Colonel John Shepard Bridge

The Colonel John Shepard Bridge (commonly known as the Stone Bridge) is one of the more notable landmarks in town. There have been a number of bridges in that spot since the very beginning of Milford history, with this one being very quaint. I like the architecture of the bridge as it seems to fit the town well.

Some historical plaques were added to the bridge a few years ago. These plaques list some of the more notable citizens from Milford, with names representing various eras from the beginning to more modern times.

I have been passing by these plaques for the past few years and I have been curious about the background for each one. I am familiar with many of the names since I am one of the few people to have read the Ramsdell - History of Milford, N.H. 1738-1901 from cover to cover. However, I do not know the background of some of the newer names and I'd like to find out about them.

I presume that most people in town are not familiar with the story behind the names on the plaques, so I thought that it would be helpful to give a brief overview of each one. I will create a separate posting for each person as I have time, and as I learn their story. Some of the biographies are well documented in Ramsdell, but the others may be more difficult to find.

I do not know the background of the plaques. I suspect that they were installed by DO-IT or other similar group, but I just don't know. If anyone knows who installed the plaques and how they chose the particular names to be memorialized, then please let me know.

This is the information on the plaques that are posted on the bridge. Although there is no plaque for him, I have also included Colonel John Shepard since the bridge is named for him.

Colonel John Shepard		1706-1785		Miller
William Crosby		1758-1831		Benefactor & Citizen
Humphrey Moore		1778-1871		Clergyman
Hutchinson Singers		Mid 1800's		Advocates & Musicians
Mary A. Lull		1832-1910		Doctor & Benefactor
George A. Ramsdell		1834-1900		Governor & Historian
Carrie Cutter		1842-1862		Nurse & Heroine
Albert E. Pillsbury		1849-1930		Author & Benefactor
George A. Worcester		1852-1941		Involved Citizen
Lucy "Gertrude" Howison		1873-1958		Community Servant
Alberta Hagar		1889-1985		Teacher & Historian
Harland Holt		1908-1995		Dedicated Citizen

Milford School Board Non-Public Sessions

The Sunday July 22nd editorial in the Nashua Telegraph was titled "A Disturbing Trend in Sealing Minutes." This is a link to the editorial, but you may need to be a subscriber to view it.

The editorial was part of a several months long review by the Nashua Telegraph regarding the Nashua Board of Education's (NBOE) practices for non-public sessions, and the minutes that they keep from the meetings.

The main points that the Nashua Telegraph has been making is that it appears that the NBOE has not been following the spirit nor the letter of the law regarding non-public sessions. You can read the Telegraph to learn all the specific complaints that they have regarding NBOE, and I'm not going to reiterate them all here.

What I do want to say - in my probably biased opinion - is that the Milford School Board (MSB) does a good job of following both the spirit and the letter of the law regarding non-public sessions and the minute taking of those sessions.

New Hampshire Statutes RSA Chapter 91-A details the law regarding meetings and minutes for groups such as the MSB. 91-A lists at length all the specifically-allowed events and the specifically dis-allowed activities. The expectation is that maximum openness of activities is presumed unless there is a specifically-allowed activity that overrides the general guidelines.

These are some of the key non-public session points of 91-A, and the corresponding Milford practices:

* Non-Public sessions must be posted in advance with a description of the reason for the non-public session. All MSB meeting are posted as per the detailed requirements. The specific section of 91-A that allows a non-public session to occur is referenced in the posting.

* Only topics specifically allowed to be discussed in non-public session can be discussed in non-public session. The MSB does a good job of staying on topic during non-public sessions. We are careful to stay on topic and not drift to discussions of items that are not allowed to be discussed in non-public. There have been several instances where we have cut-off discussions when we were moving to a topic that is not allowed to be discussed in non-public.

RSA 91-A lists the topics that are allowed to be discussed in non-public. An example is 91-A:3 II. (a) The dismissal, promotion or compensation of any public employee... As per this particular section, we routinely discussion compensation levels of district employees in non-public session rather than in public session. I view this as a good practice, since it allows us to be more open with our questioning and discussions about an employee, and it allows us to come to a better understanding of the situation. We want to know all the good points and all the bad points about an employee when setting salaries. If we had to be in public session, then the bad points might not be addressed since we would not want to accidentally disclose something that might not be accurate.

