Balke Says MVMS Study Not Yet Received

Asst. Super Says Study Not Delivered on Friday as Advertised

MANCHESTER, NH  February 26, 2013–Goffstown’s Assistant Superintendent Brian Balke said the report expected from contractor WestEd on Friday has not been received by the district, therefore it cannot be released.

As Listeners of the Girard at Large radio broadcast and followers of this blog know, we published our Right to Know Request to SAU 19 (Goffstown, New Boston and Dunbarton) asking for the release of WestEd’s much anticipated report on the difficulties at Mountain View Middle School.  Superintendent Stacy Buckley announced at the last meeting of the school board that she expected the report to be delivered to her on Friday, February 22 and said she would release it to the school board at its March 4, 2013 meeting. 

In a letter to Girard at Large, Goffstown School Board Watch host Donna Pinard cried foul on the matter, questioning whether or not the report’s findings would be reliable if Buckley had the opportunity to review and potentially cause revisions to the report prior to it being released to the public.  Buckley has come under heavy fire for her handling of the situation at Mountain View.

Our email to Buckley was met with an “out of office” auto response indicating that Buclkey would be unavailable until March 4, the date the report was to be presented to the school board.  Not satisfied with that, we left a voice message for the “administrator” referenced in the “ooo email” inquiring about the report and emailed School Board Chairman Phil Pancoast asking him to act in Buckley’s absence.

Balke returned the call this morning at approximately 10:20.  He said the report was not delivered on Friday, as expected.  When asked why, he simply said he wasn’t sure, but believed that it wasn’t completed.  As to when it is expected, Balke said he believed it would be delivered on Monday, the day it is to be presented to the school board.

Balke said the document would be released to the public after it was sent to the school board and became a public document.  When asked whether or not he realized it was a public document even before it was sent to the school board, Balke said that was something we’d need to take up with Superintendent Buckley.  He also said that he didn’t know if the report would be coming in hard copy form via the regular mail or if it would be sent electronically via email.

If it comes email to the Superintendent, he said he would not know that it had been delivered.  If it comes snail mail via the post office he said he’d know about it, but declined to say whether or not he’d release it to the public.

Girard at Large contacted the Boston office of WestEd in an attempt to discover when the report would be sent, if it hadn’t been already.  The woman who answered the phone said she was unaware of who was working on the report and would check around the office to find out.  She said there were approximately 25 people who worked there and hoped to get me an answer by the end of the day tomorrow.

Stay tuned…Oh my head!

Our on air discussions regarding this matter can be heard here and here.