Former Hooksett School Board Member Mike Dubisz said he left the Hooksett Board simply because their discussions had little to do with education. That’s what he told me in an interview last night at City Hall. Dubisz, who is also director of the Manchester School District’s Drivers Ed Program, was at City Hall for budget discussions with the subcommittee on Finance and then the Board of School Committee about the program. While he did say the time commitment to be on the Hooksett board was overwhelming him, he stated that there was very frustrated with the discussions that board had because they had little to do with education. A retired teacher, he thought he might be able to engage the board on items relevant to the topic, but alas was not.
Dubisz learned what it means, by the way, to try and help the school district. A retiree, the rules of the New Hampshire Retirement System restricts the number of hours he can work for the school district to thirty two. During his testimony to the subcommittee on Finance, he said he sometimes works as many as forty hours, though he only gets paid for the thirty two. That set Ward 9 Committeeman Art Beaudry, who isn’t even a member of the committee, off on a tirade accusing Dubisz of being a law breaker. He said the district should go out for an R F P to fill the director’s position with someone who can work full time. Problem for Beaudry, who went off without asking Dubisz a question about what he said, was that the director’s position is only a twenty hour position and Dubisz racked up the additional hours filling in for, or otherwise assisting, other instructors who needed help for various reasons. Thanks to questions asked by at-Large Committeeman David Wihby and subcommittee Chairman Ted Rokas, not only did we learn that, but we also learned that Dubisz has already returned to working less than the allowed thirty two hours and pledged to remain under that cap. Fees for Drivers Ed will remain unchanged at five hundred twenty five dollars per student, by the way.
Beaudry also took a trip to the nut house over a motion made at the full board by Ward 8 Committeewoman Erika Connors to have the Board of School Committee go paperless. The motion would require board members who did not receive their agenda packets electronically to pick them up at the School District’s headquarters so that the various staff members who deliver them to board members’ homes could do the jobs they’re actually paid for. Beaudry angrily took it as a personal attack, said he doesn’t take other benefits from the district, even though he does and we’ll get to that later, called Ward 11 Committeeman Jason Cooper “Benefit Man” for saying that saving paper would benefit the children and, after the vote passed, announced he would not be reviewing board packets and will, therefore be coming to meetings unprepared because he refuses to go to the school district’s office to pick up an agenda. The line of the night came when Roy Shoults, the eighty four year old school board member from Ward 4 asked Beaudry why he just didn’t get a computer. Beaudry, who I know has a computer, replied “you want to pay for it? Oh my head.
Beaudry’s outburst, which Mayor Ted Gatsas had to gavel down, overshadowed an otherwise pleasant and productive night that saw the first steps taken to upgrade the telephone and intercom systems in the schools, direct principals to forward student schedules to the superintendent’s office by July first, and address where to put the additional staffing enabled by the budget adopted by the aldermen. The rest of the meeting was so constructive, outgoing Superintendent Tom Brennan good naturedly wondered aloud quote “where’s this board been for the past five years?”
The news continues after this.
Senator Kelly Ayotte announced she’s gone over the immigration wall and will support a so called conservative bill that’s designed to get illegals out of the shadows and fix our broken immigration system. Oh please, we’ll be tackling that during the show.
Manchester police are looking for an eighteen to twenty year old white male, between five foot eight and five foot ten with a thin build, short black hair and clean shaven driving an older, dark colored Nissan Altima or Saturn type vehicle with a child seat in the rear and a messy interior. He attempted to sexually assault a twenty four year old in the car near Woodbine Ave, threatening her with a hammer. Details of the crime, along with several others released by MPD are posted with this newscast at Girard at Large dot com
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