Ralph Jimenez served on the Monitor’s editorial board and lives in Concord.

On Sept. 29, 1961, by a vote of 1,101 to 61, Concord residents became the first school district in the state to have a charter of its own and fiscal autonomy. Earlier that year the Legislature agreed to relinquish state control over the district’s charter if local voters agreed to accept the responsibility.

“This new form of government for the school system sets up the Board of Education as equally as responsible as the Board of Aldermen for what happens to your tax money,” Concord Monitor columnist Enoch Shenton wrote at the time.

The change was prompted by poor turnout at the district’s annual school meeting, then held in the city auditorium. Three people appear to have been primarily responsible for the educational declaration of independence; Concord state representatives Alice Davis and Elwood Peaslee and Concord attorney Franklin Hollis, then chairman of the State Board of Education. That independence is now in jeopardy.

Two proposed amendments on the city’s Nov. 5 ballot would significantly limit the school board’s long-held autonomy. The amendments were drafted in response to the board’s decision to locate the proposed new middle school in East Concord rather than at Rundlett’s current South End site. The restrictions, which will appear as questions 1 and 2 on the ballot, are driven by a single issue and as such, do not belong in a governing charter, which is a foundational document. I urge Concord residents to vote “No” on both.

For the record, I’m not a fan of either proposed middle school site. The current Rundlett site is too small to serve as the sole middle school of a city whose population is destined to grow. The school district, according to tax maps, owns 216 contiguous acres on the Broken Ground School site, but traffic congestion and other infrastructure issues are a big concern.

What I am strongly in favor of is the continued autonomy, fiscal and otherwise, of Concord’s nine-member elected school board. That autonomy, I believe, is why Concord’s schools are far better than they otherwise would be given the city’s modest household income and education level.

The average 2022 household income in Hanover, whose schools are often held up as an exemplar, was $154,023, according to Wikipedia. In Concord it was $77,874. More than one-third of the capital city’s students qualify for a free and reduced lunch; less than 5 percent of Hanover’s students do so. Most of Hanover’s adults, 83 percent, have a college degree. In Concord it’s 37 percent. Similar statistical differences occur when Concord’s school district is compared to those like Oyster River or Bow.

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All too often, when school budgets must compete head-to-head with the many demands on a municipal budget it’s the schools and the schoolchildren who lose. This year, fearing coming tax increases, voters at Pembroke’s school district meeting chopped $3 million from that district’s $33.8 million budget. As a result, 27 school district positions were eliminated and a handful of employees left to pursue more secure jobs.

Concord School District’s budget is the product of hundreds of hours of research and deliberation. The same is true of its decisions on whether, and where, to build schools and when to sell those it no longer needs and return the property to the tax rolls.

The board’s decisions should be questioned by voters and the city’s 15 councilors, but not constrained or countermanded by them. That’s what the ballot box is for. The school board’s independence has served the city and its children well for decades. At the polls, voters should elect school board candidates who pledge to preserve that independence.