News of the Manchester School Board’s decision to pursue its own standards instead of adopting Common Core not only has local pro-Core advocates in a scramble, it’s garnered national attention. Girard at Large has been contacted by journalists writing for national news publications about what happened here and our Web site has had nearly thirty thousand visits to various Common Core related stories from across the country. Due to popular demand, the testimony of Ward 6 Manchester resident Jon DiPietro, entitled “Stop Experimenting on My Kids” was copied from our Live Forum Blog of the meeting and published as a guest OpEd to Oh My BLOG! Locally, we’ve seen various articles and blog posts recasting the district’s action as an adoption of the Common Core State Standards because Superintendent Debra Livingston said the standards would be considered a floor to build on, despite the board’s refusal to adopt the Common Core aligned curriculum guides. We’ll have something to say about this today, including discussion of an article I published last night, suggesting how the district could be truly transparent in pursuit of The Manchester Academic Standards it vowed to develop and return the focus to the work at hand.
Gemma Waite French, spokesperson for the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, was untruthful about your Humble Host and our efforts to broadcast their poorly attended mayoral debate live from the Institute of Politics in Goffstown. In an article published yesterday in the New Hampshire Sunday News, French told City Hall reporter Ted Siefer that quote Girard was invited and chose not to attend. End quote. For the record, we were not invited to the Manchester Chamber’s debate, which they held in Goffstown. We received a press release stating it was going to take place and asked to attend to broadcast it live as we did two years ago. Not only did French demonstrably misstate the truth, she also withheld the fact that the Institute of Politics somehow came to the conclusion that using an existing table in their lobby for broadcast purposes would be a safety risk and, as a result, told us we could not broadcast from the lobby, even though we’d done so before. French was copied on the email I was sent on that note and our inquiry regarding what changed to suddenly make us a safety risk was never replied to. Funny how that works. Oh, we’ve linked to the emails that clearly prove what French said just wasn’t true.
News from our own backyard continues after this.
The Merrimack Police Department’s annual food drive for the hungry has a new twist this year. The P D has been challenged by the Merrimack Public Works Department to see which can collect the greatest amount of food in support of local pantries . So, beginning November First, it’s Badges who want to protect and serve dinner versus Hard Hats who want to build a bridge over hunger in support of Merrimack’s food pantries. If your for the badges, drop your non perishable food items off at police headquarters at thirty one Baboosic Lake Road. If your for the D P W, you can drop your food stuffs off at their H Q located at eighty Turkey Hill Road. We’ve posted their flier with all the details with this newscast at Girard at Large dot com. Sounds like they’re having fun in support of a good cause.
Better communication, bigger results. That’s the theme of the coming Young Professionals event being hosted by the Greater Derry Londonderry Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday October thirtieth. The so called Y P group was recently established by the Derry Chamber as a way of providing younger professionals a structured opportunity to network as they build their businesses and careers. The event is open to the public and will feature local motivational speaker Steve Gamlin, who has been a guest on our show. We’ve posted the details with this newscast at Girard at Large dot com.
Our Candia Crime Wave Coverage continues as we share yet another month of mind numbing statistics from the little bedroom community just East of the big city. From September twentieth to October seventeenth, weird reporting month, I know, Candia’s boys in blue issued one hundred thirty three motor vehicles warnings and issued 3 summons. They also arrested fourteen people, mostly for a variety of driving offenses. We’ve published the gruesome details of Candia’s ongoing War on Crime with this newscast at Girard at Large dot com. Have courage, Candia. Have courage.
That’s news from our own backyard, Girard at Large hour ___ is straight ahead.
