This site has been developed to present information about the proposed elementary school for Litchfield, NH. The site is maintained and paid for by private citizens who reside in the town of Litchfield, NH. The site has no financial ties with the town, the school administration, or school board. It is entirely funded, maintained, designed and developed by private funds, resources and time.

If you notice any inaccuracies, typographical errors, broken links, etc., or have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to forward them on to the webmaster at administrator(at)litchfieldnhboards.com. Please pass on word of this website to other residents! Thank you.

As of 2/20/2008, the site design is complete! However, the site will continue to change and grow. Updates will occur from time to time, so come back and visit often!

Hits on the site are continuing to show up every day, even after the election. We're interested in hearing your opinions, so please come over the the message boards to chime in. Litchfield will need to address GMS one way or another. We need community input to figure out a solution or to address any concerns or misconceptions. There are several polls and topics of conversation toward this end. So, if you're interested in Litchfield's infrastructure, click your way over to the Litchfield NH Community Message Board. School specific items are being discussed in the Local - Schools forum. If you have not visited the boards before, you will have to register to reply. Just click the Register link that will appear at the top of the page.

Yea 1139
Nay 1145

Well, the warrant article failed. We got just under 50% of the vote; if only we had been able to change the minds of 232 voters! There are still people out there we have not reached. The hits on this site actually went up the day after the election. There are folks who did not receive any message about the arguments supporting a new school. I've heard several stories of people who voted no that yesterday changed their minds based on information they discovered after the election. Well, we just need to do a better job bridging the gap and getting the information out there.

This problem (GMS) is not going to disappear. And neither are supporters of a new school, or this website. We are in need of people willing to become activists. "Activist, you say??? I can't do that!" Well, I thought the same back in February when I got involved with this by virtue of the fact that my wife, Beckie, jumped on board. There are different levels of volunteering. There is already a core group of people who have the experience and information. The foundation is there.

I think that what we really need are three types of people; those that are willing to:

be neighborhood ambassadors

go door to door in those neighborhoods where we don't have volunteers

be presenters of information

We need to reach out to every neighborhood so that we can state the case for the school. We need people who can host these gatherings (the ambassadors), people who can find more ambassadors (the door to door folks), and people to give the presentations (the presenters). These are jobs that ten or twelve people cannot do alone. We need more help, or they will burn out. School board members have been willing to present this information, but they will not be able to be at every single hosting, so we need to train others.

If these things are outside of your comfort zone, I urge you to take a second to reconsider. Each of these types of volunteer has a different level of comfort. At the very least, consider being a host. What we need is to get a foot in the door so we can present the reality of GMS. Think about what it is we're trying to accomplish here. Our children are unable to vote and unable to do these things, so it falls to us. I have found that it is quite a rewarding experience. I have met many great people that I would not have otherwise. If you are interested in being a part of this, please contact us at thebuildteam(at)comcast.net or administrator(at)litchfieldnhboards.com.

Thanks,
Peter Moore

Published on March 7, an editorial in the Nashua Telegraph urges Litchfield voters to support the new school. The article details some information that is found on this site, but also points out how close prior project votes were, and how much the costs for each has risen (see the following table). Click here (or anyone of the other links in this paragraph!) to read the article.

From the article, we can see the rising construction costs that take place each year in the following table. This point hasn't explicitly been detailed on the site, but the increases are startling enough to highlight. Please note that to keep the construction costs of the 2008 proposal close to the 2006 proposal, the building committee worked with the architect in cutting back many things and by using space in creative manners. Note that the chart does not include any financial grant money, and that the cost to the taxpayer for this year's project is $14.5 million after state assistance. Please refer to the Quick Take page for more details.

Year:	Total Construction Cost:
2004	$14.2 Million
2005	$19.8 Million
2006	$22.1 Million
2008	$22.2 Million
Future?	It's not going to go down! If you are worried about increased taxes, let's get it done NOW.

Letter from Doug Orlando

Letter from Stephen & Dot Beauregard

Letter from Cindy Couture

Letter from Bill Spencer

Letter from Dennis Miller

Letter from John Harte

Upcoming events:

Date:	Time:	Where:	What:
Thu 3/6	5-8pm	GMS	GMS Tours with Principal Schlichter
Fri 3/7	6:15pm	GMS	Movie Night and Tours with Principal Schlichter
Fri 3/7	7pm	Town Hall	Meet the Candidate Night (sponsored by the Women's Club)
Mon 3/10	4-8pm	GMS	Beyond the Classroom Tours with Principal Schlichter
Tue 3/11	7am-7pm	CHS Gym	VOTE! Every vote is important. Please make the time to register and to get to the polls.

