In 2012 the Cooperative Middle School (CMS) and EHS were both 8th in the State of NH. As of 2018 CMS ranks 38th and EHS ranks 13th.
SAU16 enrollment has decreasing by 8.8% in less than three years.
While enrollment has decreased our spending has increased.
Many of us moved her for the schools and do not mind spending on them. We mind increasing spending that gets us worse performing schools. Spending is necessary for quality public education, but almost more important is the focus of the schools. Administrators want to focus on the latest shiny thing. It is more interesting that meat and potatoes rigorous academics, it shows them as an innovator, and it allows them to try out the latest new things. Unfortunately spending on new training and implementing new programs often distracts teachers and administrators for their core job.
Parents are concerned with instruction time increasingly being taken up by teachers who want to promote agendas totally unrelated to their subject matter. A parent told of their child being berated for weeks on abortion. It is bad enough that an adult decided to berate a child over their religious views. It is worse that this was a teacher.
There is a additional problem with this story and others like it; How is it ok for educators to be spending so much not teaching their actual subject?
We want SAU16 to focus back where it matters. They need to focus on Rigorous Academics, Athletics, and Activities.