September 9, 2025 • 59 mins
Liz talks with Rep. Hope Damon about what is happening with the school district, which faces a multi-million dollar deficit in its school budget - and what the State of New Hampshire can / will / will not do, depending on who you ask...
This episode was recorded on August 28, 2025.
New episodes every Tuesday.
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Have an idea for an upcoming episode? Email Liz: newhampshirehasissues@gmail.com
Links:
- Financial woes could force Bluff Elementary to close, students would be reassigned (Valley News)
- Claremont school board meeting turns heated as district makes budget cuts in face of deficit (WMUR)
- Claremont schools terminate 19 new hires amid budget crisis (Valley News)
- 8/25/25 School Board Meeting (CCTV)
- 8/20/25 School Board Meeting (CCTV)
- 8/14/25 School Board Meeting (CCTV)
- State Representative David Luneau 8-26-25 (New Hampshire Today with Chris Ryan)
- ConVal Lawsuit (NH School Funding Fairness Project)
- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Quorum (This American Life, “I Work Better on Deadline,” Act One)
- Department of Education blocks key data in audit of education freedom accounts (New Hampshire Bulletin)
- NH Supreme Court: State falls far short on school funding, but leaves fix to Legislature (NHPR)
- Superior court judge again finds NH school funding model unconstitutional (New Hampshire Bulletin)
- Education Freedom Account Data Shows Wealthy Parents Flock to Free Money (InDepthNH)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
UNKNOWN (00:01):
applause
SPEAKER_00 (00:04):
I think that many people don't know that the
structure of education fundingin New Hampshire is that the
state pays less than 30% of thecost of public schools.
The federal government pays lessthan 10%.
The question I'm often askedabout where does all the lottery
(00:26):
money go, 8% of the cost ofpublic schools in New Hampshire
comes from the lottery andthat's included in the less than
30% that I just stated.
So the bottom line is propertytaxes in communities throughout
the state pay 65 to 70% of thecost of our very valuable public
(00:48):
schools.
We just had another court rulingcome out Monday night of this
week finding largely against thestate saying that we are not
meeting our constitutionalobligation to adequately fund
public schools and as otherspeakers noted that is most
definitely not the first courtfinding.
(01:13):
To date, the legislature has notsucceeded at changing the
structure of the educationfunding system to comply with
those court rulings.
Some of us are trying very, veryhard.
Others are not in favor ofchanging the way that it's
funded.
I encourage you all to reach outto me, to any other
(01:36):
representatives or educationfunding committee members.
to get the facts and payattention to the way your
representatives vote because ithas become a very partisan issue
and we're trying to get a waythat all of us come together to
approve the funding from thestate.
SPEAKER_02 (02:09):
You are extremely well-respected.
People look to you for theanswers.
I am looking to you for theanswers of what's going on in
Claremont today.
SPEAKER_00 (02:20):
I would love to say I have the answers, Liz.
You do.
I think you do.
No?
Well, I have some perspective.
I wouldn't say I have all theanswers.
The number of people who havemessaged since that meeting when
I spoke and tried to clarifysome things who said I was
calming, I was like, Wow.
I had no idea that that was whatI was doing.
(02:43):
I thought I was just providinginformation.
Thank you very much.
And then last night on Facebook,someone asked if I am the
spokesperson for the ClaremontSchool District.
And I did, in fact, laugh outloud because no, but...
And no thank you, probably, aswell.
(03:09):
Right.
Dare I say, because there's nomoney to do so.
SPEAKER_02 (03:35):
That's not.
Right.
Not something to necessarilyfund in the school funding
(03:56):
situation.
SPEAKER_00 (04:00):
Right.
which are the nine towns ofAckworth, Langdon, Lemster,
Goshen, Washington, Springfield,Sunapee, my hometown of Croydon,
and the city of Claremont.
SPEAKER_02 (04:17):
You've said that before.
I feel like this is not yourfirst
SPEAKER_00 (04:19):
time.
I have.
And I will say, I say it fairlyregularly in that slightly
random order.
It's not alphabetical.
SPEAKER_02 (04:28):
You represent the city of Claremont.
Something's happening inClaremont right now.
And I became aware of it wheresomebody sort of said it in
passing.
I was like, oh, can you believewhat's going on?
in Claremont.
And then it took like fiveseconds to bring up, you know, a
recent news article that saidthere's no money and the schools
might need to not open for thefall.
(04:50):
So a lot has changed in the lasttwo weeks, in the last week, in
the last 24 hours even.
We're recording this onThursday, August 28th.
And Representative Damon, you'rehere because you're like in it.
You've been to the meetings,you've been, you know, sharing
your perspective.
And And in the state house, as astate representative, you serve
(05:11):
on the committee that isliterally all about education
funding.
So I start with a simplequestion to you.
What is going on in
SPEAKER_00 (05:21):
Claremont?
cash flow shortage and amulti-million dollar deficit.
(05:43):
The actual amount is yet to bedetermined, but it's over$5
million.
It may approach 10.
SPEAKER_02 (05:49):
Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00 (05:50):
And it probably reflects the last two or three
years, but since audits have notbeen done in a timely fashion,
just plain haven't been done,that's part of how we don't know
how bad the situation is.
But it came to a crisis pointthree weeks ago.
because the school boardinformed the community that they
(06:12):
didn't know if schools couldopen because they haven't paid
their debts and they didn't knowif they would be able to meet
payroll.
They have not paid the stateretirement system or school
care, which is the healthinsurance program for the staff,
and have many vendors thatthey're in debt to.
And it just reached thiscritical point.
(06:33):
And we are a state that has aconstitutional requirement for
an adequate education to beprovided to all K-12 students.
So the very idea that a schooldistrict could say, we don't
know if we can open schools,this is unprecedented territory.
It has never happened in NewHampshire.
There have been school districtsin financial distress and in
(06:55):
debt, but not to this level.
So that's the short version ofit.
Schools did open today.
So freshmen at the high schooland new students went back to
school and everybody goes backWell, all the students go back
to school tomorrow.
Not all the staff goes backbecause there have been very
(07:15):
significant cuts.
SPEAKER_02 (07:17):
The meetings that I have watched have included a
really wide variety of peoplegetting up to the microphone for
public comment and sharing theirperspectives at different stages
of this process.
As you said, this really came tolight three weeks ago, at least
to the public's wide awareness.
(07:38):
And in each meeting that hasfollowed, there's been maybe
more and more people.
At least that's how it's feltfrom an outsider perspective.
The people who've shared publiccomment have been staff members,
teachers, coaches, communitymembers, parents, and students
themselves.
You've also shared publiccomment each time.
(08:00):
What has been most surprising toyou in the last three weeks?
SPEAKER_00 (08:06):
That's a great question.
Let me paint a bit of a picture.
(08:38):
people do watch the livestreams, but as is not atypical,
essentially very few peoplepresent for a school board
meeting, which I think is truein most communities across the
state unless you've had a crisisor are having a crisis.
SPEAKER_02 (08:51):
And true for not just school board, but select
board meetings, budgetrecommendations committee, like
all those local committees.
Typically there's really nobodyin the room but the people who
are serving.
SPEAKER_00 (09:02):
People are leaving it up to elected officials to do
their job until that's notwhat's happening.
So So a week later, theauditorium at Stevens High
School was standing room only, Ibelieve it holds 500 people, and
it opens to the gymnasium, whichhad a large number, largely
students, in their athleticuniforms and in distress.
(09:24):
So we went from people are notparticularly paying attention,
certainly not present in person,to an outpouring of community
concern, passion, worry, fear,anger, the whole gamut of So I
think that is one of the veryvisible takeaways that the
community is extremelyconcerned, as one would expect,
(09:48):
and participating.
The second observation I wouldmake is that largely both of the
very vigorously attended publicmeetings have been civil.
In fact, there's been a lot ofcompliments to the schools.
There have been mixed feedbackto the board and administrators,
but it has not been 100%negative.
(10:08):
There are people who are angryand there were a few outbursts
on Monday night this week, butlargely very, very concerned,
very, very upset, but a verycivil process.
And honestly, going into thefirst meeting, I'm not sure that
I was confident that would bethe case.
(10:28):
Claremont has really shownitself to be a community, to be
a community that cares deeplyabout the well-being of their
kids and their school staff.
And to show up and say sothey're also really really
impatient to know how the heckdid we get here because this
should never have happened
SPEAKER_02 (10:47):
i wrote down some notes of folks you know as i was
watching the recordings and thepassion and love for the schools
and for the district and for thecommunity just comes across over
and over again every student whogot up there which is so
incredible that students aregetting up to the microphone in
front of hundreds of people justpouring their hearts out.
(11:10):
And every single student wasessentially saying, please open
our schools and please make surethat I can graduate or make sure
that I can get the classes Ineed.
Please put sports back on thetable.
They want their school.
They want their schools and theycare deeply about their schools.
So that came across over andover again.
(11:33):
But that question of like, howdid they get here?
How did they get here?
How did this So
SPEAKER_00 (11:39):
before I try to answer that to the degree that
we have some knowledge but notcomplete at all.
(12:08):
And the messaging of the lastseveral plus years from people
who want to create distrust inpublic schools and devalue them
and create fear that weirdthings are happening in schools
that are not happening there arewrong.
The vast majority of NewHampshire kids go to public
schools and succeed and do welland have people in the schools
(12:32):
who care deeply about educationfor all children.
And to hear the students supportYeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (13:08):
That is a testament to the strength of public
schools and to the families.
That is a testament to the greatwork that happens in the actual
community.
SPEAKER_00 (13:18):
I think that's absolutely true.
And I think it's important tonote that there were students
who are on a higher educationcollege-bound track, and there
were students speaking who areprobably not on that track.
And they all spoke effectivelyand from the heart and from
their positive experiences.
And it really is quiteextraordinary in that regard.
SPEAKER_02 (13:40):
I am biased as a former high school teacher that
when I see high school studentsdoing the things that I'm like,
you are just crushing it.
And you shouldn't have to be inthis situation to start with.
But whether they're going on tocollege or community college or
the military or a job, you couldjust tell from those rooms and
from those meetings that thestudents care deeply about their
(14:03):
school and the community caresdeeply about them.
And that comes across.
And so So I will just say that Iam a bit frustrated to hear
folks outside of Claremont speakill of the school or the school
district or whatever.
