Every year at the School Deliberative session, voters are 'treated' to a carefully crafted meeting agenda, one put together by the Goffstown School Board.  

Scheduled for 7:00 PM, these deliberative sessions nearly always begin late.  Once they do get started, the moderator spends roughly 10 minutes explaining the rules and procedures to be followed during the course of the meeting.  This is then followed by school board awards ceremonies, good news announcements and other self-promotional presentations by the school board.  Adding 10-15 minutes to the already late starting time, we're now around 7:30 PM.

Next come productions put together by the students of the Goffstown High School theater company.  These are usually good for another 15-20 minutes.  The clock now hovers around 7:45 PM.

Finally, the meeting begins.  But wait - the school board starts the actual deliberative session with a lengthy sales pitch on the wonders of their proposed budget, which is then followed by back and forth discussion, questions, answers, motions and, at last, a vote.  This year, the vote was taken by secret ballot, and that takes much longer than a voice vote.

The final result?  This year, it was another hour and fifteen minutes before the results on the FIRST motion on the school's operating budget were known - and that was after sitting through the presentations and theater production.

By then it was 9:00 PM, and another motion on that school budget was made, followed by another secret ballot.  

But by that time, 76 of the 342 people who had voted on the first motion had now gone home.

These delays only serve the school board's agenda.  They know that many folks must rise early to get to work and cannot stay very late.  They also know that many members of our elderly community find it difficult to remain at these deliberative sessions into the late hours, and also often leave before the meetings are over.

And let's not forget the cleverness of holding the high school theater company productions just before the start of the meeting.  Every one of the scores of students who work on, or perform in, these productions has parents.  As expected (and certainly planned), most of these parents attend their children's performances.  And the more parents the school board can get into the room, the better they think the odds are they can get their agendas pushed through.

Very clever indeed.

I have no problem with awards and recognition ceremonies for those many deserving individuals who work so hard for the betterment of our students, as well as for those students who put in that extra effort.  And the Goffstown High School Theater company does an outstanding job year after year.

But deliberative sessions are not about awards, presentations, sales pitches or theater productions.  They are about the issues facing voters.  Voters don't attend these sessions to be entertained or manipulated to serve the school board's agenda.  They are there to discuss the warrant articles, vote on them, and go home.

These school deliberative practices and delay tactics must stop, beginning with the next school deliberative session in February.

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Guy Caron can be reached via e-mail at: GuyC@GoffstownResidentsAssociation.com

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