Board of Aldermen — State-of-the-City-Address Page 3
February 16, 2016
Simultaneously, we will work with city and area residents to build a robust grassroots coalition to support rail.
Together, we will contact our legislators in Concord and fight for rail as an integral part of Nashua’s and New
Hampshire’s futures.
A third element of the economic development strategy will be workforce development. Workforce development
means working across our community to help ensure that we have qualified people available to fill the jobs we
have now and the jobs of the future. Nashua’s economy has strengthened since the Great Recession of 2008.
Our unemployment rate in New Hampshire is a little over 3% and economists would call this a full employment
economy. However, the number of jobs in New Hampshire is about the same as it was before the 2008
recession. Our business leaders, like Tracy Hatch tell us that there are many jobs that are going unfilled at the
present time, especially high-paying professional and high-skilled jobs. What do these facts tell us? If we want
to build a strong economy, we must work to ensure that we educate and develop the qualified employees that
our businesses need to thrive and grow which | am calling the workforce development. We need to work with
our businesses, our schools, our community college, and our universities to make sure that available jobs get
filled and that Nashua people can find great jobs and opportunities for careers right here in Nashua.
Fourth, our schools are vital to the long term health of our city and must be part of our economic development
strategy. We need the strongest public schools we can have, not only so that each of our kids can optimize his
or her potential, but also so that businesses that are making decisions regarding growing here or locating here
can feel confidence that they can find qualified, capable, skilled employees. There are many steps that our
Board of Education should consider to improve education in Nashua — for example, broader pre-kindergarten
education or, a more intensive focus on young children which would ensure that each child reads at grade level
at the end of third grade. However, we are constrained by the funds that we have available, so accomplishing
these goals certainly will not be easy or immediate.
At our high schools the high level of accomplishment is remarkable. Far more Nashua students than anywhere
else in New Hampshire take and pass advanced placement, the so-called AP courses in many different
disciplines. Our CTE programs — from computer networking and bio-robotics to auto mechanics and electrical
contracting are outstanding. The honors won by our high school students are so numerous and impressive
that | cannot recognize them all here. One example — The Nashua High School South Economics Team won
the 2015 Harvard University Pre-Collegiate Economics Challenge, the first public school to ever win in the
history of the challenge. Another example — in 2015, the South Forensics Team placed in the top 12 teams out
of 800 at the NYU Cybersecurity Competition. And | could go on and on.
However, | our schools we definitely have educational challenges that must be meet. We have rising numbers
of children who qualify for free or reduced lunch which a measure of low income, it is now about 43%. We
have rising numbers of kids whose primary language is not English and we have a rising number of children
with disabilities. Some of the kids who come to school are from families suffering a high degree of stress and
they are not ready for a learning environment. Our teachers at our elementary schools do a great job in
nurturing and educating kids who come to kindergarten and/or first grade totally unprepared in reading and
math.
Unfortunately, substance use is a major challenge that has an impact on our schools. More kids than people
realize, have parents or other family members who are heroin abusers, and the problems that kids encounter
at home or on the street spill over into the school environment. When secondary principals are asked what
they need the most, their answer is actually drug counselors and social workers. In addition to our public
schools, Rivier University and the other institutions of higher learning that we have in Nashua are vital to the
state of our city and | want to strengthen the city’s relationships with them. Rivier has transformed its campus
and the gateway to our downtown on lower Main Street. Under the leadership of Sister Paula Marie Buley,
Rivier has taken the bold step of guaranteeing student loans for graduates who may not get jobs after
matriculation. Rivier is doing a great job in attracting hundreds of international students into its graduate
programs in computer science. Rivier is a strong proponent of rail service for Nashua because rail will make
Rivier more attractive to the students they want to bring to Nashua. Rivier and our other colleges and
universities can play a vital role in our workforce development initiatives, in our pro-rail coalition, and in our