Because I'm like, you're noteven from there.
You can't speak badly about acommunity that you're not even
from.
(14:23):
But let's set that aside formaybe later.
Or not.
Let's dig in.
I'm very frustrated by peoplewho...
SPEAKER_00 (14:33):
Make judgment?
SPEAKER_02 (14:34):
Yeah.
I mean, I love making judgmentsabout things.
I am all about judging.
things, but not school districtsand school communities like
that.
Definitely not.
SPEAKER_00 (14:43):
It's a deal breaker for me.
Claremont is a old mill townthat is recovering from the
transition from mills andindustry to technology and
service and tourism.
And the former mayor, CharleneLovett, would describe Claremont
just a few years ago as a cityon the rise, which I think it
is.
(15:03):
You know, the old mill buildingsare being redeveloped.
The city has some gorgeouslandscape.
There's a fabulous effort tocreate it as a mountain biking
destination.
There's a lot going on.
But outside of Claremont, Ithink the reputation of the
community is of a less thansuccessful, not economically
(15:24):
thriving community.
And so I think probably whenpeople hear about this school
situation, folks outside thecommunity are hearing about it
and layering it onto thatincomplete or wrong perspective.
I really have come to loveClaremont so much.
So much in my almost three yearsas a rep.
It's a really wonderful place.
So how did we get here?
(16:08):
decades.
And then we layer on top of thatprofound financial mismanagement
and we layer on lack ofsupervision is not the right
word, what am I looking forhere?
Oversight.
Oversight, thank you.
From the State Department ofEducation under the prior
Commissioner of Educationdeparted Mr.
(16:30):
Adel Bluth, who put all hisenergy Reverse shout out.
Right?
Put all his energy or most of itinto where can we educate kids
outside of public school?
Let's give voucher money toaffluent families so their
children can continue to attendthe schools they already were
attending, the families we'repaying for.
SPEAKER_02 (16:51):
And what you're alluding to is the school
vouchers, education freedomaccounts.
There's a few episodes ago withChristina Pretorius where we
talk about the majority ofpeople who are getting those
school vouchers are already inprivate schools.
And now those are available tothe wealthy No, that's
SPEAKER_00 (17:15):
totally fine.
And I would add into that, ifyou're not an affluent person,
the voucher is not enough moneyto allow a lower income or
middle class family to sendtheir child to many schools that
require tuition.
You wouldn't be able to do itunless that school is heavily
(17:35):
discounting, which they mightbe, some are.
to achieve, take in the vouchermoney.
But for the most part, it'sfunding well-to-do families.
The voucher program is full.
The Sullivan County GOP wasmarketing to Claremont families
during the first school boardmeeting that they should sign up
(17:57):
for vouchers and pull their kidsout of the quote-unquote failing
Claremont public schools withoutacknowledging that the program
is full and has a wait list.
So that doesn't make a lot ofsense
SPEAKER_02 (18:08):
they were doing that outreach during the first
meeting when the announcement iscoming out schools the school
might not be able to openthey're saying take your kids
somewhere else correct
SPEAKER_00 (18:21):
yeah a lengthy well-written document with some
background that was notcompletely accurate at the time
that it was written it said thatthere had been massive layoffs
and at that point there had notbeen any layoffs there now have
been significant layoffs and youknow promoting family educating
their kids outside the schoolsystem before we even knew what
(18:42):
the impacts of this crisis wouldbe on the quality of education.
SPEAKER_02 (18:46):
Fast forward a
SPEAKER_00 (18:47):
week later.
They have a mission.
SPEAKER_02 (18:50):
Fast forward to a week later when the families and
students are in the meetingsaying, we want our public
school to open.
We want to go to our schools.
SPEAKER_00 (19:02):
Yeah.
So schools are open, but 19newly hired students faculty,
their contracts were rescindedwhen they were already
participating in orientationlast week.
And on Monday night of thisweek, 20 more positions were
terminated, ranging from veryneeded custodians to behavior
(19:26):
modification specialists, awhole variety of different kinds
of necessary support staff.
SPEAKER_02 (19:34):
All sorts of folks who make a school function
SPEAKER_00 (19:38):
They make it function.
They make it safe.
They make it clean.
Yep.
And I do want to acknowledgethat the school board has faced
untenable decisions.
What are you supposed to do whenyou simply don't have enough
resources and you do want toopen the school doors?
So they've made very toughdecisions in order to be able to
(20:00):
open school.
Right.
And I don't want to ignore thatreality.
I don't envy them theirchallenge in the slightest.
Right.
And And we never should have letClaremont get to this place.
SPEAKER_02 (20:11):
They had to make extremely difficult decisions,
which is what their job is atthis point as school board
members.
They have to make those toughdecisions.
And also, those decisionsshouldn't have had to be made
for other reasons.
SPEAKER_00 (20:25):
Exactly.
But if we had appropriateoversight at the state level,
which most states do, when theschool district wasn't
completing audits in a timelymanner the state would have been
on the school district to findout what the problems were was
it staffing was it incompetencewas it negligence whatever to
(20:48):
help the school district get upto speed so that they knew what
their financial status was andit could be addressed and it's
very interesting to me that wedo that with charter schools in
new hampshire charter schoolsare public schools but they
operate under differentgoverning structure and just the
Yeah.
(21:10):
Yeah.
(21:38):
And now the school is open.
It's doing very well.
I think they're actuallygrateful that they've come
through this and they'restronger than they were before.
So if we can do that for aschool that's educating 40
students, why on earth don't wehave state oversight for the
financial management andauditing of a school district
(22:01):
that educates 1,700 students?
I am pretty perplexed that wedon't have this already in our
operating practice.
Well,
SPEAKER_02 (22:08):
and I think it's, you know, the way that you
described it about the charterschool is seeing that there is a
need for support.
There's something is not goingsort of up to standard.
Something has gone wrong or theyneed direct support.
And the Department of Educationcan come in and say, we have
(22:29):
resources to help you.
We want you to have a successfulschool.
We are here to help you get tothat level.
And so it's not we're coming inand we're going to threaten you
and bully you.
But it's really about what isthe philosophy of our State
Department of Education?
How can a State Departmentsupport the different schools to
(22:51):
be as successful as they can be?
And as I think I'm hearing yousay, they were able to do that
with the charter school, whichis great, which is how it should
be, but they aren't doing thatwith Claremont, the neighborhood
schools, the school districtoverall.
SPEAKER_00 (23:05):
Correct.
And I think it is important toinform that we asked Department
of Revenue and Administrationfor a list of schools that have
not submitted audits to thembecause the schools are, by
statute, supposed to submitaudits to DRA.
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02 (23:23):
So
SPEAKER_00 (23:23):
that is
SPEAKER_02 (23:23):
already something that is a requirement.
SPEAKER_00 (23:25):
You know, the statutes are kind of muddy.
In one place it says that schooldistricts may...
Our laws?
Right?
So in one place it saysdistricts may do an audit.
which means you don't have to doan audit.
You can choose to.
May, which is like a wink.
And in another place, in themunicipal part of the statutes,
(23:46):
it says that municipalities willdo an audit and submit it to
DRA, and school districts areconsidered one of the entities
that are defined as amunicipality.
I learned this week.
I did not know that.
SPEAKER_02 (23:58):
Cue the more you know banner.
SPEAKER_00 (24:00):
Be a state rep.
You can learn so much.
You will, every day.
So DRA tells us, and theyprovide us, in a very efficient
fashion, thank you, a list foreach of the last three academic
years of the districts that havenot submitted audits.
And they carefully acknowledgethat not submitting an audit
doesn't mean you didn't do one.
(24:21):
It might mean you just failed tosubmit it.
So we have some homework to doto find out which is which.
But there are a lot of districtsthat have not submitted audits
for the last academic year.
And when you go back to 2023,Claremont is one of a dozen
districts that have notsubmitted audits to DRA.
(24:42):
Seeing that yesterday, for me,it was a validation of what I've
been saying, which is that anydistrict is vulnerable to what
has happened in Claremont.
If you didn't hire the rightbusiness administrator, if you
didn't have adequate oversightof that business administrator's
work and you didn't have timelyreporting and you had marginal
(25:02):
funding to begin with, which isalmost every district in the
state of New Hampshire for thatlast category, You're just one
additional massive expense awayfrom this happening.
Heaven forbid your roofcollapses.
People with children who havemore significant special needs
move into the district and yourspecial education costs become
(25:25):
much greater than you budgeted.
Any number of variables couldmean that you don't have the
dollars you need.
And if you already didn't havefinancial oversight and adequate
accounting, then what?
Where's the next
SPEAKER_02 (25:40):
Claremont?
SPEAKER_00 (26:07):
I am very frustrated by that reality.
(26:37):
Most states do have statute thatoffers some approaches, and I
will very definitely be bringingsome legislation forward so that
hopefully we will succeed atputting some statute in New
Hampshire.
Let's try to prevent this fromhappening in the future, but we
also should be prepared to helpother districts more effectively
than what has happened so far.
(27:00):
That said, I did receive noticethis afternoon of a meeting next
Tuesday at which theCommissioner of Education is
intending to report on what thestate might be doing to help
Claremont.
So I wish that meeting was now.
(27:21):
But that's good that there'sgoing to be some further
conversation.
I have absolutely no doubt thatour new Commissioner of
Education, Caitlin Davis, caresabout public schools and wants
students to thrive in whateversetting they are learning in.
And really has had this bigcrisis fall in her lap when
(27:41):
she's about a month into thejob.
So, you know, here you are, goto work.
And at the same time, it isurgent that we address this
immediately for Claremont.
School's open, but nobody knowshow long it can stay open
without adequate funding.
SPEAKER_02 (28:01):
Can we talk about that phrase of adequate funding
more broadly a little bit?
UNKNOWN (28:08):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (28:09):
Sure.
We don't have to.
We can definitely talk aboutadequate funding.
SPEAKER_02 (28:16):
Because that word Claremont, that location, people
were to look it up on the oldinternets.
It's a pretty important city interms of school funding overall.
Like this didn't come out ofnowhere.
This is something that has beenhappening for decades.
SPEAKER_00 (28:33):
It's kind of ironic that the first school system in
New Hampshire to have this levelof fiscal crisis.
Mm-hmm.
(29:09):
And in both cases, the courtagain said the state is not
meeting its constitutionalobligation to adequately fund
education.
