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Hohensee defiant after officials vote to censure

By Grace Pecci - Staff Writer | May 31, 2019

NASHUA – “This is a political vendetta. My opposition wants me off this board because I cause them trouble by pointing out their misdeeds.”

Embattled Nashua Board of Education member Doris Hohensee delivered these remarks in response to six of her fellow board members voting to censure her at the end of the four-hour meeting earlier this week.

“Silencing me is their goal and they will use any means to do so,” Hohensee added.

Merriam-Webster defines the term censure as “1) a judgment involving condemnation; 2) the act of blaming or condemning sternly; 3) an official reprimand.”

Late Tuesday, board President Heather Raymond, along with members William Mosher, Dotty Oden, Gloria Timmons, Raymond Guarino and Susan Porter voted to censure Hohensee for her social media activity this month.

“The bottom line here is that while board members do have First Amendment rights, we each have what should be an intrinsic moral and ethical responsibility to protect Nashua School District’s students,” Porter said after making the motion to censure.

“If you call people to a student’s Facebook page where they have pictures of themselves, picture of themselves in school clothing, references to what school they go to, references to what sports and activities they participate in. and you tell people that its ok and that further they ought to receive heavy backlash, that’s like saying to people, ‘Here she is – come hang outside of her school,'” Raymond added regarding Hohensee’s activities.

Board members Elizabeth Van Twuyver and Howard Coffman joined Hohensee in opposing the censure measure.

“The witch hunt against Ms. Hohensee is designed in my opinion to deflect discussion of the (Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps) marksmanship program, social emotional learning, cursive, student behavior and failing test scores,” Coffman said. “Ms. Hohensee is a terrific asset to the Nashua Board of Education and to the Nashua School District.”

Before The Censure Vote

Earlier this month, Hohensee came under fire include for two Facebook incidents:

• Posting a quote from the work of a known white supremacist, Lothrop Stoddard, on the New Hampshire Families for Education page; and

• Sharing a post from a Nashua student, who had expressed concern about the JROTC air rifle Marksmanship Program being on school property, and directing people to the student’s Facebook page.

In the same string of comments where the student was identified, one user wrote, “Thank you, the student SHOULD receive heavy backlash from this.”

Hohensee’s response to this user comment was, “Sadly, that is not likely to happen. Under Social Emotional Learning programs now being used in our schools, EMOTIONS are elevated over logic and reason. Their fears will be acknowledged and they will be thanked for their political activism, as Common Core trains students to be. There needs to be a backlash from rational parents and students, if they want reason to prevail on this issue.”

The student’s post, which was shared over 100 times, was taken down after community members began writing vicious statements to the student regarding her concern about the air rifle course being on school property.

After these incidents, Raymond issued a news release calling for Hohensee to resign. Hohensee and Coffman later accused Raymond of conducting an illegal meeting to discuss the matter without Coffman and Hohensee present.

Raymond Responds

Raymond was accused by Coffman and Hohensee for conducting an illegal meeting after issuing a news release on behalf of the board calling for Hohensee’s resignation.

“We discussed it with the attorney, the attorney has advised us that we did nothing wrong,” Raymond said of this during the Tuesday meeting. “If I acted inappropriately by issuing the press release, then so be it. I talked to our attorney and he says I didn’t. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“It was my intention to act on what I thought was an egregious overstep of a board member calling on people to harass a student when we are charged with protecting our students. We might as well have taken out a billboard with her face on it and where she goes to school,” Raymond said of Hohensee’s postings.

Board member Ray Guarino added Tuesday regarding Hohensee, “What you did was you expressed regret that there was no backlash against a student – that’s not protecting our students.”

Hohensee Remains Steadfast

“Reason and logic don’t matter to these people. Neither does the truth,” Hohensee said. “I insist they uphold the law and board policies. I have taken an oath to do so, but they want me silenced.”

In regards to Stoddard, Hohensee said, “Unlike the author I quoted, I’m not a racist. My opponent is trying to deceive you. My concern is that the district is using a curriculum that will cripple the minds of students, elevating emotion over reason.”

She later added, “There was no denigration of any racial group in the quote I posted. My opposition attacks my character and motivations rather than my actual position or argument. That is an ad hominem attack.”

In reference to the Nashua student’s post she shared, Hohensee said, “An 18-year-old student made a public post on Facebook in an ultimately successful effort to reverse the board’s recent vote in support of the JROTC marksmanship program on campus. According to the police investigation which (Superintendent Jahmal Mosley) initiated, the student’s post was shared at least 126 times. Each of those shared posts was then re-shared many, many times.”

Hohensee said she reached out to the investigating officer after reading the report, which she said contained errors and omissions of fact. She said the report in the packet is not the final one.

“In particular, the original version contained a truncated quote of mine designed to make it look like I advocated a ‘backlash’ against the student, when in fact the full quote says that there ought to be a backlash by parents against the Social Emotional Learning curriculum being implemented by the administration without a board vote.”

The next Nashua BOE meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Nashua High School North, 8 Titan Way.

Grace Pecci may be reached at 594-1234, or at gpecci@nashuatelegraph.com.

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