Covid still launches a shadow on US school boards

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During the seven years I served at the Derry School Board in New Hampshire, the Board was often the first. During those last two years during Covid, when I was president, that meant choosing many night meetings during dinner with my family. It meant working in my daily work on weekends to compensate for frequent meetings and calls related to the Board during the week. Once, it even meant leaving my daughter's Ninja meeting to receive an urgent call from the Superintendent.

These efforts were often encountered with the anger of the members of the community, who accused the Board of not listening to them, so they seemed not to agree with them, and make decisions that hurt children. The parents who supported us rarely arrived at the meetings, but sent emails; The people who were angry sent emails and reached the meetings.

They were upset when We vote to require masks in schools During Covid's heyday, when we, like the school districts throughout the country, made the temporary transition from schools to remote learning, and when we refuse to prohibit certain books of school libraries.

There are two sides in each story, but they can only be heard when people practice courtesy. Many parents honestly believed that masks and distancing rules had a negative impact on the social and emotional well -being of their children, as well as their ability to learn. His concerns were not the problem; It is how they expressed them, often using the degrading language, calling us “selfish” and “idiots.”

During the pandemic, which coincided with a national Racial cut after the 2020 murder of George FloydMembers of the public threatened us, called the Nazis of the Board and said that students in our K-8 district were taught to feel guilty because they are white.

Our meeting meetings were open to the public, they were often tense and strident. The audience members often applauded when they agreed with a speaker and sometimes shouted someone with whom they did not agree. Sometimes, we pay the police to attend meetings in case the outbursts got out of control. I always responded to people very carefully, knowing that my words could be cut and published online in a way that did not transmit its original meaning.

With a remaining year in my period, I resigned in 2023 and let the community choose someone else to fulfill my term. But the anger for mascara mandates, remote schooling and district vaccine policies created a distrust that still threw a shadow in the decisions of the Board.

Students continue to pay the price. Last year, for the first time since my children entered Derry schools, The budget, which was put to a vote throughout the town, failedleaving a hole of almost $ 1 million. Everything else also failed, including a proposal to close two older school buildings and build a new one, and another to fix existing buildings. The voters were clear: they did not trust the board with their money.

Since I resigned from the Board, I have not attended meeting meetings for mental health reasons. But I attended the meeting the month after the March 2024 vote. My children would be in the Regional High School, which the city pays the contract for contract, but was curious to know how the district planned to close this gap in the lower grades.

At the meeting, I received Excel brochures that established options depending on whether all schools remained open or if a district school closed. The larger ticket options were bad and included cutting a loved talent and talent program, eliminating mathematics teachers and increasing class sizes to indicate the maximums.

Other suggestions included postponing the replacement of staff portable computers, combining bus routes and forcing more children to walk to school. But it was unlikely that these options close the budget gap. Scanning the crowd, everyone seemed disgusted. And who could blame them? Even so, I'm not sure what people expected with a $ 1 million deficit.

At the beginning of the meeting, he had a knot in the stomach. I worried that someone recognized me and approaching me. As a member of the Board, I had absorbed so much anger and mostly I kept my fresh, but made me injured and sometimes led me to shout my family. This was not the type of person who wanted to be and was no longer the person who was. Then I breathed deeply and reminded myself that the main responsibility was no longer on my shoulders.

In March 2025, the city I voted again for a bonus to repair schools. This link was smaller than the previous one, but it happened overwhelmingly. Apparently, one year with a tight budget and no school repair caused enough pain to bring more parents to surveys. But the fight also exhausted the members of the Board, with several of them, opting not to run for re -election.

At its most basic level, the second law of thermodynamics establishes that entropy, or disorder is the natural state of the universe and increases over time. To create order requires energy. After seven years on the board, my energy was necessary elsewhere. However, I have learned that hostility increases the disorder, which requires even more energy to reverse.

With luck, there will be more stability of the Board, and school buildings will be fixed quickly next year; If not, it is the students who will pay the price.

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