So just not to get in the weeds,but when I explained this in
Claremont last week, and everytime I explain it somewhere, I'm
very aware there are a lot ofpeople who don't know.
So in New Hampshire, the statepays less than 30% of the cost
(29:34):
of public schools.
That includes about 8% of thecost of public schools comes
from the state.
from the lottery.
People think that the lotterypays for public schools.
A little bit, that's true.
Not on the grand scale.
There's a little bit of fundingfrom the federal government, 8
to 10 percent.
Not what they're supposed to doby statute, because we've had
(29:54):
IDEA, the law that mandatedspecial education to be the
quality that it should be.
It's now 50 years old.
The federal government wassupposed to pay for that.
They never have fully paid.
They pay less and less,basically, leaving it to the
states.
who are now leaving it to localdistricts.
So we end up with somewherebetween 65% and 70%, two-thirds
(30:16):
of the cost of public educationis paid by local taxpayers
through their property taxes.
And we live in communities thatvary tremendously in the tax
base.
So if you live in a communitylike Claremont that doesn't have
a large, abundant tax base, youhave a high tax rate in order to
(30:37):
raise enough money for yourpublic schools People are
already paying a veryuncomfortable amount of taxes
versus a community that has alake or a mountain or a seashore
or other depth of wealth so thatthe tax rate is low but they
raise more money per student, alot more money per student, than
(30:58):
the Claremonts and the Newportsand the Manchesters and the
Rochesters and the Franklins andthe Berlins.
This is not a system that makesany sense.
Our kids are going to geteducated wherever they live and
then they're going to go out inthe world and be with the rest
of the world when we do a greatjob educating kids in one town
and the town next door doesn'thave enough money to do it as
(31:18):
well that isn't fair to eitherof those sets of kids and as
someone said in a meeting I wasin today I want public education
to educate all the kids becauseI'm getting old and all the
people who take care of me andprovide me services are getting
old and retiring and I neededucated people to replace them
right rant over
SPEAKER_02 (31:39):
No, I think rant just gearing up, frankly.
I think we're just ramping up.
The court cases, as you said,over and over again, have said,
New Hampshire State, you are notdoing your job of funding
schools equitably, fairly, in away that is not significantly
(32:03):
making it harder for Claremontto be able to fund their schools
versus, I'll use my own town,Exxon.
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (32:39):
So when the Conval ruling came out on July 2nd, and
WMUR asked Jason Osborne, themajority leader, what his party
was going to do about theruling, he had a one-word
answer.
He said, nothing.
And the governor's remark on theConval case was the court got it
wrong.
So the majority part of thelegislature is not interested in
(33:03):
fixing education funding.
And I think it's important tonote that collectively in New
Hampshire we raise enough moneyfor schools.
If you put together all theproperty taxes that go to public
education throughout the statewith the other funding sources,
we raise enough money.
We just don't distribute itfairly.
(33:25):
We don't help it work for peoplein property-poor towns.
That's the problem.
SPEAKER_02 (33:33):
Because we make it a local issue.
We say, you community, you'vegot to figure it out by
yourselves.
That is how our school fundingstructure really is.
It is reliant entirely on yourcommunity.
The state's portion of how thestate pays for it, how it raises
(33:55):
the money to give to the townsand cities in large part comes
from property taxes.
That is also where the state'sportion comes from.
It is also from Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (34:11):
And property taxes are a regressive form of
taxation.
(34:39):
you are working extremely hard.
I think that there is a myththat low-income people are not
trying enough.
Sure, are there some people thatthat applies to?
Of course.
But the vast majority of peoplewho need more support from
government services are tryingvery, very hard to be
(35:01):
self-sufficient.
But they're not working inoccupations that pay a living
wage.
We don't have a livable minimumwage in New Hampshire.
None even close
SPEAKER_02 (35:10):
$7.25 is our minimum wage I just talked about that
with Christine Stoddard on theepisode about Medicaid$7.25
which
SPEAKER_00 (35:20):
is wild it's just incomprehensible yeah and even
if you account for the fact thatsure lots of businesses pay more
than that in order to try tohave enough employees sure
they're not paying a livablewage it
SPEAKER_02 (35:33):
costs a lot to live in New Hampshire spoiler alert
everyone it costs a lot to livein New Hampshire it costs a lot
to So this is how we got intothis mess.
It's like this decades ofinequitable funding.
It sounds like some folks whoare in the majority in the
statehouse are saying they'regoing to do nothing to change
(35:54):
what's happening right now.
What is your response to that?
SPEAKER_00 (35:59):
You know, in life, I really always have been a person
who leads with compassion andkindness and tries to think what
it's like to be in somebodyelse's shoes.
I didn't grow up affluent.
I grew up lower middle class,but in an intact, hardworking
(36:20):
family with great values.
I've been very fortunate in myadult life to live a very
comfortable life, work hard,have a great husband who worked
hard also, enjoy raising ourkids.
The reality to me that people ofmeans would think that they
(36:42):
don't need to share theirwell-being with people who are
not of means.
It's just not a value system Ican understand.
We are incredibly short-sightedas a state when we don't
adequately fund publiceducation.
We are sending our kids out ofstate because we've made higher
(37:02):
education here not accessible bynot funding it.
When our teenage People graduatefrom high school and go out of
state for college.
Most of them do not come backhere to live.
So we get older and older withfewer and fewer young people to
create the environments andprovide the work and the
(37:24):
services that we need.
It does not make any sense.
How is a society going to thriveif we all just get old and
there's no new energy from youngpeople to come in?
We have to look at investing inpublic education as exactly
that, as an investment that wemust do, not only on behalf of
(37:48):
the kids who are in publicschool, but on behalf of our
broader society.
We need nurses.
We need electricians.
We need plumbers.
We need capable highway roadcrew.
We need every level.
Firefighters.
We need all sorts of folks forour communities.
Police people, safety people.
(38:09):
All the things that make us run,that make us safe, that make us
be able to enjoy going out toeat a meal.
And when we don't adequatelyfund public education, we are
saying that those things don'tmatter because we're saying you
(38:29):
can't be here.
We don't have a place for you.
We're making it unaffordable byrelying on property taxes for
all All those hardworking peopleto live here.
And we could go off on theinfluence of housing, which I
won't do, but that's a variableas well, housing and childcare.
SPEAKER_02 (38:48):
Housing and childcare, huge issues.
SPEAKER_00 (38:51):
It's the triad, housing, childcare, education.
So we have to look at how do weequitably fund education and
make it happen.
And we can.
It is not impossible to do that.
If
SPEAKER_02 (39:07):
people care about their property.
Yes.
The avenue
SPEAKER_00 (39:17):
to controlling local property taxes, maybe not the
sole, but the most importantavenue by far, the most impact,
is to increase state funding ofeducation.
That's the driver of localproperty taxes more than
anything else.
SPEAKER_02 (39:36):
Every time the state doesn't fund something doesn't
take the responsibility to fundsomething it still needs to get
done and then it gets pushed tothe local level i talked about
that with christine in terms ofmedicaid but health insurance
and coverage and things likethat if you take away programs
(39:57):
at the state level if the statelawmakers and i know you're a
state lawmaker but if a majorityof state lawmakers say we are
not going to send funding tothat typically those things
still need to happen and And sothen it falls on the local
communities.
And that is what has happened
SPEAKER_00 (40:14):
with school funding.
(40:38):
You can only squeeze so
SPEAKER_02 (40:42):
much, and Claremont has been squeezed already.
SPEAKER_00 (40:47):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_02 (40:48):
By the state.
The state has been the one doingthe squeezing already.
Yeah.
So what can you do as a statelawmaker representative?
What is something that statereps can do?
What can y'all do?
SPEAKER_00 (41:00):
One, we will bring forward legislation, and I
believe it will be bipartisanlegislation.
Okay, I'd love to hear it.
that not only do districts needto do audits on an annual basis,
hopefully we can make it so theyneed to do them before they
start the budget cycle for thenext year, so that budgets can
be built on the facts and theinformation of the audit of
(41:23):
where the district stands, andthat that legislation will ask
both DRA and the Department ofEducation to review those
audits, and if a So that's one.
(42:08):
to all communities so that thezip code of the child does not
determine what kind of fundingthere is for their public
education.
We have to do that.
SPEAKER_02 (42:18):
I hear that phrase about the zip code that you're
from.
And some folks who maybe aren'tthe biggest fans of public
schools or would prefer to allowsome families to access schools
that others are not able to Theymight say, well, Representative
(42:41):
Damon, we should let studentschoose whatever school they want
in the whole state to go to.
And that would solve the problemof not being from a certain zip
code.
Just let the students andfamilies choose whatever school
they want to go to.
They should be allowed to gothere.
What do you think about that asa policy solution?
SPEAKER_00 (43:02):
I think it's another measure by the folks who want to
close public schools.
It's the by a thousand cuts.
Because if you are a thrivingschool district neighboring a
not financially thriving schooldistrict, it's not all about
money, but the majority ofquality districts are well
(43:25):
funded.
So if what you've justdescribed, open enrollment for
public schools, if that were putin place, families who have the
capacity to get their childrento the affluent successful
school district will do that.
Families who do not have thatcapacity, which are many, their
(43:48):
children will remain in the lessfunded school district.
And that district will becomeeven less funded because to the
degree that we have stateadequacy aid, it's a per pupil
amount.
So if you have less pupils, youget less money.
On the surface, you might thinkthat makes sense, except the
cost of it education isn't justper pupil it's what are the
(44:12):
facilities in addition unlessthat effort for open enrollment
were to require the receivingschool districts to take all
students what will happen isthey will be selective and they
aren't going to choose thestudents who have greater needs
they're going to choose thestudents that are less costly to
(44:35):
educate leaving the sendingdistrict the less economically
thriving community with thestudents who cost the most to
educate.
So I do not believe that openenrollment is a solution.
I think it's actually a havesand have-nots.
It's aggravating the inequitiesthat we already have.
SPEAKER_02 (44:55):
We should probably talk about the cost of special
education, since that is one ofthe topics that's been brought
up in the Claremont meetings.
And I have appreciated a lot ofthe folks who've spoken to it
and have said, we are notblaming students who need
special education services, butthat's a reality that there are
(45:17):
costs associated with providingthose services.
