Given the “raging controversy” over this radio show’s release of the tentative agreement between the Manchester School District and the Manchester Education Association, we publish the document in its entirety here and link to our news coverage and commentary on not only its terms, but the “appropriateness” of the release. Three words: Oh My HEAD
Click here for the Tentative Agreement.
Click here for our discussion about the contract with Mayor Ted Gatsas.
Click here for our follow up news story the next day.
Click here for our commentary on the same day of the follow up story, which included a call from Hooksett School Board Member John Lyscars alleging irregularities in the voting.
Click here for our news story regarding complaints over the vote on Friday, which is where Tabloid Ted from the local paper, no doubt, got his story for Saturday.
Click here for today’s discussion about the efforts of Ward 10 School Committeeman John Avard to censor the information on the Ask the School Board Facebook page he administers.
For all the noise and fury, those who believe this information should be kept confidential have not been able to demonstrate why it is a private document, exempt from the Right to Know Law, when, in fact, it is to be publicly debated and voted on at the next meeting of the Board of School Committee. More to the point, secrecy supporters ignore how prior agreements became public after the teachers union rejected them in an attempt to somehow justify continued secrecy after their vote in favor of adoption.
Memo to all concerned: Just because district administrators sent the information to the Board of School Committee under confidential cover doesn’t mean they were right to do so. If they were determined to share the facts of the contract with the public prior to their debate and vote, they’d challenge the administration on its practices, not chastise members of the media and public who are disseminating it in advance of the vote.
