of “district in need of corrective action,” in which case the state steps in to solve the problem through whatever action it deems necessary.

The same time frame goes for schools: those that are deemed a “school in need of improvement” in a subject must make adequate yearly progress in that category two years in a row to exit that status.