Maybe you can talk a little bitabout how does special education
funding factor into what'shappening in Claremont and
what's happening overall in ourstate?
SPEAKER_00 (45:33):
Special education funding is a significant
challenge for most districtsthroughout the state, and I
think That's true whether you'rea not very well-funded district
or a more well-funded district.
The state pays less than thecost of special education.
So for the children who have thehighest level of need, the most
(45:56):
expensive educationalservices...
the state is supposed to pay100% of what the district
informs them is needed for thosestudents.
And they're paying for the prioryear for services that have
already been paid for andexpensed.
And for many years, the statehas prorated that.
(46:17):
So this year's payment from thestate for those services was 67%
of what districts spent.
So that is a major gap infunding.
If you thought, as the law says,that you would 100% of the
funding for those particularlychallenged students, and you got
(46:39):
67%, that is hundreds ofthousands of dollars of
difference in what the communityis receiving.
That's one category.
That's not a lot of students,but it's a lot of impact.
And then there's a category ofstudents, which is probably most
of the children who receivespecial education services, that
the state provides what's calleddifferentiated aid.
(47:02):
So in addition to the baseamount of education funding from
the state, there is a$2,100stipend for students who need
special education services.
In the Rand case that just cameout last week from the Superior
Court, the judge said mathdoesn't lie and acknowledged
that since it costs about$1,600a year to properly assess and
(47:26):
create the plan of education fora special ed student, if we only
provide$2,100 from the state,$1,600 gets used for assessment,
that leaves$500 for services.
It doesn't work.
The math is completelyinadequate.
And so districts are forced topick up those additional costs
(47:46):
because we are mandated byfederal law to provide adequate
special education services,which we should be doing.
Which we should.
That's
SPEAKER_02 (47:54):
how
SPEAKER_00 (47:55):
it should be, yeah.
It is further complicated by thereality that there are many more
children who are receiving andneeding special education
services in recent years thanthere were decades past.
And that is partly because weknow a lot more about how
children learn and what willhelp them to thrive and succeed.
(48:17):
So we have more kids in specialed.
We know more about how to helpthose kids in special ed, but
it's costly.
It just is.
And
SPEAKER_02 (48:26):
public schools, our Right.
(49:01):
put my child on a laptop.
That's not going to work.
And that's true for so manyfamilies.
SPEAKER_00 (49:07):
I so appreciate you highlighting that.
Public schools welcome and dotheir level best to provide a
quality education for everysingle student, starting from
the baseline that they're at,whatever their background is,
whatever their familyenvironment is, whatever their
IQ is.
Let's help this child to thriveand learn as best they can in
(49:31):
the way that they best succeed.
And every other educationalsetting can choose which
students they enroll.
They can choose whether theytake special ed students.
They often do not.
They can choose whether theytake students whose gender
identity is fluid.
They can choose whether theytake young kids or older kids.
(49:54):
I mean, they can just choosetheir students.
And they do.
SPEAKER_02 (49:58):
They could have a testing requirement of...
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (50:03):
Yep.
Exactly.
(50:30):
services.
And we don't ask foraccountability from those
entities.
Public schools have to measurewhat the outcomes for their
students are.
Are they perfect?
No.
Better than people perceive themto be, the people who are
critical, that is.
But the other settings aren'teven having to assess in any
(50:54):
comprehensive, consistent way,what's the outcome for the kids
with education freedom accounts?
They could thriving, but wedon't know.
And we're spending taxpayermoney not knowing what the
outcome is.
SPEAKER_02 (51:09):
This gets back to your earlier point about
oversight and knowing what'shappening.
And it sounds like the EducationFreedom Accounts does not have
that same oversight that isbeing asked of from charter
schools, from neighborhoodschools.
That's not being met in thatsame way.
SPEAKER_00 (51:27):
That is correct, Liz.
SPEAKER_02 (51:29):
I know that the majority majority of lawmakers
have been really supportive ofthe education freedom accounts
are they making sure that thereis oversight so that they can
prove their point that look thisis a good thing
SPEAKER_00 (51:41):
not yet not yet you would think for a party that
claims to be about fiscalresponsibility that the
republicans would want oversightand accountability for the
outcomes from the educationfreedom account program and we
have brought a number of piecesof legislation legislation
(52:01):
forward that have not passed totry to create that
accountability.
And also to try to affirm safetyfor kids, like background
checks.
It just seems to be like, here'syour money.
Go have a good time.
Maybe buy yourself a ski liftticket.
I mean, not yourself, but yourkid a ski lift ticket.
You know, go do whatever youwant with the money.
Here it is.
(52:21):
There have
SPEAKER_02 (52:22):
been some bills introduced that have been voted
down that would have providedoversight and accountability.
Those haven't happened.
SPEAKER_00 (52:30):
And And there is currently an audit of the
Education Freedom Accountprogram in process through the
Legislative Budget AssistantOffice.
And it has been very difficultfor those diligent folks to do
this performance audit becausethey have not been able to
obtain all the information thatthey need from the Department of
Education.
(52:50):
Because under the priorcommissioner, he believed that
the private company thatadministers Education Freedom
Accounts deserve protection ofthis information, which is, it
doesn't make any sense at all.
It's a state of New Hampshirecontract.
You need to tell us what you'redoing with our money.
SPEAKER_02 (53:08):
That's very, it's an interesting argument to have
been made.
I
SPEAKER_00 (53:14):
hope that argument is over with the change in
commissioners.
SPEAKER_02 (53:17):
We will perhaps see.
SPEAKER_00 (53:20):
We might.
SPEAKER_02 (53:21):
I cannot believe that I didn't ask you about
Croydon.
What am I doing here?
What am I even doing here that Ihaven't asked you about Croydon?
How did the, so I have alreadydrafted for my show notes, the
This American Life episode thathad the story about Croydon.
You have firsthand knowledgefrom that because you live in
(53:42):
Croydon, right?
Am I right that you're fromCroydon?
SPEAKER_00 (53:45):
I live in Croydon.
You live in Croydon.
For 38 or nine years.
For a little bit.
You've lived there.
And Croydon is how I became astate rep because after the 53%
cut in our school budget, whichwas initiated by freestaters on
the floor, of a poorly attendedschool district meeting.
Their motion to cut the budgetpassed by a vote of 20 to 14.
(54:07):
The community was shocked.
SPEAKER_02 (54:09):
20 to zero to 14, one four.
Yes.
Oof, boy oh
SPEAKER_00 (54:14):
boy.
We're a little town, but thatwas in fact a particularly
poorly attended meeting.
Yes, yes.
The community was shocked, toput it mildly, and it was a
truly extraordinary grassrootsexperience to be one of the
leaders of a very collaborativegroup of people who might
otherwise be pretty dissimilarpolitically and in various
(54:36):
values, but who did not want ourschool system to fail.
New Hampshire has a statute thatallows a re-vote on a budget
issue.
You have to get two-thirds ofthe number of voters on the
registered voter list on the dayof the original vote to show up
for the meeting.
And then you have to get amajority vote of those people.
It's a very high bar.
(54:56):
Very high bar.
Not normally show up to vote.
We had a seven weeks grassrootscampaign in the spring of 22,
and the revote was 377 to 2.
So clearly the community wantedthe school to thrive and to be
there.
It made me and many others very,very aware that if you don't
show up, if you don'tparticipate, things can happen
(55:17):
that are not what you wanted tohappen.
And when you do show up andparticipate, good things can
happen.
It also made me acutely aware ofthe Free State Party's belief
that no government servicesshould be They are intent on
dismantling government andhaving individuals and families
provide for the needs.
(55:39):
So they would have every familyeducate their kids or educate
their kids with other families,but not any structured
government entity.
And we now have at the statehouse, many, many free state
elected people.
And they have really taken overthe Republican Party.
And that party, the voting isdriven by what the free staters
(55:59):
want to happen or what they wantto happen.
don't want to happen.
I don't for a single minutebelieve that all of the
Republican voters out there onMain Street in Claremont or any
community want their publicschools to go away.
But the freestaters and theelected Republicans are voting
in that direction regularly.
So if there's another takeaway,it's that people would be well
(56:23):
served to know how theirrepresentatives vote and to be
very deliberate about who youelect.
so that you elect people whoactually represent what you
truly want to happen in yourcommunity.
SPEAKER_02 (56:36):
So why should I care about what's happening in
Claremont when I live all theway on the other side of the
state?
I'm all the way over in Exeter.
Why should this matter to me?
Besides that I have this podcastand I have you on it.
But why should people maybe wholive in Exeter who are not on
this podcast, why should we careabout what's happening in
Claremont?
SPEAKER_00 (56:55):
So people across the state should care about public
education in every communityregardless of what whether it's
your neighboring community.
Because public education is forthe greater good of the society,
and because when we don'tadequately fund education in one
community, the state as a wholeis harmed.
And because, in fact, based onthe number of districts that
(57:17):
haven't filed audits, yourdistrict could be next.
And then would you think thatmaybe the state should be
helpful and the structure shouldbe different?
Probably.
We need to look through abigger...
A bigger lens, a bigger heart atmeeting everybody's basic needs,
including a quality, adequatepublic education for every kid.
SPEAKER_02 (57:39):
Matt and I talked about a thing to do is get
involved in your own committeesin your own town.
Run for school board.
Run for select board.
Run for city council.
But there's also subcommittees.
Join the budget committee.
And yeah, get to know your statelawmakers and how they vote on
the things you care about.
(57:59):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (58:00):
Yeah.
And even if you're not running,listen to the meetings.
Show up or do it if it's livestreamed.
Know what decisions are beingmade in your community.
SPEAKER_02 (58:10):
Put it on in the background while you do other
things.
You're washing the dishes, puton the meeting, and just have it
running.
You don't have to watch it.
There's nothing really to see.
SPEAKER_00 (58:21):
It's just to hear.
You can't leave it up toeverybody else.
SPEAKER_02 (58:25):
Yeah.
And that's what you saw inCroydon.
When folks show up, it makes ahuge difference.
And when they don't, it couldhave been extremely detrimental
for
SPEAKER_00 (58:34):
sure.
SPEAKER_02 (58:35):
Representative Damon, thank you so much for
coming on my little podcast andtalking about Claremont and
what's going on.
Thank
SPEAKER_00 (58:43):
you so much for the opportunity, Liz.