* Non-public minutes need to be kept and publicly disclosed. The MSB provides minutes of all non-public sessions. Any decisions that are reached are recorded, and any votes that are taken are listed along with the names of the members and their votes.

* Minutes can be withheld (commonly known as sealed) if certain specific guidelines are met. The MSB will occasionally seal the minutes of a non-public session if the guidelines of RSA 91-A:3 III. are met. The minutes are unsealed if the reasons for the sealing are no longer valid. A hypothetical example would be if we were discussing the purchase of real estate and we voted for the district representative to make an offer on the property along with specific approvals for counter-offers. We would seal the minutes that outlined our negotiating plans until the negotiations were complete. We would then unseal the minutes.

Once a year at the final meeting before the election of new board members, the MSB reviews the status of the minutes that are still sealed to see if there has been a change in conditions that would allow the minutes to be unsealed. There are usually none that have had a change of status, and they just remain sealed. An example of a non-public minutes that will probably remain sealed forever would be one that was a disciplinary hearing for a student. There would be no point in opening-up this type of thing to public scrutiny, and discussing things that would affect adversely the reputation of any person is one of the items that is specifically allowed to be withheld from public inspection.

Milford's Host Home Program

Milford has a number of social service programs that are designed to help out people with problems of various types. One great program that I have been involved with on a few occasions is the host homes program.

The purpose of the program is to provide short-term crisis intervention for adolescents and their families when they are experiencing stress of some type. The method of intervention is to have the adolescent stay with a non-involved local family for a short period of time to try to ease the stress levels. There are many different situations that lead to a crisis, but the program allows the adolescent to stay in a safe environment while the problems are being addressed.

There are three points to keep in mind about this program

1. Learn about the program and what it offers. More details on the program can be found here. You never know when you will have an occasion where the program might help out a situation. If you know of an adolescent with problems, then recommend the program to them or to their parents or guardians.

2. Consider volunteering to be a host homes family. They are always looking to have more families set up to accept placements. They try to match the adolescent with a family that is compatible, and having more families in the program helps to provide various situations that offer different environments from which to choose.

Also, there are some families that have hosted a larger portion of the placements in the program. Having more families in the program helps to spread the load around. There are no hard and fast rules as to how many placements you will handle if you sign up to be a host home. It is entirely up to you. If you can do one placement every year or two, then that is great. If you can do more, then that is good too.

There is a qualification process that you need to go through if you want to be a host home. This is to insure the adolescent is being placed in a safe and suitable environment.

Mary Pat Jackson is the program coordinator, and she does a great job. Contact her if you have any questions of any type.

3. Consider making a donation if you can, as they always need more money to help out with situations.

Milford - One home football game this year!

We had our first meeting of the High School Project Management Advisory Committee today. The meeting was a good get-to-know-you type of meeting, and it gave everyone a solid understanding of the scope of the project.

One very interesting bit of news that came out during the meeting is that as of now, the plan is to have one home football game held in Milford. All the other "Home" games will be held at a neutral site such as Souhegan.

It now looks like the August 31st game against Souhegan will be held in Milford! This is usually our biggest rivalry, and will be great to have it on our own home turf. We need all the psychological advantages that we can get since they are usually such a tough opponent.

The plan until just recently was that there would be no home games this year. This was needed to allow the track and field renovation plan to move forward at a pace that would enable the project to be complete in time for the fall of 2008 season. There were a bunch of assumptions that led to the project plan being structured this way.

There have been some changes in some of the assumptions, and one is that the Architect (David Laurin) is submitting the site plan review for a "fast-track" approval that, if granted, will allow us to change the sequence of site construction activities and get more things done this year.

I had not heard of the fast-track approval process before now, but supposedly, this process has been used successfully by a few school districts in the past. This process has the potential for turning a permitting process from a couple of months cycle time to less than two weeks.

This is great news if this does occur as is currently planned. It will be nice for the seniors to get to play at least one home game on the home turf, and not miss out on the home field experience in total.

