Advisory #6
Below is the candidacy announcement from Jameson (Jamie) Fitzpatrick for the Newton School Board seat.
NKTA reviews candidates who make themselves available to serve. We encourage you to support Jamie. He is by far the best qualifed Newton candidate to further our mission: to restrain costs and property tax growth, while supporting needed academic improvements at the schools.
If you care about controlling property taxes with improving education, the two things that most affect our property values, consider voting for him on March 12, 8 AM – 8 PM, and encourage others to do so.
Absentee ballots are available through town hall.
NKTA has worked to restrain tax growth over the past 5 years. The rate of property tax increase is lessened, and much more needs to be done.
To the Voters of Newton:
My name is Jameson (Jamie) Fitzpatrick. I am running for a seat on the Sanborn Regional School District (SRSD) school board for the town of Newton. I would like to take a moment to introduce myself and explain a bit about my background and why I have decided to run for office.
I have been married to my wife Patti for 25 years and we have 2 children, one is a junior in college and one is enrolled in the Sanborn Regional School District (SRSD). We moved to Newton in 2008.
I have worked at my company for 37 years with increasing responsibilities and managerial experience in: Finance, Quality, Marketing, R&D, Planning, IT, Production as well as Plant, Project and Product Management, culminating in responsibility for a $300 million business.
I have a BS in Finance from Fairfield University. I have achieved certification as a Certified Management Accountant (CMA). I have also co-created and co-taught a “Financial Accounting for Non Financial Managers” course, in conjunction with the American Management Association (AMA) that has become a standard training program throughout my company.
On the human relations/collaboration side, I have led a team of hourly and management employees that re-wrote the employee handbook at the factory, making the work rules more flexible and more efficient. I have also led international teams with people of diverse backgrounds and cultures. In all of these cases, listening was the key ingredient to leading these teams to success.
I joined the Newton Kingston Taxpayer Association (NKTA) a few years ago to begin to address my concerns about what I considered to be the runaway spending within the SRSD, and the poor performance of the district in the comparative testing which is published by the NH Department of Education. I believe in traditional education standards and grading. I also believe that we, as a community, MUST do better to improve our student’s proficiency in math and reading. The 2018 Annual report for 11th grade shows proficiency levels of just 30% and 54% respectively!
I understand that the School Board position represents the entire community and requires a high level of focus and dedication. I have attended almost all the School Board meetings this past year to better familiarize myself with the current challenges facing the community.
I have been encouraged by the new administration and their willingness to take on the tough challenges that we face as a district head on, and I feel that my background provides me with a diverse set of skills and experiences that will enable me to be a valuable contributor to the SRSD as we forge our way ahead and position ourselves to be a high achieving and fiscally sustainable school district.
I respectfully ask for your support and your vote in the coming election. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at JTFitz59@Yahoo.com
Thank you
Sincerely,
Jamie Fitzpatrick