Thank you for your hard work tohelp people have a clearer
understanding of the issues inNew Hampshire.
SPEAKER_02 (58:54):
There are a few.
SPEAKER_00 (58:55):
There's a lot of issues and there's not enough
journalism that's honestly andaccurately reporting them.
So kudos for you to stepping upand doing this.
SPEAKER_02 (59:03):
I've got a little microphone.
I've got a pencil.
I've got a podcast.
That's what I've got.
That's all I've got.
(59:24):
Thank you for listening to NewHampshire Has Issues.
If you would like to support theshow, visit patreon.com slash nh
has issues.
If you have an idea for a show,send me an email at
newhampshirehasissues atgmail.com.
New episodes on Tuesdays.
I'll see you next week.
applause
SPEAKER_00 (00:04):
I think that many people don't know that the
structure of education fundingin New Hampshire is that the
state pays less than 30% of thecost of public schools.
The federal government pays lessthan 10%.
The question I'm often askedabout where does all the lottery
(00:26):
money go, 8% of the cost ofpublic schools in New Hampshire
comes from the lottery andthat's included in the less than
30% that I just stated.
So the bottom line is propertytaxes in communities throughout
the state pay 65 to 70% of thecost of our very valuable public
(00:48):
schools.
We just had another court rulingcome out Monday night of this
week finding largely against thestate saying that we are not
meeting our constitutionalobligation to adequately fund
public schools and as otherspeakers noted that is most
definitely not the first courtfinding.
(01:13):
To date, the legislature has notsucceeded at changing the
structure of the educationfunding system to comply with
those court rulings.
Some of us are trying very, veryhard.
Others are not in favor ofchanging the way that it's
funded.
I encourage you all to reach outto me, to any other
(01:36):
representatives or educationfunding committee members.
to get the facts and payattention to the way your
representatives vote because ithas become a very partisan issue
and we're trying to get a waythat all of us come together to
approve the funding from thestate.
SPEAKER_02 (02:09):
You are extremely well-respected.
People look to you for theanswers.
I am looking to you for theanswers of what's going on in
Claremont today.
SPEAKER_00 (02:20):
I would love to say I have the answers, Liz.
You do.
I think you do.
No?
Well, I have some perspective.
I wouldn't say I have all theanswers.
The number of people who havemessaged since that meeting when
I spoke and tried to clarifysome things who said I was
calming, I was like, Wow.
I had no idea that that was whatI was doing.
(02:43):
I thought I was just providinginformation.
Thank you very much.
And then last night on Facebook,someone asked if I am the
spokesperson for the ClaremontSchool District.
And I did, in fact, laugh outloud because no, but...
And no thank you, probably, aswell.
(03:09):
Right.
Dare I say, because there's nomoney to do so.
SPEAKER_02 (03:35):
That's not.
Right.
Not something to necessarilyfund in the school funding
(03:56):
situation.
SPEAKER_00 (04:00):
Right.
which are the nine towns ofAckworth, Langdon, Lemster,
Goshen, Washington, Springfield,Sunapee, my hometown of Croydon,
and the city of Claremont.
SPEAKER_02 (04:17):
You've said that before.
I feel like this is not yourfirst
SPEAKER_00 (04:19):
time.
I have.
And I will say, I say it fairlyregularly in that slightly
random order.
It's not alphabetical.
SPEAKER_02 (04:28):
You represent the city of Claremont.
Something's happening inClaremont right now.
And I became aware of it wheresomebody sort of said it in
passing.
I was like, oh, can you believewhat's going on?
in Claremont.
And then it took like fiveseconds to bring up, you know, a
recent news article that saidthere's no money and the schools
might need to not open for thefall.
(04:50):
So a lot has changed in the lasttwo weeks, in the last week, in
the last 24 hours even.
We're recording this onThursday, August 28th.
And Representative Damon, you'rehere because you're like in it.
You've been to the meetings,you've been, you know, sharing
your perspective.
And And in the state house, as astate representative, you serve
(05:11):
on the committee that isliterally all about education
funding.
So I start with a simplequestion to you.
What is going on in
SPEAKER_00 (05:21):
Claremont?
cash flow shortage and amulti-million dollar deficit.
(05:43):
The actual amount is yet to bedetermined, but it's over$5
million.
It may approach 10.
SPEAKER_02 (05:49):
Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00 (05:50):
And it probably reflects the last two or three
years, but since audits have notbeen done in a timely fashion,
just plain haven't been done,that's part of how we don't know
how bad the situation is.
But it came to a crisis pointthree weeks ago.
because the school boardinformed the community that they
(06:12):
didn't know if schools couldopen because they haven't paid
their debts and they didn't knowif they would be able to meet
payroll.
They have not paid the stateretirement system or school
care, which is the healthinsurance program for the staff,
and have many vendors thatthey're in debt to.
And it just reached thiscritical point.
(06:33):
And we are a state that has aconstitutional requirement for
an adequate education to beprovided to all K-12 students.
So the very idea that a schooldistrict could say, we don't
know if we can open schools,this is unprecedented territory.
It has never happened in NewHampshire.
There have been school districtsin financial distress and in
(06:55):
debt, but not to this level.
So that's the short version ofit.
Schools did open today.
So freshmen at the high schooland new students went back to
school and everybody goes backWell, all the students go back
to school tomorrow.
Not all the staff goes backbecause there have been very
(07:15):
significant cuts.
SPEAKER_02 (07:17):
The meetings that I have watched have included a
really wide variety of peoplegetting up to the microphone for
public comment and sharing theirperspectives at different stages
of this process.
As you said, this really came tolight three weeks ago, at least
to the public's wide awareness.
(07:38):
And in each meeting that hasfollowed, there's been maybe
more and more people.
At least that's how it's feltfrom an outsider perspective.
The people who've shared publiccomment have been staff members,
teachers, coaches, communitymembers, parents, and students
themselves.
You've also shared publiccomment each time.
(08:00):
What has been most surprising toyou in the last three weeks?
SPEAKER_00 (08:06):
That's a great question.
Let me paint a bit of a picture.
(08:38):
people do watch the livestreams, but as is not atypical,
essentially very few peoplepresent for a school board
meeting, which I think is truein most communities across the
state unless you've had a crisisor are having a crisis.
SPEAKER_02 (08:51):
And true for not just school board, but select
board meetings, budgetrecommendations committee, like
all those local committees.
Typically there's really nobodyin the room but the people who
are serving.
SPEAKER_00 (09:02):
People are leaving it up to elected officials to do
their job until that's notwhat's happening.
So So a week later, theauditorium at Stevens High
School was standing room only, Ibelieve it holds 500 people, and
it opens to the gymnasium, whichhad a large number, largely
students, in their athleticuniforms and in distress.
(09:24):
So we went from people are notparticularly paying attention,
certainly not present in person,to an outpouring of community
concern, passion, worry, fear,anger, the whole gamut of So I
think that is one of the veryvisible takeaways that the
community is extremelyconcerned, as one would expect,
(09:48):
and participating.
The second observation I wouldmake is that largely both of the
very vigorously attended publicmeetings have been civil.
In fact, there's been a lot ofcompliments to the schools.
There have been mixed feedbackto the board and administrators,
but it has not been 100%negative.
(10:08):
There are people who are angryand there were a few outbursts
on Monday night this week, butlargely very, very concerned,
very, very upset, but a verycivil process.
And honestly, going into thefirst meeting, I'm not sure that
I was confident that would bethe case.
(10:28):
Claremont has really shownitself to be a community, to be
a community that cares deeplyabout the well-being of their
kids and their school staff.
And to show up and say sothey're also really really
impatient to know how the heckdid we get here because this
should never have happened
SPEAKER_02 (10:47):
i wrote down some notes of folks you know as i was
watching the recordings and thepassion and love for the schools
and for the district and for thecommunity just comes across over
and over again every student whogot up there which is so
incredible that students aregetting up to the microphone in
front of hundreds of people justpouring their hearts out.
(11:10):
And every single student wasessentially saying, please open
our schools and please make surethat I can graduate or make sure
that I can get the classes Ineed.
Please put sports back on thetable.
They want their school.
They want their schools and theycare deeply about their schools.
So that came across over andover again.
(11:33):
But that question of like, howdid they get here?
How did they get here?
How did this So
SPEAKER_00 (11:39):
before I try to answer that to the degree that
we have some knowledge but notcomplete at all.
(12:08):
And the messaging of the lastseveral plus years from people
who want to create distrust inpublic schools and devalue them
and create fear that weirdthings are happening in schools
that are not happening there arewrong.
The vast majority of NewHampshire kids go to public
schools and succeed and do welland have people in the schools
(12:32):
who care deeply about educationfor all children.
And to hear the students supportYeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (13:08):
That is a testament to the strength of public
schools and to the families.
That is a testament to the greatwork that happens in the actual
community.
SPEAKER_00 (13:18):
I think that's absolutely true.
And I think it's important tonote that there were students
who are on a higher educationcollege-bound track, and there
were students speaking who areprobably not on that track.
And they all spoke effectivelyand from the heart and from
their positive experiences.
And it really is quiteextraordinary in that regard.
SPEAKER_02 (13:40):
I am biased as a former high school teacher that
when I see high school studentsdoing the things that I'm like,
you are just crushing it.
And you shouldn't have to be inthis situation to start with.
But whether they're going on tocollege or community college or
the military or a job, you couldjust tell from those rooms and
from those meetings that thestudents care deeply about their
(14:03):
school and the community caresdeeply about them.
And that comes across.
And so So I will just say that Iam a bit frustrated to hear
folks outside of Claremont speakill of the school or the school
district or whatever.
Because I'm like, you're noteven from there.
You can't speak badly about acommunity that you're not even
from.
(14:23):
But let's set that aside formaybe later.
Or not.
Let's dig in.
I'm very frustrated by peoplewho...
SPEAKER_00 (14:33):
Make judgment?
SPEAKER_02 (14:34):
Yeah.
I mean, I love making judgmentsabout things.
I am all about judging.
things, but not school districtsand school communities like
that.
Definitely not.
SPEAKER_00 (14:43):
It's a deal breaker for me.
Claremont is a old mill townthat is recovering from the
transition from mills andindustry to technology and
service and tourism.
And the former mayor, CharleneLovett, would describe Claremont
just a few years ago as a cityon the rise, which I think it
is.