Milford School Board Meeting 7/16/07

Superintendent’s Report

There are about 339 students taking part in some sort of activity in the District this summer. Some of the activities are reading programs at Jacques, special education/Title 1 programs at Heron Pond and the Middle School, and remedial programs at the High School.

There are many training programs in place for the Teaching staff for the summer. Most of these are in-district programs, but there are a few out-of-district programs. There were 22 programs listed, with titles such as DIBELS Essentials Workshop, Earobics Workshop, ePortfolio work, Writing across the curriculum, and Introduction to Harcourt Reading.

Renaming the Bales Elementary School

The Bales Elementary School is really no longer an elementary school, and we are looking at changing the name to better reflect the current and future uses of the building.

Sarah Clark, who will be a senior next year at Milford High, gave a very nice report on the history of the naming of the Bales Elementary School. She did an excellent job of researching the history of the school from the late 1800’s until the present.

We are going to find out a bit more information before we decide what we will do, if anything. The school was named in 1969 in honor of Harold Bales who was the Superintendent of Schools from 1919 to 1939. We want to find out if the naming was done by a vote at town meeting, or if the School Board did it. If it was named at Town Meeting, then we might need another vote by the Town to change it again.

Review of District Goals

Superintendent Suprenant reviewed the progress for the past year for the District goals that we had set a year ago. We had gone over all the items at various times during the year, but I was very pleased to see the summary for the year that showed that all goals were achieved.
The items that we reviewed were:

* District report card,
* Automated messaging for parents and teachers,
* Implementation of policies in support of the new state minimum standards,
* Development of renovation proposals for the High School and Bales
* Union contract negotiations
* Literacy Professional development
* Individualized learning / Follow the Child
* DIBELS Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills
* World language curriculum development
* Wellness committee
* Improved communications with local private kindergartens
* Adult education planning
* Evening alternative student education planning

World Language Curriculum

The new world language curriculum was presented. This aligned the French, Spanish, and Latin curriculums through all the grades. There were a few significant changes, mainly at the high school level where there will now be five courses offered in French and Spanish instead of four. The top two courses in each will be studies in History and Literature related to the particular language. We will also institute a 1B course to provide a transition option from an introductory course to the second level course.

Daily Physical Activity Policy

We implemented a new daily physical education policy that is consistent with the new minimum standards from the state. We are now in compliance with this requirement.
The policy is somewhat of a motherhood and apple-pie policy statement that basically states that we should encourage daily physical activity for everyone.

Track Update

The next track and field project fundraiser is a scramble golf tournament to be held Thursday August 2nd at Amherst Country Club. I plan on entering the event, so the winning team is all locked up. There will be plenty of competition for second place, so come on and sign up.
We moved $35K from the athletics trust fund to the track fund, as planned in the overall project financing.

Heron Pond Addition Fund

I made a motion that we take $200K out of the Heron Pond Addition Construction Fund and return it to the general fund for distribution back to the taxpayers on this year’s taxes. There is about $318K left in the fund at this time, and removing $200K will leave about $118K for the projects that remain to be completed. One of the remaining projects will be done soon, and this one will add a second culvert under the access road to drain the swamp area quicker during times of high water flow.

There are two more projects that are potentials that still need to be costed. One is to add lighting of some type to Heron Pond Road in the area from Whitten Road to the corner turn. Right now there is no lighting of any type in that area, and it is a traffic hazard when there is a night event such as parent-teacher conference night. It can be pitch black in that area and it is difficult to even see the sidewalk.

The second potential project is to do some sort of a retrofit to some or all of the windows in the original section of the building to make them easier to open. The windows are extremely difficult to open, and they have been a problem since they were first installed. When they were first installed, they were designed following accepted design practices, and they were built to specification, but they are still difficult to operate by some women teachers.

I am pleased to report that the motion to return the $200K passed unanimously.

Update on Adequate Education Bill

I reviewed my thoughts on the adequate education bill that was recently signed by Governor Lynch.

Peter Bragdon basically agreed with my opinion on the bill, specifically that the bill requires us to provide kindergarten starting in the ’08-’09 school year, that only half-day kindergarten is required, and that we will not know the details on the funding until after the voting next year.

He did mention that there is a nuance to the interpretation that the bill requires half-day kindergarten. The language in the state specs states that school districts should strive to offer half-day kindergarten. The word strive is not a mandatory word, so there is a possibility that someone could interpret that it is not required.

