In the school board race to represent Concord’s West and South Ends, a challenger’s bid is catalyzed by the dispute over new bus routes for the middle school. The incumbent points to her long track record of involvement as a core tenant of her campaign.
Liz Boucher is a dietitian at the New Hampshire State Hospital with two children currently in the Concord schools. She has served one term on the Concord Board of Education, but before that, she was the president of the parent-teacher organization at Christa McAuliffe Elementary.
Don Brueggemann is a former state representative and district parent well known as the longtime manager of the Works Café downtown and a co-founder of the Concord Food Co-op. He is a leading voice among a group of South End residents who have been pushing the school board to change its planned bus lane at the new middle school.
Both are well-known figures across Concord, and the race is likely to be competitive. A race with a similar dynamic played out in Zone B last year, where Cara Meeker fended off a challenger amid contentiousness over the middle school project.
Zone B encompasses city wards 5,6 and 7, or the south end and much of western Concord.
Boucher frames herself as someone in-the-know about how board decisions will affect students, parents and teachers because she has current, first-hand experience of realities on the ground.
“I am a parent first and foremost,” Boucher said. “I am relevant to the material that many parents in Concord are living on the day-to-day, as well as educational topics that pertain to my kids and all kids.”
On the board, she has carried her professional experience into a passion for addressing student food insecurity. She also oversees an in-district food pantry at Christa McAuliffe and is involved with the CMS Cares program – a PTO-operated group she helped launch that supports families in need as they access essentials like food, clothing and transportation. She also serves as the board secretary.
Boucher said her tenure of working with the district, both before and after joining the board, sets her apart from Brueggemann.
“He feels like a single-issue candidate when he’s not been present before,” she said. “I’ve been doing this collaborative work with the district for the past six years.”
While the bus route issue was what engaged Brueggemann, he said he has been tuned into the school board’s business for a few years since he retired. He thinks the group needs to do more to represent the city as a whole. As examples, he pointed not only to the issue around the bus routes but also the initial decision to put the middle school at Broken Ground, later reversed by the board.
“Over the last few years the school board, in particular, feels like they’ve kind of lost touch with the community,” Brueggemann said. “Balancing the needs of the various stakeholders: students, parents, teachers, and taxpayers requires good listening and some give and take.”
Specifically, Brueggemann said he’s an open-minded person with a mediator’s personality who will bring a fresh take to the table that Boucher hasn’t.
“None of these people are bad people, and I don’t think any of them are operating out of ill will,” he said, “but I think that they’ve fallen into kind of an insular culture that doesn’t allow for other input.”
When it comes to the bus route concern, Brueggemann and his neighbors feel that routing the new middle school’s buses through their low-key streets will not only disturb the area but pose risks to the safety of people walking there, including students. They don’t feel the board has fully listened and have asked the city council to step in with a ban.
School board members, including Boucher, have defended the current plan, saying that they have reviewed other options and that each brings its own risks and drawbacks. The proposed arrangement, they affirm, is the best and the safest. To ensure safe pedestrian paths, they’ve proposed that sidewalks could be added along affected streets.
Boucher said a top concern going forward is leading the district through a funding landscape where non-tax dollars aren’t keeping pace with the continually spiking cost of things outside the board’s control, like special education services and insurance. It’s a dynamic that pinched the board’s budget this year, leading to dozens of layoffs, and is likely to persist.
She fears what progressive cutbacks, let alone a tax cap, would mean for students. Experience on the board, she said, makes it easier for the group to face that challenge adeptly.
“We need new perspectives, but every time we have to think critically: do we want to elect someone new if the person doing the job is doing a great job?” she said. “Because it stalls the board even more.”
Broadly, Brueggemann believes one way to build bridges would be for the board to change the tenor of its public comment sessions.
While the school board holds a period for general public comment at every meeting (the Concord City Council does not), a strict policy is enforced of no Q&A. People speaking can pose questions in their commentary, but board members are not permitted to respond. Board members can not query the person speaking about their perspective or background. This has been an ire of many who come before the board with complaints.
Brueggemann would propose that this practice be softened, he said.
“It would allow more board members to offer friendly questions, informative questions of people that are testifying, so that the board can more fully understand an issue,” he said.
The candidates will be asked about these topics and more at a Monitor candidate forum on October 20.