(15:03):
You know, the old mill buildingsare being redeveloped.
The city has some gorgeouslandscape.
There's a fabulous effort tocreate it as a mountain biking
destination.
There's a lot going on.
But outside of Claremont, Ithink the reputation of the
community is of a less thansuccessful, not economically
(15:24):
thriving community.
And so I think probably whenpeople hear about this school
situation, folks outside thecommunity are hearing about it
and layering it onto thatincomplete or wrong perspective.
I really have come to loveClaremont so much.
So much in my almost three yearsas a rep.
It's a really wonderful place.
So how did we get here?
(16:08):
decades.
And then we layer on top of thatprofound financial mismanagement
and we layer on lack ofsupervision is not the right
word, what am I looking forhere?
Oversight.
Oversight, thank you.
From the State Department ofEducation under the prior
Commissioner of Educationdeparted Mr.
(16:30):
Adel Bluth, who put all hisenergy Reverse shout out.
Right?
Put all his energy or most of itinto where can we educate kids
outside of public school?
Let's give voucher money toaffluent families so their
children can continue to attendthe schools they already were
attending, the families we'repaying for.
SPEAKER_02 (16:51):
And what you're alluding to is the school
vouchers, education freedomaccounts.
There's a few episodes ago withChristina Pretorius where we
talk about the majority ofpeople who are getting those
school vouchers are already inprivate schools.
And now those are available tothe wealthy No, that's
SPEAKER_00 (17:15):
totally fine.
And I would add into that, ifyou're not an affluent person,
the voucher is not enough moneyto allow a lower income or
middle class family to sendtheir child to many schools that
require tuition.
You wouldn't be able to do itunless that school is heavily
(17:35):
discounting, which they mightbe, some are.
to achieve, take in the vouchermoney.
But for the most part, it'sfunding well-to-do families.
The voucher program is full.
The Sullivan County GOP wasmarketing to Claremont families
during the first school boardmeeting that they should sign up
(17:57):
for vouchers and pull their kidsout of the quote-unquote failing
Claremont public schools withoutacknowledging that the program
is full and has a wait list.
So that doesn't make a lot ofsense
SPEAKER_02 (18:08):
they were doing that outreach during the first
meeting when the announcement iscoming out schools the school
might not be able to openthey're saying take your kids
somewhere else correct
SPEAKER_00 (18:21):
yeah a lengthy well-written document with some
background that was notcompletely accurate at the time
that it was written it said thatthere had been massive layoffs
and at that point there had notbeen any layoffs there now have
been significant layoffs and youknow promoting family educating
their kids outside the schoolsystem before we even knew what
(18:42):
the impacts of this crisis wouldbe on the quality of education.
SPEAKER_02 (18:46):
Fast forward a
SPEAKER_00 (18:47):
week later.
They have a mission.
SPEAKER_02 (18:50):
Fast forward to a week later when the families and
students are in the meetingsaying, we want our public
school to open.
We want to go to our schools.
SPEAKER_00 (19:02):
Yeah.
So schools are open, but 19newly hired students faculty,
their contracts were rescindedwhen they were already
participating in orientationlast week.
And on Monday night of thisweek, 20 more positions were
terminated, ranging from veryneeded custodians to behavior
(19:26):
modification specialists, awhole variety of different kinds
of necessary support staff.
SPEAKER_02 (19:34):
All sorts of folks who make a school function
SPEAKER_00 (19:38):
They make it function.
They make it safe.
They make it clean.
Yep.
And I do want to acknowledgethat the school board has faced
untenable decisions.
What are you supposed to do whenyou simply don't have enough
resources and you do want toopen the school doors?
So they've made very toughdecisions in order to be able to
(20:00):
open school.
Right.
And I don't want to ignore thatreality.
I don't envy them theirchallenge in the slightest.
Right.
And And we never should have letClaremont get to this place.
SPEAKER_02 (20:11):
They had to make extremely difficult decisions,
which is what their job is atthis point as school board
members.
They have to make those toughdecisions.
And also, those decisionsshouldn't have had to be made
for other reasons.
SPEAKER_00 (20:25):
Exactly.
But if we had appropriateoversight at the state level,
which most states do, when theschool district wasn't
completing audits in a timelymanner the state would have been
on the school district to findout what the problems were was
it staffing was it incompetencewas it negligence whatever to
(20:48):
help the school district get upto speed so that they knew what
their financial status was andit could be addressed and it's
very interesting to me that wedo that with charter schools in
new hampshire charter schoolsare public schools but they
operate under differentgoverning structure and just the
Yeah.
(21:10):
Yeah.
(21:38):
And now the school is open.
It's doing very well.
I think they're actuallygrateful that they've come
through this and they'restronger than they were before.
So if we can do that for aschool that's educating 40
students, why on earth don't wehave state oversight for the
financial management andauditing of a school district
(22:01):
that educates 1,700 students?
I am pretty perplexed that wedon't have this already in our
operating practice.
Well,
SPEAKER_02 (22:08):
and I think it's, you know, the way that you
described it about the charterschool is seeing that there is a
need for support.
There's something is not goingsort of up to standard.
Something has gone wrong or theyneed direct support.
And the Department of Educationcan come in and say, we have
(22:29):
resources to help you.
We want you to have a successfulschool.
We are here to help you get tothat level.
And so it's not we're coming inand we're going to threaten you
and bully you.
But it's really about what isthe philosophy of our State
Department of Education?
How can a State Departmentsupport the different schools to
(22:51):
be as successful as they can be?
And as I think I'm hearing yousay, they were able to do that
with the charter school, whichis great, which is how it should
be, but they aren't doing thatwith Claremont, the neighborhood
schools, the school districtoverall.
SPEAKER_00 (23:05):
Correct.
And I think it is important toinform that we asked Department
of Revenue and Administrationfor a list of schools that have
not submitted audits to thembecause the schools are, by
statute, supposed to submitaudits to DRA.
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02 (23:23):
So
SPEAKER_00 (23:23):
that is
SPEAKER_02 (23:23):
already something that is a requirement.
SPEAKER_00 (23:25):
You know, the statutes are kind of muddy.
In one place it says that schooldistricts may...
Our laws?
Right?
So in one place it saysdistricts may do an audit.
which means you don't have to doan audit.
You can choose to.
May, which is like a wink.
And in another place, in themunicipal part of the statutes,
(23:46):
it says that municipalities willdo an audit and submit it to
DRA, and school districts areconsidered one of the entities
that are defined as amunicipality.
I learned this week.
I did not know that.
SPEAKER_02 (23:58):
Cue the more you know banner.
SPEAKER_00 (24:00):
Be a state rep.
You can learn so much.
You will, every day.
So DRA tells us, and theyprovide us, in a very efficient
fashion, thank you, a list foreach of the last three academic
years of the districts that havenot submitted audits.
And they carefully acknowledgethat not submitting an audit
doesn't mean you didn't do one.
(24:21):
It might mean you just failed tosubmit it.
So we have some homework to doto find out which is which.
But there are a lot of districtsthat have not submitted audits
for the last academic year.
And when you go back to 2023,Claremont is one of a dozen
districts that have notsubmitted audits to DRA.
(24:42):
Seeing that yesterday, for me,it was a validation of what I've
been saying, which is that anydistrict is vulnerable to what
has happened in Claremont.
If you didn't hire the rightbusiness administrator, if you
didn't have adequate oversightof that business administrator's
work and you didn't have timelyreporting and you had marginal
(25:02):
funding to begin with, which isalmost every district in the
state of New Hampshire for thatlast category, You're just one
additional massive expense awayfrom this happening.
Heaven forbid your roofcollapses.
People with children who havemore significant special needs
move into the district and yourspecial education costs become
(25:25):
much greater than you budgeted.
Any number of variables couldmean that you don't have the
dollars you need.
And if you already didn't havefinancial oversight and adequate
accounting, then what?
Where's the next
SPEAKER_02 (25:40):
Claremont?
SPEAKER_00 (26:07):
I am very frustrated by that reality.
(26:37):
Most states do have statute thatoffers some approaches, and I
will very definitely be bringingsome legislation forward so that
hopefully we will succeed atputting some statute in New
Hampshire.
Let's try to prevent this fromhappening in the future, but we
also should be prepared to helpother districts more effectively
than what has happened so far.
(27:00):
That said, I did receive noticethis afternoon of a meeting next
Tuesday at which theCommissioner of Education is
intending to report on what thestate might be doing to help
Claremont.
So I wish that meeting was now.
(27:21):
But that's good that there'sgoing to be some further
conversation.
I have absolutely no doubt thatour new Commissioner of
Education, Caitlin Davis, caresabout public schools and wants
students to thrive in whateversetting they are learning in.
And really has had this bigcrisis fall in her lap when
(27:41):
she's about a month into thejob.
So, you know, here you are, goto work.
And at the same time, it isurgent that we address this
immediately for Claremont.
School's open, but nobody knowshow long it can stay open
without adequate funding.
SPEAKER_02 (28:01):
Can we talk about that phrase of adequate funding
more broadly a little bit?
UNKNOWN (28:08):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (28:09):
Sure.
We don't have to.
We can definitely talk aboutadequate funding.
SPEAKER_02 (28:16):
Because that word Claremont, that location, people
were to look it up on the oldinternets.
It's a pretty important city interms of school funding overall.
Like this didn't come out ofnowhere.
This is something that has beenhappening for decades.
SPEAKER_00 (28:33):
It's kind of ironic that the first school system in
New Hampshire to have this levelof fiscal crisis.
Mm-hmm.
(29:09):
And in both cases, the courtagain said the state is not
meeting its constitutionalobligation to adequately fund
education.
So just not to get in the weeds,but when I explained this in
Claremont last week, and everytime I explain it somewhere, I'm
very aware there are a lot ofpeople who don't know.
So in New Hampshire, the statepays less than 30% of the cost
(29:34):
of public schools.
That includes about 8% of thecost of public schools comes
from the state.
from the lottery.
People think that the lotterypays for public schools.
A little bit, that's true.
Not on the grand scale.
There's a little bit of fundingfrom the federal government, 8
to 10 percent.
Not what they're supposed to doby statute, because we've had
(29:54):
IDEA, the law that mandatedspecial education to be the
quality that it should be.
It's now 50 years old.
The federal government wassupposed to pay for that.
