01-03-2014 News

Hi, this is Will Infantine for Girard at Large News.  It’s ____ outside and ____ degrees.  Be sure to stay tuned for Al Kaprielian’s weather forecast.

The Hooksett Police Department is expanding its Neighborhood Watch operation and looking for volunteers interested in coordinating a program in their neighborhood.  Sergeant Jake Robie said the role of the coordinator will be to solicit citizens interested in becoming neighborhood watch members and be the liaison between the watch group and the department.  Once a group of coordinators have committed to the program, Hooksett P Dwill host a meeting to discuss tips on how to get a neighborhood watch program started and discuss the goals of the program.  Interested parties may contact Robie via email at J R O B I E at Hooksett Police dot org or calling the station at 624156 0.  We’ve uploaded all the details with this news read at Girard at Large dot com.

Another Catholic Diocese in Wisconsin has rejected the Common Core national standards in favor of maintaining and developing its own.  The Most Reverend Peter Christensen, Bishop of Superior issued a statement cited the diocese’s one hundred seventy five year tradition of academic excellence in saying quote “In no way will the schools sacrifice our goals and expectations to conform to any one specific resource other than what we develop.”  End quote.  With that announcement, Superior became the fourth of the five dioceses in Wisconsin to reject the standards, joining with the dioceses of Madison, LaCrosse and Green Bay.  Similar to his counterparts in the other regions, Christensen said because the Common Core standards have not been field tested or around long enough to realize an impact, they should be monitored, not feared by the Catholic Schools.  We’ve uploaded the complete statement with this news read at Girard at Large dot com.

The Goffstown School District announced the installation of thirty seven new wireless local area network devices in Goffstown High over the Christmas break.  We’ve posted the release with all the technical mumbo jumbo that techno-geeks might understand with this news read at Girard at Large dot com because they’re not very good radio reading.  However, Goffstown School District Director of Technology Gary Girolimon said the wireless infrastructure will be a great benefit to the adult learners in town, the daytime students, and the general public as it will enable the district to provide public wireless access for community functions.  We hope that means we at Girard at Large can now blog meetings from Goffstown High live now.

News from our own backyard continues after this.

Does the State Board of Education have the authority to convert New Hampshire’s Minimum Standards in Education to a competency based system?  Not according to Michelle Level, an education advocate here in the state.  In an article we’ve linked to at School Choice for New Hampshire, Levelle asserts that because the State Board of Education may only make rules based on the laws of the state and because the state has yet to pass any legislation enabling competency based education, and, in fact, has defeated several such bills, they, the State Board of Education, is acting outside of its legal authority.  She is urging concerned citizens, especially parents, to forward their concerns to the legislature’s joint rules review committee before they act on the proposed revisions to rules on January seventeenth.  The committee has already delayed action on the proposed changes due to unanswered questions, therefore, opponents of the rules changes are hopeful that more public input will persuade legislators to take a closer look.  The contact information for the rules committee members is provided in the article.

Finally this morning, Hooksett School Board Vice Chair David Pearl has assembled a video montage from some of the more memorable meetings of that board since the first of the year.  Some of the big hits included from the past year include Chucky the Super’s denial that the board’s policies didn’t exist in electronic format, which Girard at Large disproved with a series of Right to Know requests, Trisha “The Gavel” Korkosz banging away in some of her finer moments, Pearl’s request to use a projector being voted down, residents and board members being threatened with removal by the cops and Chucky saying things that may come back to haunt him about what must be done to get a tuition contract in place for next year, none of which he or the board followed.  Pearl also provided a longer montage to give the selected clips proper context.  Trust us when we tell you it’s fun for the whole family!

That’s news from our own backyard, Girard at Large hour ___ is straight ahead!