by Ed Naile
You have to admire the Manchester paper for helping out a friend on the city’s school committee.
Here is the title of a “news” story they wrote:
Paul Feely’s City Hall: Did school board member violate confidentiality?
“”AT SOME POINT, enough has got to be enough.”
Those were the words spoken by At-Large school board member Rich Girard last week, expressing the frustration he and others felt as the latest attempt to hold an elected official accountable for violating the city’s charter fell on deaf ears.
During last week’s school board meeting, members discussed the release of nonpublic information regarding personnel matters by At-Large member Nancy Tessier. As revealed during last week’s session, after a nearly two-hour nonpublic session on Sept. 11, board members voted to authorize Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bolgen Vargas to take whatever steps he deemed necessary to discuss a letter from Department of Education (DOE) Commissioner Frank Edelblut regarding the Manchester school district’s “longstanding noncompliance” with the state’s special education laws and required corrective actions.”
The issue isn’t, did she violate confidentiality, she absolutely did that. Apparently, it is a funny habit she has.
The real story is that a majority of the Board covered for her rather than do the right thing – have an investigation – in public.
The liberal seat-warmer on the Manchester School Committee is one Nancy Tessier.
Here is a paragraph about her involvement in education from Ballotpedia:
“Nancy Tessier is a resident of Manchester, New Hampshire. Tessier earned her B.A. degree from New England College and her master’s degree in education and administration from Rivier College.
Prior to her retirement, she worked as the director of the student teacher program at Southern New Hampshire University and as a teacher, assistant principal, principal and assistant superintendent in the Manchester School District. She also previously served as a board member and as the chair of the school board for the North Country Supervisory Union in Vermont.”
What does this mean, all this past involvement in government education Nancy Tessier comes to the Manchester School Board with?
It means she knows better.
It means she breached the confidentiality of the non-public meeting in full knowledge of what she was doing – unless she can show some mental deficiency other than a left wing, I make my own rules, progressive mindset.
When the rest of the School Board members who voted to bury her violations of RSA 91-A showed their true colors and helped Nancy Tessier get away with violating on of the basic laws applicable to governing bodies of all types in NH, what did that prove?
It proves Nancy Tessier is more like a bad infection afflicting the rest of the School Board. There is no reason any school board member in any city or town should go along with helping Nancy Tessier get away with breaching the confidentiality without a really good reason.
Suddenly, Nancy Blabbermouth Tessier – isn’t talking.
The writer of the puff piece about Nancy Tessier shares the blame as well. He could have asked the hard questions:
Why did she do this, again?
Who is she trying to help or hurt?
Do the rest of the Board members who support her violating RSA 91-A think subjecting the District to lawsuits resulting from repeated, flagrant, RSA 91-A violations is good policy?
Did she do it “for the children” or just spite for being on the losing end of a vote?
But the story/opinion/fake news, about Nancy Tessier didn’t bother to ask the obvious. They just rolled up some fish in their paper and put it under the sofa.
Well you can wrap this most recent action by Nancy Tessier up and attempt to hide it away – but the stink still remains.