Students grill Nashua school board candidates

NASHUA – Interesting and diverse questions produced answers that ranged from touting Winston Churchill and Bertrand Russell as childhood heroes to blaming the Education Department’s financial woes on the Board of Aldermen and mayor for not giving schools enough money to function properly.

A dozen students from the journalism and careers in education program grilled the four Board of Education candidates Tuesday morning during a forum at Nashua High School South. The forum was broadcast live over Channel 99 and may be rebroadcast at later times.

“Money is a real problem. Without money, we’re going to have a hard time trying to improve our (school system). And we really need to improve,” incumbent board member Sandra Ziehm said in response to a student’s question.

The key is to “try to educate the Board of Aldermen and mayor who control the purse strings,” said Ziehm, whose answers proved the most controversial and perhaps, as the students might learn, “newsworthy” in light of the budget shortfall discovered this fall that was attributed largely to errors made by the former superintendent and school business manager.

Many residents and city officials have also criticized the school board for failing to provide sufficient oversight of school spending.

Ziehm said the amount of money the school district’s budget was required to spend was $1.6 million over its budget.

In response to another question on how she would describe Nashua schools to a family looking to buy a home here, Ziehm said the schools serve the brightest students well along with special education students, but average students pay the price of insufficient school funding.

Later, a student asked Ziehm if she and the Board of Education bear any responsibility for the budget shortfalls that surfaced over the summer and threaten to burden schools for the next two fiscal years.

Ziehm said the media and city incorrectly put all the blame on the Education Department, while the city and state government should share the blame for not providing adequate funding. Nashua schools have to educate 13,000 students and “can’t do it on a shoestring,” Ziehm said.

The four candidates are running unopposed but that didn’t stop students from grilling the candidates as if each were fighting an opponent for a seat on the board.

Ziehm was joined by fellow incumbent and board President Thomas Vaughan and candidates Dennis Ryder and Dennis Murotake. Questions were posed by careers in education students Angelica LaVine, Stephanie Hanscom, Alexandra Chmura, Virginia Mariolo and Shannon Tocci. Students in the program work in elementary schools, and as part of their studies learn about the structure of a school system and the role of the Board of Education, teacher Judy Loftus said.

The journalism students were Jared Caron, Anjum Syed, Taylor Morrison, Lizzy Caplan, Melissa Jean and Spencer Lowry. Under the direction of teacher Rob Greene, the students had researched the incumbents’ voting records and the candidates’ Web sites.

Moderating the forum was former student Lauren Bancroft, who also asked several questions.

Seventeen other students manned cameras or microphones or worked the control room, said Jim Pfeiffer, video production and broadcasting teacher.

The show went off without a hitch, and Pfeiffer said he was impressed by the job the students did.

“When you give high school kids adult responsibilities, they step up,” Pfeiffer said.

The ultimate testament to that: Things went so smoothly that Pfeiffer was able to step into his office and eat a snack during the production.

While Ziehm seemed intent on spreading blame for the school’s financial mess, Vaughan seemed the most reflective on the issue when asked if he cast any votes that he now regrets.

Vaughan said he didn’t so much regret a vote as “questions I should have asked but didn’t ask.”

Asked about funding for athletics in an era of tight spending, Vaughan said that while he enjoyed mathematics more than sports, and was better at math, he recognizes the important role that sports play.

“There are lessons people learn in sports that you can’t learn in the classroom,” Vaughan said, mentioning working as a team to overcome obstacles.

Murotake, a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and owner of a high-tech business, used students’ questions to talk of what new technology can offer schools.

“If you have tight resources, one of the things you can do is look into introducing new technologies,” Murotake said.

Ryder said he’d like to see teachers “forgo some of their increases” if the union agrees to the board’s request to reopen negotiations. Because of the tough economic times and tight school budget, teachers could face layoffs, he cautioned.

The four candidates were also asked to name their childhood heroes. Ziehm cited a high school teacher and a pastor, and Vaughan pointed to Albert Einstein and philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell.

Murotake named his Japanese-American father, who grew up poor in a tough neighborhood in Hawaii, and his Japanese mother, both of whom worked very hard to make a life for themselves in the United States.

“He’s my hero, and she’s my heroine,” Murotake said.

Ryder grew up in Great Britain during World War II and said he had a love-hate relationship with his hero, Winston Churchill.

Ryder said he greatly admired Churchill, “except he was in the wrong party.”

As a young man, Ryder identified with Britain’s Socialist Party, while Churchill was a Conservative Party member, Ryder said.

Patrick Meighan can be reached at 594-6518 or pmeighan@nashuatelegraph.com.