They never have fully paid.
They pay less and less,basically, leaving it to the
states.
who are now leaving it to localdistricts.
So we end up with somewherebetween 65% and 70%, two-thirds
(30:16):
of the cost of public educationis paid by local taxpayers
through their property taxes.
And we live in communities thatvary tremendously in the tax
base.
So if you live in a communitylike Claremont that doesn't have
a large, abundant tax base, youhave a high tax rate in order to
(30:37):
raise enough money for yourpublic schools People are
already paying a veryuncomfortable amount of taxes
versus a community that has alake or a mountain or a seashore
or other depth of wealth so thatthe tax rate is low but they
raise more money per student, alot more money per student, than
(30:58):
the Claremonts and the Newportsand the Manchesters and the
Rochesters and the Franklins andthe Berlins.
This is not a system that makesany sense.
Our kids are going to geteducated wherever they live and
then they're going to go out inthe world and be with the rest
of the world when we do a greatjob educating kids in one town
and the town next door doesn'thave enough money to do it as
(31:18):
well that isn't fair to eitherof those sets of kids and as
someone said in a meeting I wasin today I want public education
to educate all the kids becauseI'm getting old and all the
people who take care of me andprovide me services are getting
old and retiring and I neededucated people to replace them
right rant over
SPEAKER_02 (31:39):
No, I think rant just gearing up, frankly.
I think we're just ramping up.
The court cases, as you said,over and over again, have said,
New Hampshire State, you are notdoing your job of funding
schools equitably, fairly, in away that is not significantly
(32:03):
making it harder for Claremontto be able to fund their schools
versus, I'll use my own town,Exxon.
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (32:39):
So when the Conval ruling came out on July 2nd, and
WMUR asked Jason Osborne, themajority leader, what his party
was going to do about theruling, he had a one-word
answer.
He said, nothing.
And the governor's remark on theConval case was the court got it
wrong.
So the majority part of thelegislature is not interested in
(33:03):
fixing education funding.
And I think it's important tonote that collectively in New
Hampshire we raise enough moneyfor schools.
If you put together all theproperty taxes that go to public
education throughout the statewith the other funding sources,
we raise enough money.
We just don't distribute itfairly.
(33:25):
We don't help it work for peoplein property-poor towns.
That's the problem.
SPEAKER_02 (33:33):
Because we make it a local issue.
We say, you community, you'vegot to figure it out by
yourselves.
That is how our school fundingstructure really is.
It is reliant entirely on yourcommunity.
The state's portion of how thestate pays for it, how it raises
(33:55):
the money to give to the townsand cities in large part comes
from property taxes.
That is also where the state'sportion comes from.
It is also from Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (34:11):
And property taxes are a regressive form of
taxation.
(34:39):
you are working extremely hard.
I think that there is a myththat low-income people are not
trying enough.
Sure, are there some people thatthat applies to?
Of course.
But the vast majority of peoplewho need more support from
government services are tryingvery, very hard to be
(35:01):
self-sufficient.
But they're not working inoccupations that pay a living
wage.
We don't have a livable minimumwage in New Hampshire.
None even close
SPEAKER_02 (35:10):
$7.25 is our minimum wage I just talked about that
with Christine Stoddard on theepisode about Medicaid$7.25
which
SPEAKER_00 (35:20):
is wild it's just incomprehensible yeah and even
if you account for the fact thatsure lots of businesses pay more
than that in order to try tohave enough employees sure
they're not paying a livablewage it
SPEAKER_02 (35:33):
costs a lot to live in New Hampshire spoiler alert
everyone it costs a lot to livein New Hampshire it costs a lot
to So this is how we got intothis mess.
It's like this decades ofinequitable funding.
It sounds like some folks whoare in the majority in the
statehouse are saying they'regoing to do nothing to change
(35:54):
what's happening right now.
What is your response to that?
SPEAKER_00 (35:59):
You know, in life, I really always have been a person
who leads with compassion andkindness and tries to think what
it's like to be in somebodyelse's shoes.
I didn't grow up affluent.
I grew up lower middle class,but in an intact, hardworking
(36:20):
family with great values.
I've been very fortunate in myadult life to live a very
comfortable life, work hard,have a great husband who worked
hard also, enjoy raising ourkids.
The reality to me that people ofmeans would think that they
(36:42):
don't need to share theirwell-being with people who are
not of means.
It's just not a value system Ican understand.
We are incredibly short-sightedas a state when we don't
adequately fund publiceducation.
We are sending our kids out ofstate because we've made higher
(37:02):
education here not accessible bynot funding it.
When our teenage People graduatefrom high school and go out of
state for college.
Most of them do not come backhere to live.
So we get older and older withfewer and fewer young people to
create the environments andprovide the work and the
(37:24):
services that we need.
It does not make any sense.
How is a society going to thriveif we all just get old and
there's no new energy from youngpeople to come in?
We have to look at investing inpublic education as exactly
that, as an investment that wemust do, not only on behalf of
(37:48):
the kids who are in publicschool, but on behalf of our
broader society.
We need nurses.
We need electricians.
We need plumbers.
We need capable highway roadcrew.
We need every level.
Firefighters.
We need all sorts of folks forour communities.
Police people, safety people.
(38:09):
All the things that make us run,that make us safe, that make us
be able to enjoy going out toeat a meal.
And when we don't adequatelyfund public education, we are
saying that those things don'tmatter because we're saying you
(38:29):
can't be here.
We don't have a place for you.
We're making it unaffordable byrelying on property taxes for
all All those hardworking peopleto live here.
And we could go off on theinfluence of housing, which I
won't do, but that's a variableas well, housing and childcare.
SPEAKER_02 (38:48):
Housing and childcare, huge issues.
SPEAKER_00 (38:51):
It's the triad, housing, childcare, education.
So we have to look at how do weequitably fund education and
make it happen.
And we can.
It is not impossible to do that.
If
SPEAKER_02 (39:07):
people care about their property.
Yes.
The avenue
SPEAKER_00 (39:17):
to controlling local property taxes, maybe not the
sole, but the most importantavenue by far, the most impact,
is to increase state funding ofeducation.
That's the driver of localproperty taxes more than
anything else.
SPEAKER_02 (39:36):
Every time the state doesn't fund something doesn't
take the responsibility to fundsomething it still needs to get
done and then it gets pushed tothe local level i talked about
that with christine in terms ofmedicaid but health insurance
and coverage and things likethat if you take away programs
(39:57):
at the state level if the statelawmakers and i know you're a
state lawmaker but if a majorityof state lawmakers say we are
not going to send funding tothat typically those things
still need to happen and And sothen it falls on the local
communities.
And that is what has happened
SPEAKER_00 (40:14):
with school funding.
(40:38):
You can only squeeze so
SPEAKER_02 (40:42):
much, and Claremont has been squeezed already.
SPEAKER_00 (40:47):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_02 (40:48):
By the state.
The state has been the one doingthe squeezing already.
Yeah.
So what can you do as a statelawmaker representative?
What is something that statereps can do?
What can y'all do?
SPEAKER_00 (41:00):
One, we will bring forward legislation, and I
believe it will be bipartisanlegislation.
Okay, I'd love to hear it.
that not only do districts needto do audits on an annual basis,
hopefully we can make it so theyneed to do them before they
start the budget cycle for thenext year, so that budgets can
be built on the facts and theinformation of the audit of
(41:23):
where the district stands, andthat that legislation will ask
both DRA and the Department ofEducation to review those
audits, and if a So that's one.
(42:08):
to all communities so that thezip code of the child does not
determine what kind of fundingthere is for their public
education.
We have to do that.
SPEAKER_02 (42:18):
I hear that phrase about the zip code that you're
from.
And some folks who maybe aren'tthe biggest fans of public
schools or would prefer to allowsome families to access schools
that others are not able to Theymight say, well, Representative
(42:41):
Damon, we should let studentschoose whatever school they want
in the whole state to go to.
And that would solve the problemof not being from a certain zip
code.
Just let the students andfamilies choose whatever school
they want to go to.
They should be allowed to gothere.
What do you think about that asa policy solution?
SPEAKER_00 (43:02):
I think it's another measure by the folks who want to
close public schools.
It's the by a thousand cuts.
Because if you are a thrivingschool district neighboring a
not financially thriving schooldistrict, it's not all about
money, but the majority ofquality districts are well
(43:25):
funded.
So if what you've justdescribed, open enrollment for
public schools, if that were putin place, families who have the
capacity to get their childrento the affluent successful
school district will do that.
Families who do not have thatcapacity, which are many, their
(43:48):
children will remain in the lessfunded school district.
And that district will becomeeven less funded because to the
degree that we have stateadequacy aid, it's a per pupil
amount.
So if you have less pupils, youget less money.
On the surface, you might thinkthat makes sense, except the
cost of it education isn't justper pupil it's what are the
(44:12):
facilities in addition unlessthat effort for open enrollment
were to require the receivingschool districts to take all
students what will happen isthey will be selective and they
aren't going to choose thestudents who have greater needs
they're going to choose thestudents that are less costly to
(44:35):
educate leaving the sendingdistrict the less economically
thriving community with thestudents who cost the most to
educate.
So I do not believe that openenrollment is a solution.
I think it's actually a havesand have-nots.
It's aggravating the inequitiesthat we already have.
SPEAKER_02 (44:55):
We should probably talk about the cost of special
education, since that is one ofthe topics that's been brought
up in the Claremont meetings.
And I have appreciated a lot ofthe folks who've spoken to it
and have said, we are notblaming students who need
special education services, butthat's a reality that there are
(45:17):
costs associated with providingthose services.
Maybe you can talk a little bitabout how does special education
funding factor into what'shappening in Claremont and
what's happening overall in ourstate?
SPEAKER_00 (45:33):
Special education funding is a significant
challenge for most districtsthroughout the state, and I
think That's true whether you'rea not very well-funded district
or a more well-funded district.
The state pays less than thecost of special education.
So for the children who have thehighest level of need, the most
(45:56):
expensive educationalservices...
the state is supposed to pay100% of what the district
informs them is needed for thosestudents.
And they're paying for the prioryear for services that have
already been paid for andexpensed.
And for many years, the statehas prorated that.
(46:17):
So this year's payment from thestate for those services was 67%
of what districts spent.
So that is a major gap infunding.
