Editorial: Spin won't solve Timberlane board's communications problem

The Eagle Tribune

The Timberlane Regional School Board has correctly assessed that it has a problem with communication. But that problem won't be solved by hiring a public relations consultant.
The board would be better served by simply being open and honest with parents in the school district and with the voters who elected them to office.
The board last week agreed to begin the process of hiring a public relations consultant by approving a request for proposals. The board has yet to work out the details of the request or discuss how much it would be willing to spend on the part-time position.
School Board Chairman Nancy Steenson said the consultant would provide an honest and positive voice for the district, which serves students from Atkinson, Danville, Plaistow and Sandown.
"If we have an opportunity through someone who does this well, then we can present our story correctly," she said, as reported by James Niedzinski. "We don't have the control to make sure everything is accurate all the time."
The two key words in Steenson's statement are "control" and "accurate." They are the obsession of Steenson, the like-minded members of the board, and Timberlane Superintendent Earl Metzler.
The board's primary concern is its inability to control dissident member Donna Green, who represents Sandown, and whether every statement she makes at meetings or on her private blog timberlaneandsandown.wordpress.com is "accurate."
Reduced to its core principle, Green's complaint is that the pressure for increasing spending in the district is relentless, even as enrollment declines. The district's spending places a heavy tax burden on member communities, Green argues.
Green, whose campaign for fiscal responsibility won her election by Sandown voters, can be determined and demanding in her pursuit of district financial information. This is generally considered a positive quality in an elected representative. But to Steenson and Metzler, it is a source of irritation.
Green, like many others who question school spending, frequently faces the accusation that she is anti-education. Her quest for information often takes the form of demands under the state's Right-To-Know Law. She writes emails to the board requesting financial documents or that items of concern to her be placed on meeting agendas. She is unafraid to express her opinions on the board's actions during meetings or on her blog.
In response, the board on Aug. 28 issued a formal letter of censure to Green. The letter said Green's actions had "undermined the integrity and credibility of the Timberlane Regional School District and eroded the trust between TRSD and the community."
The letter further cited Green for the "inaccurate, disrespectful and/or inappropriate" comments made on her blog. The letter states that Green disseminated this false and inaccurate information "without contrition" and that she has "never shown any remorse for her actions."
Green has been banned from visiting administrative offices without an appointment while police conduct an investigation into whether she harassed a district employee.
"It's disturbing, the truth is the truth, there is no need to make things up," Metzler told Niedzinski. "We're trying to do the best for our kids here."
All this conflict generates a lot of news coverage. The board wants to be sure that the good news coming out of Timberlane isn't lost in the shuffle. A public relations consultant who knows members of the media could "grease the skids," board member Rob Collins said last week.
Our skids don't need greasing. We have and will continue to report all the good things that the Timberlane district's students are doing.
But we'll also continue to report on the doings of the Timberlane board, asking questions about things like how it came to pass that the consultant hired for $50,000 to implement a Spanish language program for kindergartners was Elizabeth Metzler -- Dr. Metzler's wife. It was a deal that Green's lawyer Richard Lehmann said "was done under the cover of darkness and hidden from public view."
These are also the kind of questions Donna Green finds so interesting.
Rather than attempting to control public perceptions of its actions by greasing the skids with a hired flack, the Timberlane board might try just answering some questions openly and honestly.