NASHUA – For Bruce MacMahon, working at the Academy for Science and Design is a dream come true.

He told only his family that he was applying for the job last year out of fear he would jinx his chances.

And now that he has been working at the charter school for a year, he said his feelings about it haven’t changed.

“Still, a year later, my alarm goes off in the morning and I can’t wait to get to work,” he said.

It’s a feeling he said he never had at any previous job, and one that makes him want to dedicate all of his time to the school.

MacMahon serves in the state Legislature as a representative for Rockingham County District 10, but has decided not to run for re-election.

MacMahon shared his story with fellow representatives Friday morning at a legislative open house at the school.

The school opened its doors in Nashua in the fall after being located in Merrimack since 2007.

The school has had funding issues, like many other Granite State charter schools, since its opening, and school leaders were eager to hear from
legislators about what could be done to help ease these funding concerns, particularly in light of the recent moratorium on new charter schools in the state.

And while this was a topic of conversation, the day focused primarily on the students, or what Director Jennifer Cava called “the greatest thing the school produces.”

Students met the three legislators who attended the event –
House Education Committee Chairman Rep. Michael Balboni, R-Nashua; Rep. Don McClarren, R-Nashua; and Rep. Carl Seidel, R-Nashua, before the visitors took a tour of the school.

The students, all members of the Student Council, shared their personal experiences with legislators and told them all about what makes the school different from a traditional school.

For Neel Dhanaraj, a ninth-grader who has attended since seventh grade, ASD offers a challenging curriculum he didn’t find in his public schools in Merrimack.

“I’d finish homework before I’d even get home,” he said. “But after I went to ASD, I had so much more to do. Some things I would have been learning in high school I was learning in seventh grade.”

Dhanaraj’s father is a physicist, and he said his classes at ASD have made him want to follow in his father’s footsteps.

Dhanaraj told legislators about the charter school’s enrichment classes, which are optional periods at the end of the day when students can take elective courses, or even leave school to play sports in local school districts.

For Dhanaraj, enrichment periods are often spent learning about aeronautics or robotics.

Other students shared stories about the charter school’s culture, saying that, for many students, ASD provides a family feeling they didn’t have before.

Most students share the same interests and are proud to be “different,” the students said.

And as the legislators walked through the school – many for the first time – they got a firsthand look at what makes the school different.

In a study area for upperclassmen, students played chess, worked on designing 3D models on their laptops and collaborated on projects.

In MacMahon’s engineering class, students were learning about steel beams and how they react under different circumstances.

In a sixth-grade humanities class, students wrote their thoughts on the recent presidential debate, and then promptly crumpled up their papers and threw them at their eager teacher.

“There’s a really strong need for ASD to be in New Hampshire,” Cava said. “There’s a growing need to have leaders in technology … and this school is part of that pipeline to a skilled workforce.”

The legislators agreed.

McClarren said it was his first visit to ASD, and that he was impressed by what he was seeing.

“You’ve got a wonderful school here,” he told students. “And you’re going to keep on growing.”

McClarren and Seidel said that growth, however, and the growth of the charter school movement in the state have been jeopardized recently after the state Board of Education voted to enact a moratorium on new charter schools.

The board cited funding concerns in their decision to enact the moratorium, board Chairman Tom Raffio said.

There are about 15 charter schools in some stage of development in the Granite State, he said, adding to the nearly 20 already approved.

Over the last two years, the board authorized eight new charter schools, contributing to an anticipated $4.4 million budget shortfall this year.

Legislators said they wished more of the state’s leaders would visit the schools, saying the visit to ASD helped demonstrate why charter schools can be important for students.

ASD will hold another open house from 4-6 p.m. Nov. 8 to allow the general public to learn more about the school and view the new facilities.

Danielle Curtis can be reached at 594-6557 or dcurtis@nashuatelegraph.com. Also, follow Curtis on Twitter (Telegraph_DC).