You can start by browsing the various links on the navigation bar to the left. One of the more interesting pages is the Quick Take page. This page describes the various options examined by the building committee. It shows summaries of each option, including the costs and issues involved for each. Another interesting page is the GMS Pictures slideshow. Most everyone has heard about the tours of GMS that are offered. These pictures reveal a lot about the issues and problems with GMS. If you've never taken the tour or have assumed that GMS just isn't "that bad", the images will be startling. While GMS looks fine from route 3A, an inside out look will make you think twice about that.

Increased Community Space: The areas in our schools are used by many community organizations: scouting, business groups, sporting leagues, and more. Usage of our available space is high at both GMS and LMS. GMS itself has small core areas, and are cramped for these community events. The larger core areas at the proposed school would give much needed relief for these needs.

Increased Resale Value: Schools are the first thing home buyers with children look into when considering a community to purchase a home in. If there is a problem with a school system, it's going to lower the resale value of your home. Homeowners, perhaps with older students soon to leave the nest, that are thinking of "downsizing" into a smaller home should consider the short term tax impact versus the resale value of the home.

GMS Property Options: With a new school, GMS would be available for other uses. This property could be re-used for other purposes. In the past, there was a ready buyer for the property. The town could recoup money by selling or subdividing it, or save money in the future for some other need because the town already owns the building and land.

Proactive vs. Reactive Approach: What if something major happens (again), system-wise, at GMS, or if a government oversight agency comes in and forces the town to "fix" the building. Chances are high that whatever "it" is, it will be expensive to repair. If a problem occurs during the school year, there are not many options on what we can do to school our children. We would be looking at double sessions for ALL our students at LMS and CHS. Costs for transportation would be increased for this, as would building operation costs. Not to mention the uproar double sessions would cause in the lives of the students and their parents, especially working parents in regards to daycare or part-time work schedules.

Sound Financial Sense: Would you rather pay $10M to "revitalize" GMS (and still have the risk of having a major systems failure) or $14M for a brand, new building that is built on land that does not have a water problem? Would you purchase for yourself a seventy-five year old home that has a water problem, and sink good money into questionable repairs or would you look for a newer home that costs a bit more? Every year that passes will result in a more expensive build, and more money being spent in yearly repairs at GMS. The time for this building is now.

Civic Responsibility: We have a responsibility to provide a safe and healthy environment for educating our children. Do you really want our children in a building that has mold and mildew problems? What about those children (and staff) who have asthma? Do you really want our children in a building that has no sprinkler fire protection system? The building is not compliant with educational standards nor with the Americans with Disabilities Act. We have disabled students in this town who are confronted today with these hurdles. Don't they have hardships enough? We must fulfill our responsibilities to all of our children.

Did you know that there is a dedicated online message board available for residents of the town of Litchfield, and those interested in its happenings? It can be used for disseminating information, posting events, learning about the town, discussing worldwide, national and local politcs, or discussing any subject for that matter. The boards have no advertising, and are free to use. Yes, free. The boards are paid for, managed and maintained by private citizens who are residents of Litchfield. I.e. the boards are not run by the town. Check it out at www.litchfieldnhboards.com. And yes, it does so happen that this Build-A-School website is hosted on that server. We invite you to join this online community, and hope you find it useful and enjoyable.

Date	Description
2008/03/13	Posted election results
2008/03/07	Added section referencing the 3/7 Telegraph editorial Added rising construction cost chart
2008/03/06	Posted a letter from Doug Orlando
2008/03/05	Posted a letter from Stephen & Dot Beauregard Posted a letter from Cindy Couture Added a what's new section Updated the calendar of events
2008/03/04	Posted a letter from Bill Spencer Posted a letter from Dennis Miller Posted a letter from John Harte
2008/02/19	Posted building plans page Added "What's in it for me?" Posted a flyer download Posted a letter from Tracy Caprioglio Site design is complete! From here on out, it's all minor additions and updates.
2008/02/18	Added "where to start" suggestions Moved deliberative session summary to the deliberative session article page Tidied up the welcome page
2008/02/15	Posted the GMS history page Clean up here and there
2008/02/12	Posted a letter from Beckie Moore Created a downloads area in the navigation frame Touched up the build options page analysis Moved GMS/LMS maintenance costs table to GMS issues page Posted a brochure download
2008/02/11	Posted the GMS issues page
2008/02/10	Completed the other options page
2008/02/09	Added some last minute pictures to the GMS slideshow Polished up the other options page Improved the presentation of the website somewhat with some background imaging
2008/02/08	GMS slideshow Warrant article wording added to deliberative session page Information on other proposals Last site update date & time
2008/02/07	Deliberative session information
2008/02/06	Principal Schlichter's Letter to the Editor Cost Comparison of Maintenance at GMS & LMS Updated webmaster contact information Improvements to site presentation Site update history
2008/02/05	Page hit counter
2008/02/03	"Shorter" building proposal presentation "Detailed" building proposal presentation
2008/02/02	Initial web site designed and published