The following was provided to the Goffstown Residents Association by school board chairman Keith Allard on January 20, 2009, 4:52 PM EST

"Keith Allard’s Comments from meeting of 1/19/09

I would like to take a moment to address an issue. On 1/9/09, Superintendent Buckley sent out an email encouraging all Goffstown residents to attend the Budget hearing on the 13th. In the email Superintendent Buckley did encourage residents to support the proposed school budget. I would like to extend an apology on behalf of the school district to anyone this may offended. It has been past common practice only to encourage residents to be a part of the process. In order to prevent any future misunderstandings or concerns among the residents of Goffstown, I will request that the HR Committee of the Goffstown School Board investigate either the formation of a new policy or a modification of an existing policy and provide a recommendation back to the board that will establish parameters for future communications.

I would also like to share that on January 9th, the day the email was sent, two phone calls of concern were received from members of the community. Both of these phone messages were returned by either Superintendent Buckley or myself that same afternoon. In addition, that same evening I sent an email to Dan Cloutier, Chair of the Budget Committee, for distribution to the entire budget committee. In the email I apologized and ensured the budget committee that the Goffstown School Board was going to seriously consider adopting the recommended budget voted upon by the budget committee.

The email in question was written and sent by Superintendent Buckley after a meeting in which it was agreed upon by myself and her that we needed to inform the public of the budget numbers and the dates of the budget hearing and deliberative session. There was no specific discussion of how the email was to be sent out or the exact wording of the email. Under our policies and current practices the Chair of the Board and the Superintendent have the authority to speak directly with the public and press on such matters. Under current policies, no one was required to proof or approve this email before being sent.

To the best of my knowledge no law or policies were broken by the email in question. I do however understand and appreciate the concerns that a couple of residents personally raised with either myself or Superintendent Buckley and feel that some of the wording in the email was not within our past practices and, as I previously mentioned, I will ask the school board to consider establishing a policy on this type of communications.

Once again, Please accept my apology on behalf of the Goffstown School District.

Thank you.

Keith Allard, Chairman
Goffstown School Board"