Group forming to sue NH over education funding.

[mikefam]

The argument from NHCafe is that the NH constitution requires that the state pay for an adequate education.

How do you repond to this??

what section of the NHconstitution do they qoute?  do they consider part 1 article 6 (NH bill of rights) part of the state constitution?

[lildog]

Here's the statement from the 1993 ruling...

?We hold that part II, article 83 imposes a duty on the State to provide a constitutionally adequate education to every educable child in the public schools in New Hampshire and to guarantee adequate funding?

[CNHT]

I just went to the NHCafe.org website and tried to visit their forum? the link doesn?t appear to be working.

Try this link, as I was able to post:

http://www.nhcafe.com/blog/index.php

[mikefam]

Here's the statement from the 1993 ruling...

?We hold that part II, article 83 imposes a duty on the State to provide a constitutionally adequate education to every educable child in the public schools in New Hampshire and to guarantee adequate funding?

if this is true then there is a conflict in the constitutionof the state of NH  as Part 1 article 6  line 4 - 6 reads as follows:    - therefore, the several parishes,bodies,coroprate or religious societies shall at all times have the rightof electing their own teachers,and of contracting with them for their support or maintenence or both ---but no person shall ever be compelled to pay towards the supportof schools of any sect or denomination--- ect..

that being said how could the state ever think it was responsible to fund any kind of school according to article 6 its would fall upon the town(body corporate)as one of the several refered to earlier.  furthermore how could any one be forced to pay for the schools of the public sect. when article 6 expressly forbids compelment to pay for schools.

[CNHT]

Here's the statement from the 1993 ruling...

?We hold that part II, article 83 imposes a duty on the State to provide a constitutionally adequate education to every educable child in the public schools in New Hampshire and to guarantee adequate funding?

if this is true then there is a conflict in the constitutionof the state of NH? as Part 1 article 6? line 4 - 6 reads as follows:? ? - therefore, the several parishes,bodies,coroprate or religious societies shall at all times have the rightof electing their own teachers,and of contracting with them for their support or maintenence or both ---but no person shall ever be compelled to pay towards the supportof schools of any sect or denomination--- ect..

that being said how could the state ever think it was responsible to fund any kind of school according to article 6 its would fall upon the town(body corporate)as one of the several refered to earlier.? furthermore how could any one be forced to pay for the schools of the public sect. when article 6 expressly forbids compelment to pay for schools.

EXACTLY

[GT]

http://www.nhcafe.com/blog/?p=231

The New Hampshire Communities for Adequate Funding of Education is interested in collecting papers on ?Adequate Funding of Education? in New Hampshire.

Looks like a silly request, but we would like to publish any white paper, proposed legislation, letter to the editor, report, study or even rant about funding education. In two short months we have collected over 220 articles on our web log this data base is now available to anyone by simply using our search function. School funding has been an issue for over 10 years, no need to reinvent the wheel. If you have ideas, concepts or solutions we would be delighted if you could post them.

The socialist are coming out of the woodwork at NHCafe....

[CNHT]

http://www.nhcafe.com/blog/?p=231

The socialist(s) are coming out of the woodwork at NHCafe....

NO KIDDING  And these are 'poor' towns either. They are using tax dollars from the wealthy to screw the state out of even more money for themselves. Is their no end to their greed?

[GT]

As I understand it NHCafe is funded by taxpayer money. If taxpyer money is funding them shouldn't there be public and open meeting?

NHCafe does not post anything in regard to what is going on. Seems like something is wrong here...

[CNHT]

As I understand it NHCafe is funded by taxpayer money. If taxpyer money is funding them shouldn't there be public and open meeting?

NHCafe does not post anything in regard to what is going on. Seems like something is wrong here...

Their selectmen/town council and/or SAU/school board voted to spend the money to give toward the lawsuit, but it was not put up to a vote of the people, that I know of.

Residents of those towns should call and complain!

[GT]

The Londonderry School board likes to use the phrase "Public Non-public Meeting" Half the time when they discuss something in public they will not allow the public to comment. In fact the original meeting that sparked the creation of NHCafe was a "public non-public" at the time I was too disgusted with the town to throw a fit about it.

[CNHT]

The Londonderry School board likes to use the phrase "Public Non-public Meeting" Half the time when they discuss something in public they will not allow the public to comment. In fact the original meeting that sparked the creation of NHCafe was a "public non-public" at the time I was too disgusted with the town to throw a fit about it.

Go make a 91-A request and demand to know how this came about!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GT]

how this came about!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Simple very few people seem to care.

When this meeting took place we heard prior to the meeting the gloom and doom in the papers "Your taxes will go up thousands of dollars" Very few people without an agenda showed up. The meeting was mostly school board, NH reps and Town Council members. As per usual the location and time ofthe meeting was not easy to find.

[CNHT]

how this came about!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Simple very few people seem to care.

When this meeting took place we heard prior to the meeting the gloom and doom in the papers "Your taxes will go up thousands of dollars" Very few people without an agenda showed up. The meeting was mostly school board, NH reps and Town Council members. As per usual the location and time ofthe meeting was not easy to find.

This is illegal! This has to be conducted in public. Please email me about this and I will forward to Ed.

(Ed just wrote me a most hilarious song version of 'Big Yellow Taxi' so we can jab Souter with song, so I'm not getting much work done in the area of car cleaning and packing tonight but I'm sure having fun!)

[GT]

The meeting was held in public at the Londonderry high school.

There was a comment made by Nate Greenberg , Londonderry superintendent, that public comment at the meeting would be limited kind of a public non-public meeting he said.

In reality it doesn't matter weather it's public or not. If it is public try finding the meeting. They bury the announcement at the back of the newspaper and do little to publisize it. The last time there was a meeting planned with a potential large attendance the meeting changed locations the day before the meeting. Londonderry does this all the time and I'm sure other towns do too.

They also spend a tremendous amount od time in "non-public session", but I guess that's a topic for another day.

[lildog]

As I understand it NHCafe is funded by taxpayer money. If taxpyer money is funding them shouldn't there be public and open meeting?

NHCafe does not post anything in regard to what is going on. Seems like something is wrong here...

Their selectmen/town council and/or SAU/school board voted to spend the money to give toward the lawsuit, but it was not put up to a vote of the people, that I know of.

Residents of those towns should call and complain!

I actually made that same point publicly a couple days ago.  As a member of the Merrimack Budget committee I questioned first off why the school and town both know they have $20,000 surplus they can contribute this early into the budget year (the town originally pledged 20k but retracted to 10) and then I question the legality of their donating to something that clearly wasn?t in the budget.

I was told they are using the ?legal fees? line item since this is going toward a lawsuit, hence it?s legal fees.  And since the line item was in the budget that the town voted for they can shuffle as much to and from that line item as they want.  So in other words the taxpayer is given a jar of Vaseline and not even asked if they like it!

I know when I continually see things like this being done it makes me feel like I?m wasting my time scrutinizing the town budget.  I mean why bother when they know in advance that they have tens of thousands misallocated AND they just shuffle funds around wherever they like anyway!