Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing Page 41
Paula Johnson
May | ask a board member the same question?
Mayor Donchess
What’s the question?
Paula Johnson
The question is how do we justify - maybe you should have been listening to what I’m saying — how
do we justify no textbooks for students in Algebra | and II, none for Geometry, and none for Spanish II
and III?
Mayor Donchess
All right does any board member have a different answer than the one that Dr. Brown gave if its’ the
same.
Paula Johnson
And the lower level classes have no books.
George Farrington
As Dr. Brown pointed out, that’s something as far as at this point in the evening that’s just a rumor
and we’d have to look into it. Often times these things are not exactly as they appear on the surface
and we certainly will look into that if you could provide us more detail information that would make it
helpful for us to research that. If | may to just take a moment because we seem to be running pretty
far afield here this evening. I’ve been doing this for it’s my 12" year on the Board of Education with a
break in between and you can see why.
Mayor Donchess
Why you did the 12 years or why you took a break?
George Farrington
The first one probably isn’t as obvious but why | took a break should be. Often times the Board is
criticized as tonight for example for asking for more money and more money. | don’t expect us to get
a round of applause but | think it’s important to note that we’re trying to improve the educational
opportunities of the students in Nashua by reallocating existing resources and not coming to the city
and asking for more money over and above what our budget is this year just to expand kindergarten
to the other 7 schools that don’t currently have all day kindergarten. The credit for this goes to Dr.
Brown. She took us at our word. We said we wanted to try and have all of our students as many of
our students as we possibly can to have on reading and math level at the end of third grade. She
looked at our resources and found a way to do that. | don’t think that that should be lost in all this
conversation about how the district spends, spends, spends. If you can provide us with some more
detailed information on that, we will certainly look into it.
Chairman Dowd
Anything else on the school department?