Peter stated that he thought that there would be some sort of correction language that will be implemented this year that will correct this interpretation. I think that that even if the language is not corrected, that there is other language in the bill that supersedes the strive wording and that kindergarten is required.

Next Meeting

We decided to cancel the first August meeting since it appears that there is not really a need to have a second meeting at this time.

HB 927-FN and Milford Kindergarten

I reviewed the HB 927-FN adequate education law that was signed by the governor on June 29th. These are my interpretations as to how this new law will relate to Milford. The full text of the law can be found at HB 927-FN

1. All 5 year olds will be entitled to attend public Kindergarten starting with the 2008-2009 school year. Attending Kindergarten is optional, but Milford is required to offer public Kindergarten starting in ‘08-‘09.

2. My interpretation after reading all the detail is that the minimum acceptable program that meets the definition of an adequate education is half-day Kindergarten. This law does not mandate full-day Kindergarten.

I come to this conclusion because HB 927 references ““school approval standards”…as adopted by the state board of education through administrative rules.” The current rules contain this standard for public school approval: Ed 306.25 Kindergarten. Every district shall strive to offer at least a ½ day kindergarten program to every eligible student. A kindergarten program shall comply with all pertinent provisions of Ed 306.

There is also this section that defines minimum school day duration: Ed 306.18 School Year. c) Each school with a school year option based on days shall be subject to the following requirements: (3) For each elementary school: a. The regular school day shall be 6 hours in duration with at least 5.25 hours devoted to instructional time;… d. Kindergarten sessions shall be at least 2.5 hours in duration;

3. There is a good chance that the state will provide start-up funding of some significant amount to the school districts that do not currently offer Kindergarten, but we will not know what the funding will be until after the March voting is completed. My guess is that the adequate education state funding formula will be completed just before the June 30, 2008 deadline mandated by the courts.

Since we don’t know what we will get under the new law, it would be prudent for any warrant article that is put on the ballot to assume that we will receive aid according to regular state aid formulas, such as the current 30% building aid formula. The articles should be written in a manner that allows for increased aid to be accepted and applied to the project.

4. This is not in the law, but is a practical outcome. It is likely that we will be able to set up a half-day Kindergarten program by renovating the Bales annex. Although it will be tight, it is likely that this could be done between the time a construction program is approved in March ‘08 and the start of school in September ‘08.

A full day program is much more complicated, and much more expensive. It would require the construction of a new building, which could not be completed by September of ’08. If we were to offer a full-day program, we would have to set up some sort of interim facility or program for the ’08-’09 school year. This might take the form of roughly ten portable classrooms somewhere.

Another possibility would be to fund students to attend local private Kindergartens. I suspect that this is not a viable option since the private Kindergartens would have to meet the No Child Left Behind requirements and most (if not all) of them do not. Private Kindergartens generally do not have “highly qualified” teachers on staff as mandated by NCLB.

5. Netting everything out, it is my opinion that we should offer a half-day Kindergarten program. This will meet the letter (and the spirit) of the law, and will be much more affordable than a Full-day program.

Renovating the Bales Annex is a relatively low cost solution that would be money well spent. Even if the District enrollment increases to the point where Kindergarten and First grade no longer fit into the Jacques/Bales Annex complex, we could build a new facility at that time for Kindergarten, freeing up room for First Grade.

The only exception to this thought process is that the State may provide special Kindergarten Adequate Education construction money only on an interim basis, and then rescind it later. This may be a one-time only opportunity to get a new school built at a lowered cost to the School District. The problem with this is that we won’t know until after the voting is over as to what the State has decided to do. Since we need to have a Kindergarten program in place for the ’08-’09 school year, we can’t wait to find out all the funding details.

Selectmen Crush School Board!

Selectman Noreen O'Connell, School Board Member Paul Dargie, and Selectman Tim Finan held a sack-race death-match for world domination during the Fourth of July festivities at Keyes Field.

Tim was the ringer in the race as he showed off his superior sack race hopping skills. He pulled ahead steadily during the race and completely crushed the outclassed Dargie.

Noreen came in first place out of all female Selectmen entered in the race.