Monthly Archives: July 2020

NEA-NH Recommends Volinsky for Governor

Volinsky believes as we do that our schools must be safe environments that are funded fairly.  July 30, 2020 – CONCORD, NH – Public school students, educators and their families cannot trust Chris Sununu as governor now and can certainly not afford to have him remain in office for another term. Governor Chris Sununu failed students, their parents, and the communities in which they live. He failed teachers, paraeducators, lunch workers, school bus drivers, secretaries and every other education employee working in New Hampshire long before he proposed his own self-described Swiss Cheese approach to re-opening schools during the Corona […]

NEA-NH Releases Principles for Reopening

District plans that include any amount of in-person instruction need to follow these steps before beginning such instruction or allowing staff and students into a school building. July 22, 2020 – CONCORD, NH – Today, NEA-New Hampshire released our Principles for Reopening, a document that reflects the values of the organization regarding the safe reopening of our schools. In the middle of a pandemic that shows no signs of slowing in the United States, Governor Sununu and Commissioner Edelblut have put the priority on flexibility leaving thousands of students and staff to fend for themselves at the local level. The […]

Governor’s Guidelines Will Not Keep Students Safe

During yesterday’s press briefing, Governor Sununu took a 30-minute victory lap to tout New Hampshire’s impressive COVID-19 results. With charts and graphs he explained where we now stand in the country in our fight to contain the virus. It is impossible to deny the gains we have made as a state. The Governor then moved to the subject of re-opening our schools and introduced his recommendations on how that was to be done. The victory lap was over, replaced by the Governor fumbling the ball on the one-yard line. The Governor stressed the flexibility and local control nature of his guidelines. He stated […]

NEA-NH: There Are Far Too Many ‘Shoulds’ in the School Guidance Document to Keep Our Students and Staff Safe

The Governor’s new document on guidance for school reopening does not go far enough to assure us that schools will be safe for students and staff to return to this fall.  We believe the Governor’s recommendation falls short in keeping kids and staff safe.  These guidelines are designed to be practical and flexible – they are not designed to promote uniform student safety.  “Three to six feet of social distancing is recommended by the guidelines,” said Megan Tuttle, NEA-NH President. “But the Governor goes on to say that if it’s not practical, he’ll leave it up to each school to […]

NEA-NH Applauds Committee’s Action and Urges Commissioner to Spend Less Time and Effort Diverting Funds from NH’s Neighborhood Schools

Today the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee made the fiscally responsible decision to leave the DeVos charter expansion grant on the table. With all of the uncertainty around what local school and the state budget will be going forward due to the pandemic, it would be irresponsible to commit to a doubling of NH charter schools, all of which would be an unknown cost to tax payers for years to come. Commissioner Edelblut and Governor Sununu should be concentrating on shoring up the needed funds our existing public neighborhood and charter schools need in order to safely return in the fall […]

NEA-NH Legislative Update: Session Wrap-up

Introduction This legislative session has certainly been one of the strangest and most memorable ones I or anyone else have experienced. The pandemic essentially shut down the New Hampshire legislature for the better part of 3 months and the Governor issued 58 emergency order under the state of emergency we are still under and a legal and constitutional battle remains over the checks and balances that the executive is operating under during this unprecedented time. The legislature despite social distancing restrictions and opposition from the minority in the House still managed to salvage several initiatives. The state senate merged hundreds […]