If you thought, as the law says,that you would 100% of the
funding for those particularlychallenged students, and you got
(46:39):
67%, that is hundreds ofthousands of dollars of
difference in what the communityis receiving.
That's one category.
That's not a lot of students,but it's a lot of impact.
And then there's a category ofstudents, which is probably most
of the children who receivespecial education services, that
the state provides what's calleddifferentiated aid.
(47:02):
So in addition to the baseamount of education funding from
the state, there is a$2,100stipend for students who need
special education services.
In the Rand case that just cameout last week from the Superior
Court, the judge said mathdoesn't lie and acknowledged
that since it costs about$1,600a year to properly assess and
(47:26):
create the plan of education fora special ed student, if we only
provide$2,100 from the state,$1,600 gets used for assessment,
that leaves$500 for services.
It doesn't work.
The math is completelyinadequate.
And so districts are forced topick up those additional costs
(47:46):
because we are mandated byfederal law to provide adequate
special education services,which we should be doing.
Which we should.
That's
SPEAKER_02 (47:54):
how
SPEAKER_00 (47:55):
it should be, yeah.
It is further complicated by thereality that there are many more
children who are receiving andneeding special education
services in recent years thanthere were decades past.
And that is partly because weknow a lot more about how
children learn and what willhelp them to thrive and succeed.
(48:17):
So we have more kids in specialed.
We know more about how to helpthose kids in special ed, but
it's costly.
It just is.
And
SPEAKER_02 (48:26):
public schools, our Right.
(49:01):
put my child on a laptop.
That's not going to work.
And that's true for so manyfamilies.
SPEAKER_00 (49:07):
I so appreciate you highlighting that.
Public schools welcome and dotheir level best to provide a
quality education for everysingle student, starting from
the baseline that they're at,whatever their background is,
whatever their familyenvironment is, whatever their
IQ is.
Let's help this child to thriveand learn as best they can in
(49:31):
the way that they best succeed.
And every other educationalsetting can choose which
students they enroll.
They can choose whether theytake special ed students.
They often do not.
They can choose whether theytake students whose gender
identity is fluid.
They can choose whether theytake young kids or older kids.
(49:54):
I mean, they can just choosetheir students.
And they do.
SPEAKER_02 (49:58):
They could have a testing requirement of...
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (50:03):
Yep.
Exactly.
(50:30):
services.
And we don't ask foraccountability from those
entities.
Public schools have to measurewhat the outcomes for their
students are.
Are they perfect?
No.
Better than people perceive themto be, the people who are
critical, that is.
But the other settings aren'teven having to assess in any
(50:54):
comprehensive, consistent way,what's the outcome for the kids
with education freedom accounts?
They could thriving, but wedon't know.
And we're spending taxpayermoney not knowing what the
outcome is.
SPEAKER_02 (51:09):
This gets back to your earlier point about
oversight and knowing what'shappening.
And it sounds like the EducationFreedom Accounts does not have
that same oversight that isbeing asked of from charter
schools, from neighborhoodschools.
That's not being met in thatsame way.
SPEAKER_00 (51:27):
That is correct, Liz.
SPEAKER_02 (51:29):
I know that the majority majority of lawmakers
have been really supportive ofthe education freedom accounts
are they making sure that thereis oversight so that they can
prove their point that look thisis a good thing
SPEAKER_00 (51:41):
not yet not yet you would think for a party that
claims to be about fiscalresponsibility that the
republicans would want oversightand accountability for the
outcomes from the educationfreedom account program and we
have brought a number of piecesof legislation legislation
(52:01):
forward that have not passed totry to create that
accountability.
And also to try to affirm safetyfor kids, like background
checks.
It just seems to be like, here'syour money.
Go have a good time.
Maybe buy yourself a ski liftticket.
I mean, not yourself, but yourkid a ski lift ticket.
You know, go do whatever youwant with the money.
Here it is.
(52:21):
There have
SPEAKER_02 (52:22):
been some bills introduced that have been voted
down that would have providedoversight and accountability.
Those haven't happened.
SPEAKER_00 (52:30):
And And there is currently an audit of the
Education Freedom Accountprogram in process through the
Legislative Budget AssistantOffice.
And it has been very difficultfor those diligent folks to do
this performance audit becausethey have not been able to
obtain all the information thatthey need from the Department of
Education.
(52:50):
Because under the priorcommissioner, he believed that
the private company thatadministers Education Freedom
Accounts deserve protection ofthis information, which is, it
doesn't make any sense at all.
It's a state of New Hampshirecontract.
You need to tell us what you'redoing with our money.
SPEAKER_02 (53:08):
That's very, it's an interesting argument to have
been made.
I
SPEAKER_00 (53:14):
hope that argument is over with the change in
commissioners.
SPEAKER_02 (53:17):
We will perhaps see.
SPEAKER_00 (53:20):
We might.
SPEAKER_02 (53:21):
I cannot believe that I didn't ask you about
Croydon.
What am I doing here?
What am I even doing here that Ihaven't asked you about Croydon?
How did the, so I have alreadydrafted for my show notes, the
This American Life episode thathad the story about Croydon.
You have firsthand knowledgefrom that because you live in
(53:42):
Croydon, right?
Am I right that you're fromCroydon?
SPEAKER_00 (53:45):
I live in Croydon.
You live in Croydon.
For 38 or nine years.
For a little bit.
You've lived there.
And Croydon is how I became astate rep because after the 53%
cut in our school budget, whichwas initiated by freestaters on
the floor, of a poorly attendedschool district meeting.
Their motion to cut the budgetpassed by a vote of 20 to 14.
(54:07):
The community was shocked.
SPEAKER_02 (54:09):
20 to zero to 14, one four.
Yes.
Oof, boy oh
SPEAKER_00 (54:14):
boy.
We're a little town, but thatwas in fact a particularly
poorly attended meeting.
Yes, yes.
The community was shocked, toput it mildly, and it was a
truly extraordinary grassrootsexperience to be one of the
leaders of a very collaborativegroup of people who might
otherwise be pretty dissimilarpolitically and in various
(54:36):
values, but who did not want ourschool system to fail.
New Hampshire has a statute thatallows a re-vote on a budget
issue.
You have to get two-thirds ofthe number of voters on the
registered voter list on the dayof the original vote to show up
for the meeting.
And then you have to get amajority vote of those people.
It's a very high bar.
(54:56):
Very high bar.
Not normally show up to vote.
We had a seven weeks grassrootscampaign in the spring of 22,
and the revote was 377 to 2.
So clearly the community wantedthe school to thrive and to be
there.
It made me and many others very,very aware that if you don't
show up, if you don'tparticipate, things can happen
(55:17):
that are not what you wanted tohappen.
And when you do show up andparticipate, good things can
happen.
It also made me acutely aware ofthe Free State Party's belief
that no government servicesshould be They are intent on
dismantling government andhaving individuals and families
provide for the needs.
(55:39):
So they would have every familyeducate their kids or educate
their kids with other families,but not any structured
government entity.
And we now have at the statehouse, many, many free state
elected people.
And they have really taken overthe Republican Party.
And that party, the voting isdriven by what the free staters
(55:59):
want to happen or what they wantto happen.
don't want to happen.
I don't for a single minutebelieve that all of the
Republican voters out there onMain Street in Claremont or any
community want their publicschools to go away.
But the freestaters and theelected Republicans are voting
in that direction regularly.
So if there's another takeaway,it's that people would be well
(56:23):
served to know how theirrepresentatives vote and to be
very deliberate about who youelect.
so that you elect people whoactually represent what you
truly want to happen in yourcommunity.
SPEAKER_02 (56:36):
So why should I care about what's happening in
Claremont when I live all theway on the other side of the
state?
I'm all the way over in Exeter.
Why should this matter to me?
Besides that I have this podcastand I have you on it.
But why should people maybe wholive in Exeter who are not on
this podcast, why should we careabout what's happening in
Claremont?
SPEAKER_00 (56:55):
So people across the state should care about public
education in every communityregardless of what whether it's
your neighboring community.
Because public education is forthe greater good of the society,
and because when we don'tadequately fund education in one
community, the state as a wholeis harmed.
And because, in fact, based onthe number of districts that
(57:17):
haven't filed audits, yourdistrict could be next.
And then would you think thatmaybe the state should be
helpful and the structure shouldbe different?
Probably.
We need to look through abigger...
A bigger lens, a bigger heart atmeeting everybody's basic needs,
including a quality, adequatepublic education for every kid.
SPEAKER_02 (57:39):
Matt and I talked about a thing to do is get
involved in your own committeesin your own town.
Run for school board.
Run for select board.
Run for city council.
But there's also subcommittees.
Join the budget committee.
And yeah, get to know your statelawmakers and how they vote on
the things you care about.
(57:59):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (58:00):
Yeah.
And even if you're not running,listen to the meetings.
Show up or do it if it's livestreamed.
Know what decisions are beingmade in your community.
SPEAKER_02 (58:10):
Put it on in the background while you do other
things.
You're washing the dishes, puton the meeting, and just have it
running.
You don't have to watch it.
There's nothing really to see.
SPEAKER_00 (58:21):
It's just to hear.
You can't leave it up toeverybody else.
SPEAKER_02 (58:25):
Yeah.
And that's what you saw inCroydon.
When folks show up, it makes ahuge difference.
And when they don't, it couldhave been extremely detrimental
for
SPEAKER_00 (58:34):
sure.
SPEAKER_02 (58:35):
Representative Damon, thank you so much for
coming on my little podcast andtalking about Claremont and
what's going on.
Thank
SPEAKER_00 (58:43):
you so much for the opportunity, Liz.
Thank you for your hard work tohelp people have a clearer
understanding of the issues inNew Hampshire.
SPEAKER_02 (58:54):
There are a few.
SPEAKER_00 (58:55):
There's a lot of issues and there's not enough
journalism that's honestly andaccurately reporting them.
So kudos for you to stepping upand doing this.
SPEAKER_02 (59:03):
I've got a little microphone.
I've got a pencil.
I've got a podcast.
That's what I've got.
That's all I've got.
(59:24):
Thank you for listening to NewHampshire Has Issues.
If you would like to support theshow, visit patreon.com slash nh
has issues.
If you have an idea for a show,send me an email at
newhampshirehasissues atgmail.com.
New episodes on Tuesdays.
I'll see you next week.
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